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Barracuda Email Protection vs Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Offi...
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Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (9th)
Barracuda Email Protection
Ranking in Email Security
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (3rd), Office 365 Protection (4th)
Fortra's Clearswift Secure ...
Ranking in Email Security
40th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
0
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2024, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 16.7%, down from 20.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Barracuda Email Protection is 2.4%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway is 0.6%, down from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

Luis-Brown - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 8, 2023
Allows for easy reporting of problems, valuable anti-phishing, and anti-malware support
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 lacks proactivity in assisting us with preparing for potential threats before they occur. While they employ a substantial amount of threat intelligence to preemptively prevent incidents, their effectiveness diminishes when it comes to delivering proactive threat intelligence alerts from Microsoft. Their focus primarily revolves around managing the internal environment. On the other hand, my other vendor, Check Point, along with my membership in MS-ISAC, supplements me with this type of information. The phishing and spam filters could use some improvement. It is adequate, but it doesn't match the quality of Proofpoint or Mimecast. However, it comes close in effectiveness. Plus, if we're obtaining it for free, investing in the other products seems impractical.
AshishSingh15 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 30, 2023
Robust security features, scalability, and seamless deployment that ensure safeguarding against diverse email threats
As a system integrator, our focus lies in delivering system integration as a service. Our approach is customer-centric, tailoring solutions based on individual client relationships. Suppose a scenario where a customer was using Office 365 and noticed a lack of attachment security in their inboxes…
it_user746937 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 2, 2017
Facilitates creation of your own content-filtering policies with relative ease
Ability to create message bypasses for groups and/or individuals. Meaning, you do not have to "whitelist" email domains or addresses when a specific bypass will do. Personal Message Manager (PMM): It allows users to release or delete quarantined messages. Also, allows users to add people to a…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Some of the valuable features on the email side are anti-phishing, anti-malware, and Safe Links."
"It also gives me good visibility because, with Defender, I'm using a Microsoft product to defend Microsoft products. The integration was really seamless and I have wide visibility because it picks up almost everything. Literally, I can see almost every activity that happens, from the e-mail to the workstation itself."
"It gives us visibility into threats and, for endpoints, it helps us to prioritize threats. We used to have a lack of visibility, but now our time to detect and respond has decreased."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is the ease of use."
"Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of various email campaigns, pinpointing where they emanate from, and identifying the individuals within our organization who are affected."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's most valuable feature is its performance."
"Safe attachments, safe links, policies, and the ability to protect from zero-day threats are the most valuable features."
"The basic features are okay and I'm satisfied with the Defender."
"We now have a secondary backup of Office 365 that's much easier to retrieve compared to Microsoft. If someone deletes something in Office 365, we can get it back within Office 365, but it's difficult. Barracuda is much easier. There is a lot less management needed using Barracuda. The management becomes much easier for Office 365 and it's no longer on-prem, so there are fewer hours managing on-prem devices, servers, and things of that nature. We don't have network appliances anymore for the backup of our information."
"The archiving and search features are very good."
"The most valuable features of Barracuda Email Protection are flexibility and customization."
"The most valuable aspect includes attempts to spoof or compromise domains from external sources."
"The best feature of Barracuda Email Protection is that it provides protection for Microsoft 365."
"We check the reports sometimes to see that frequent attacks and malicious emails are being blocked by the solution."
"The solution's most valuable feature is impersonation detection."
"The solution is straightforward to set up."
"A stable solution."
"Ability to create your own content-filtering policies with relative ease."
 

Cons

"The product must provide better malware detection."
"They have moved features from one console to another. Things have been moved around in the interface and it takes me time to find where certain features are."
"The certification training for Defender for 365 needs to be deeper and incorporate Sentinel. I took all the security courses except one, and Sentinel isn't included."
"Microsoft wants its well-paying customers to finish testing some of its half-baked products, find bugs, and report bugs back to Microsoft's team, which is a little frustrating for those who have to manage it and roll it up to thousands of people across the organization."
"About eight months ago, we started to measure the quantity of phishing and spam that we have been receiving, and it has been increasing a lot. That means that protection for our email is not as good as we were expecting."
"This product's effectiveness could be improved, in terms of detecting unwanted spam or even malware between the emails, compared to other products."
"Microsoft should provide more documentation for users so they can self-educate. I would like to see more documentation for advanced security features."
"The company should focus on adding threats that the solution is currently unable to detect."
"There is room for improvement, particularly in reaching out to technical support during deployment."
"I would like to see better integration with other products."
"They could simplify the licensing and the pricing."
"The solution's reporting mechanism is a little poor and could be improved."
"Barracuda Essentials can improve by continually adding more features."
"The solution's graphical user interface (GUI) could be improved visually."
"The policies are set up in Barracuda by default; we don't have any control over them."
"The customer service and support could be improved if the support were available directly in Europe. Currently, the support is often managed from India, so we sometimes need to wait due to the time zone difference. It would be quicker and better if the support were provided by European staff."
"FTP server and TRUST Manager functionality."
"Malware needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Defender for 365 comes in various plans and licenses, along with other Microsoft security solutions. Purchasing this kind of package or security bundle gives good value for money, and that's what I recommend."
"For licensing, it's usually a yearly package for customers who are subscribed to Office 365, but they can also pay on a monthly basis."
"The product is very expensive."
"Compared to other brands, Microsoft Defender for Office 365's pricing is competitive."
"For large enterprise organizations, they can definitely afford it, but for small and medium organizations, they might struggle to cover the expenses."
"It is much more expensive than using another solution because we have had to include some options and upgrade our license."
"Defender is a little bit more expensive as compared to others. We are in the manufacturing environment. So, we don't have a high budget for all of our endpoint devices. Its cost is a major concern for us."
"The solution saves money so we have seen a return on investment."
"The product is expensive."
"Price-wise, this product is middle-of-the-road."
"We pay annually. They never charged us for anything else. And they were quite a bit under that $20,000 mark. It was $19,074. And they've been pretty good about not skyrocketing the price or anything like that. It has gone up. It's gone up to $24,000 in 2020."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"We didn't have to pay a lot for the solution because we got it from a good vendor with a good user volume."
"Barracuda licensing model is good."
"The solution's pricing is moderate, where it is neither cheap nor expensive."
"The price of Barracuda Essentials is better than some of the competing products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Construction Company
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
13%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of variou...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 necessitates pricier E3 or E5 subscriptions, the extensive functionality offe...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is a very good solution that allows you to use a single port or tool to control eve...
What do you like most about Barracuda Email Protection?
I'm quite satisfied with the graphical user interface for Barracuda products.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda Email Protection?
We didn't have to pay a lot for the solution because we got it from a good vendor with a good user volume. We would h...
What needs improvement with Barracuda Email Protection?
Two to three months back, we got fraudulent emails in which someone in the organization was being blamed.
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Also Known As

MS Defender for Office 365
Barracuda Essentials
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Learn More

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
ACT Government, Acumen Group, AGIP, Delta Dental Plans Association, Desai/Nasr Consulting Engineers, Inc., Equinox Information Systems
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Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Protection vs. Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway and other solutions. Updated: August 2024.
800,688 professionals have used our research since 2012.