Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Barracuda Email Protection vs Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

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)
Microsoft Defender for Offi...
Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Barracuda Email Protection is 2.6%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 15.9%, down from 20.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

Alex Clerici - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient and easier to manage than other products, especially Microsoft products
Regarding Barracuda Email Protection specifically, I'm quite satisfied. I think there's room for improvement in their other products, especially their cloud firewall protection and ZTNA offerings. Moreover, prices could be more granular, especially for the small business area. Typically, in Italy, the majority of our customers are small businesses. It would be better if the prices could be adjusted for small businesses.
Luis-Brown - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"When we got the service, it included the email archiver with unlimited storage."
"The most valuable features of Barracuda Essentials are it's a trusted name and is rated very high on review sites. It blocks high percentages of spam and junk email and it's in the cloud. They have hardware appliances, but this is in the cloud. The solution is very effective at blocking malware and blocking spam and this is what we are looking for. There's not a whole lot of complexity, you want a solution that is very good at blocking out all of the unwanted emails."
"The solution's most valuable feature is impersonation detection."
"The product is easy to deploy and maintain."
"I'm quite satisfied with the graphical user interface for Barracuda products."
"The most valuable aspect includes attempts to spoof or compromise domains from external sources."
"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 most valuable features of Barracuda Email Protection are flexibility and customization."
"The email protection is excellent, especially in terms of anti-phishing policies."
"The most valuable feature is the integration. It's a single console, so we don't have to switch around between multiple products. Another valuable feature is the ease of operations and maintenance."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's most valuable features are safe attachments and safe links."
"Safe attachments, safe links, policies, and the ability to protect from zero-day threats are the most valuable features."
"The technical support is good and quick to resolve issues."
"The initial setup was easy."
"Microsoft Defender has a feature to protect each and every attachment. Even if it's an encrypted attachment, it will check for any potential threats."
"One of the best features of the tool is its capability to aggregate insights from different workloads, basically from the Office 365 and endpoints part."
 

Cons

"Barracuda Essentials can improve by continually adding more features."
"I would like to see better integration with other products."
"The platform's pricing needs improvement."
"The product must enable bulk user management."
"The solution's graphical user interface (GUI) could be improved visually."
"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."
"Sometimes it is somewhat laggy, especially on the Archiver side. It should have improved performance on their Message Archiver."
"They could simplify the licensing and the pricing."
"Configuration at the mid-level could be improved for the support team."
"Sometimes, phishing emails manage to pass through the filter, so the system needs to enhance its phishing email detection capabilities."
"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."
"Configuring the default strategies and policies in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps generates a lot of noise and false positives."
"One area for improvement is integration. For example, when it comes to external SaaS platforms, we were not able to get a lot of information on integrations with such apps for security and authentication."
"We need a separate license and we don't know how to get the license that is required."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 could improve by giving customers information on techniques to prevent threats. For example, information about best practices on how to protect their own devices against hackers and scammers, such as educational information or training. This would help others have a better understanding of cyber security. Additionally, there can be more security features added."
"The pre-sales cost calculations could be more transparent."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The solution's pricing is moderate, where it is neither cheap nor expensive."
"Barracuda licensing model is good."
"The price is similar to that of Microsoft 365."
"The price of Barracuda Essentials is better than some of the competing products."
"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."
"Price-wise, this product is middle-of-the-road."
"It's a user-base subscription."
"The license is expensive because the cost is based on the number of users."
"The product is expensive."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comes with Microsoft Windows. It is free with the operating system."
"Compared to other brands, Microsoft Defender for Office 365's pricing is competitive."
"The pricing has become expensive."
"Microsoft Defender is expensive. I typically recommend it only if clients have the budget. Otherwise, I would suggest an alternative."
"The solution saves money so we have seen a return on investment."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Email Security solutions are best for your needs.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Construction Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
Real Estate/Law Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 have got the product at a high price from some other vendor. We also checked with...
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.
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 various email campaigns, pinpointing where they emanate from, and identifying the indi...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
The pricing is reasonable since it comes integrated with our Office 365 license.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Sometimes, phishing emails manage to pass through the filter, so the system needs to enhance its phishing email detection capabilities. We also need alerting features for abnormal actions like unus...
 

Also Known As

Barracuda Essentials
MS Defender for Office 365
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ACT Government, Acumen Group, AGIP, Delta Dental Plans Association, Desai/Nasr Consulting Engineers, Inc., Equinox Information Systems
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Protection vs. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.