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

Barracuda Email Protection vs Proofpoint Email Protection comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 19, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Barracuda Email Protection
Ranking in Email Security
12th
Ranking in Office 365 Protection
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (2nd), Security Incident Response (9th)
Proofpoint Email Protection
Ranking in Email Security
2nd
Ranking in Office 365 Protection
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (4th), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Barracuda Email Protection is 3.7%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 8.1%, down from 8.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection8.1%
Barracuda Email Protection3.7%
Other88.2%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

Sherif Fouad - PeerSpot reviewer
Group ICT Manager at a mining and metals company with 501-1,000 employees
Have raised concerns about scanning engines and automation while continuing to rely on layered protection strategies
Incident response is something that requires more development from Barracuda's side. Regarding room for improvement for Barracuda Forensics and Incident Response, for the product, developing or improving the scanning engine is important, but it's a bit tricky. I know that they are working on it heavily. The difference between Barracuda and Sophos is Sophos focused heavily on cybersecurity while Barracuda tried to increase their product portfolio. Sometimes, in some cases, this might end up with their teams being unfocused or a bit thin and stretched and super busy. However, there is room for improvement. The product is great. The teams that are supporting are great. But there is always room for improvement. Even if you have a product that you would give a rating of 10 out of 10, there is always room for improvement. The day we stop improving is the day we die. Regarding the scanning engine, Barracuda Forensics and Incident Response has a very good feature where you can create automated flows for how to handle specific emails that are detected as incidents. This needs a bit of an improvement. That's the only component of Barracuda Forensics and Incident Response that I believe requires improvement.
Steve Bradbury - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at Exelixis Inc
Email defenses have blocked advanced threats and provide deep visibility into risky users
The areas that have room for improvement in Proofpoint Email Protection include their cost of ownership, which is fairly high. To manage and run all their products, I have to list and manage administrators in seven or eight different places. That is too many places to keep track of since for this tool I have to go to one location, and for another tool I have to go to a different location. They need to simplify the administration management of administrators and consolidate that into one place for all their products. Access to all the different products is very scattered. For some products I go to one URL, and for different products I go to a different URL. They have a threat URL that has most of their products in it, but not all. They need to simplify the interface to show all the products I have access to in one location.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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 are security and ease of use."
"The best feature of Barracuda Email Protection is that it provides protection for Microsoft 365."
"At the moment, I am working with Sophos Cloud, Sophos Intercept X; when they introduced the XDR, we used it, and then when they introduced the Optix, we used it, and then we upgraded our subscription with them to MDR, so we are now utilizing Sophos Cloud Central MDR."
"The solution is straightforward to set up."
"The archiving and search features are very good."
"Barracuda email protection is stable. I would give it a nine because of its strong cybersecurity features."
"The setup was easy."
"It's easy to use, even for those new to IT."
"It was easy to set up."
"The solution has very strong detection for most of the phishing and malicious emails received from the outside."
"The most valuable feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is the dashboards and their visibility, easy configuration, and artificial intelligence. Additionally, the reports are very important and helpful."
"A one-stop shop for email protection"
"Proofpoint is the main tool for blocking spam because it denies the connection altogether."
"The stability is very good."
 

Cons

"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."
"They could simplify the licensing and the pricing."
"Two to three months back, we got fraudulent emails in which someone in the organization was being blamed."
"Barracuda Email Protection needs better reporting and more robust integration with security awareness training platforms and third-party solutions."
"Considering it integrates with Azure, I would like to be able to effectively set up policies where people are by default included in certain settings."
"There is room for improvement, particularly in reaching out to technical support during deployment."
"The policies are set up in Barracuda by default; we don't have any control over them."
"The solution's reporting mechanism is a little poor and could be improved."
"Proofpoint Email Protection could improve on the training. Every organization is different and to fine-tune it to block everything properly there needs to be better training. Sometimes it can block some of the information it shouldn't."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has a new approach to email security with its API feature. Currently, it only works with Office 365. In the future, it would be beneficial if it also works with Gmail, as Check Point is currently the only brand that has API email security for Gmail. It would be beneficial if Proofpoint Email Protection could add this integration, they would be more competitive with other vendors."
"The setup requires expertise. It needs someone with experience on managing it, and I would rate the implementation as needing someone experienced."
"Some use cases haven't been dealt with yet."
"The initial setup is complex."
"The solution could lower its price."
"Integration for reporting needs to be improved, it's too complex."
"We'd like to have the ability to create more customized reports."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Barracuda licensing model is good."
"The solution's pricing is moderate, where it is neither cheap nor expensive."
"Price-wise, this product is middle-of-the-road."
"The price of Barracuda Essentials is better than some of the competing products."
"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."
"Despite a list price possibly around $40 per user, their market price allows customers to easily buy the solution."
"We didn't have to pay a lot for the solution because we got it from a good vendor with a good user volume."
"The product is expensive."
"The solution uses a licensing model that is reasonable compared to other products."
"It is expensive."
"It is on a yearly basis. Their floor for SMB doesn't matter. The user count is 100 users and below at $2,500 a year. Its cost is higher than other solutions. It is probably about 20% to 30% higher than what you would get with Microsoft. There are no additional costs. All costs are factored in. It can be improved pricing-wise so that it is affordable for the SMB market."
"The licensing model for Proofpoint Email Protection is simple. It's based on the number of users. Price-wise, Proofpoint Email Protection is a five out of ten because it's a pretty expensive solution."
"Pricing has recently been increased and the cost is a downside"
"I rate the product price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has comparable pricing."
"The solution charges per user per month to use it. There are not any additional fees in addition to the standard living fees."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Email Security solutions are best for your needs.
881,455 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise19
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Barracuda Email Protection?
Barracuda Email Protection is easy to deploy and maintain. It doesn't require a specialized resource to manage this tool.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda Email Protection?
Their list price is too high, but in India, the selling price is affordable at around $10 per user per year. Despite a list price possibly around $40 per user, their market price allows customers t...
What needs improvement with Barracuda Email Protection?
Considering it integrates with Azure, I would like to be able to effectively set up policies where people are by default included in certain settings. For instance, for email quarantine, I can't se...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Proofpoint Email Protection?
In terms of pricing, it is okay compared to others. I would say it is normal. Additional costs do come in, but it enhances security.
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
I have not seen specific outcomes or metrics since implementing Proofpoint Email Protection, such as a reduction in phishing incidents or improved response time. Proofpoint Email Protection can imp...
 

Also Known As

Barracuda Essentials, Barracuda Forensics and Incident Response
Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Proofpoint Digital Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ACT Government, Acumen Group, AGIP, Delta Dental Plans Association, Desai/Nasr Consulting Engineers, Inc., Equinox Information Systems
Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Protection vs. Proofpoint Email Protection and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,455 professionals have used our research since 2012.