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Barracuda Email Protection vs TitanHQ SpamTitan comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024

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

Microsoft Defender for Offi...
Sponsored
Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (11th)
Barracuda Email Protection
Ranking in Email Security
13th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (3rd), Office 365 Protection (4th)
TitanHQ SpamTitan
Ranking in Email Security
15th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
Anti-Malware Tools (17th), Office 365 Protection (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 13.1%, down from 19.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Barracuda Email Protection is 2.5%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TitanHQ SpamTitan is 1.2%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

Tolu Omolaja - PeerSpot reviewer
Great URL scanning and attachment scanning, but I would like more proactive threat analysis
The two main features that prove most beneficial for us are URL scanning and attachment scanning. URL scanning involves an automatic scan of links and emails. When a user clicks on a link within an email, the system promptly checks the link's safety. If the link is deemed safe, access is granted automatically. However, if it is flagged as unsafe, we receive feedback and notification to caution us about the potentially harmful link. At this point, we are presented with the option to proceed or return. I have personally witnessed the system identify a few unsafe links, making this the primary advantage of using the solution. The second crucial aspect is the scanning of attachments. When an email containing an attachment arrives, we receive a notification of the new email, along with information that the attachment is being scanned for threats. This additional layer of security provides peace of mind for our organization. While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 offers numerous features, these two stand out as particularly impressive and valuable to us.
LeeMiles - PeerSpot reviewer
Very good threat protection, spam filtering, and cloud backups
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 set up a global setting. Users must go through an induction session where I guide them in configuring quarantine alerts rather than having default settings based on group membership. This seems like an oversight since they already use Active Directory details. They should assign policies based on group membership, which configures these settings by default.
George Kajaia - PeerSpot reviewer
Work hours are not lost searching through spam emails to determine which emails are legitimate
In history on the reporting graph, when you are trying to search for sender by address, it won't search by domain. I could send an email from SendGrid with my domain, but with SpamTitan, if you search by that domain then it wouldn't search it. It only searches from the field, not in the envelope field. Unfortunately, mass mailing companies, like SendGrid, send email with the form address and that completely differs from the domain envelope form address. There is no way to search for the envelope form. So, I gave them an idea to improve this filtering. For example, if I have to search an email sent by SendGrid, then I am forced to search by the recipient, then find the emails marked as spam. This is quite a huge hassle. They told me that they are aware of this and will try to add it, but they haven't added it yet. I would like to implement a secondary delivery pool for mass mailings, having an alternate pool for mass mailing lists since there is only a single mail queue with SpamTitan. For example, if 10,000 emails are being sent, then the queue will be large. Unfortunately, without a secondary delivery pool, legitimate emails will wait in the queue to be delivered to my email. Therefore, I would like to have two queues: one for everyday emails and another for mass mailings. Now, I have to decide whether to buy a second SpamTitan license just for this reason because I am very satisfied with the functionality of SpamTitan overall and don't want to use another sender's appliance for this. From 2020 to 2021, there was a huge switch in the types of spam coming in. SpamTitan's anti-spam should be enabled to catch this spam. The spam catching rate went down over the last three to four years. I think this is because spammers are evolving and using different methods to send spam emails. The phishing rate of SpamTitan is not great, even Exchange Online Protection catches phishing better than SpamTitan. The most worrying are the phishing emails. I would like SpamTitan to upgrade and improve the phishing catch rate. The sandbox of the Bitdefender engine is not working correctly. They sent me an email that they pulled it because it was not working as it was intended to work. So, they are working on this as well, and maybe the sandbox will be fixed. The sandbox is for viruses. If something goes through then it is sent to the sandbox for analysis. However, I am not using the sandbox right now. I am just quarantining this type of attachment right away.

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 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."
"The product is not resource-intensive."
"Defender helps us prioritize threats across our organization."
"The product's scalability is good."
"The solution is very easy to use. All you have to do is to assign the license to the end-user and it's done. The customer will only have the feature activated, and the solution will monitor the emails to determine if they are a threat or not."
"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."
"Defender for Office 365 has helped eliminate having to look at multiple dashboards and that is the aspect I like most about it. It is simpler, effective, and convenient. The users like the process efficiency."
"Safe attachments, safe links, policies, and the ability to protect from zero-day threats are the most valuable features."
"The archiving and search features are very good."
"We check the reports sometimes to see that frequent attacks and malicious emails are being blocked by the solution."
"Barracuda email protection is stable. I would give it a nine because of its strong cybersecurity features."
"The solution is straightforward to set up."
"The solution's most valuable feature is impersonation detection."
"The most helpful aspect for me is the out-of-the-box configuration, which is fairly good."
"The most valuable features of Barracuda Email Protection are flexibility and customization."
"I would rate the solution nine out of ten."
"Another feature of SpamTitan that I like is the reporting. We are able to identify the users or accounts that have been attacked most. We can see information that shows us the sites that the user goes to, and that helps in launching an investigation of that user and how they use our resources."
"The new SpamTitan Plus with the Link Lock feature is great. We implemented it and use it as well."
"SpamTitan learned faster than I thought it was going to, based on other products that I've used. There was a lot more feedback. The other products are based on the users, but this one, with its AI, seems to produce tremendous improvements day-to-day. I told the teams it was going to take two to three weeks but, within a week, we had dropped the amount of spam that was getting through."
"SpamTitan is a product that saves us time. The less spam that you have, the more time you have because you're not digging through the mail that hits your inbox."
"It's catching things that might otherwise have gotten through in the past. That was when we were working with a site that didn't put emails through two antiviruses before they got to our system."
"I like the notifications SpamTitan sends. Other products require the user to log into the system to see if something was blocked. SpamTitan sends users an email showing them any potential spam that was blocked and they can click on it to release it. It's much easier for the end-user."
"The overall intuitiveness is really good. We have been able to run reports, set up quarantine emails, and integrate with our Exchange server. That has all been extremely straightforward."
"The solution is not hard to manage."
 

Cons

"I am generally satisfied with how it currently is. If I could improve anything, I would reduce the cost."
"Microsoft should provide more documentation for users so they can self-educate. I would like to see more documentation for advanced security features."
"Configuring the default strategies and policies in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps generates a lot of noise and false positives."
"We need a separate license and we don't know how to get the license that is required."
"The changes to customer service, specifically the new model for support agreements, are not favorable."
"There is room for improvement in terms of reporting."
"The UI needs to be more user-friendly."
"Configuration requires going to a lot of places rather than just accessing one tab."
"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."
"The solution's reporting mechanism is a little poor and could be improved."
"Barracuda Essentials can improve by continually adding more features."
"Two to three months back, we got fraudulent emails in which someone in the organization was being blamed."
"The product must enable bulk user management."
"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."
"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."
"Barracuda Email Protection needs better reporting and more robust integration with security awareness training platforms and third-party solutions."
"We're so used to it now. If anything, there should be more ease of access for the users. If you're on our mail server, there should be easier access for you to better manage your own mailbox."
"When in the control panel, the context menu that appears when you right-click on an email should present options for adding the sender to the whitelist or blocking them."
"I'm a contractor, I get an awful lot of organizations that are spammy in nature with respect to trying to recruit people. SpamTitan is a little more aggressive than I'd like it to be with respect to filtering some of those out, especially when I'm looking for a contract."
"The quarantine email message that users get on a scheduled basis is something users generally don't pay attention to, like every other communication they get from IT. The formatting of the quarantined email report that goes to the users on a regular basis is a little confusing for them. That could be improved."
"I'd like to see something like "My First SpamTitan," by which I mean, "Guide me through the things I need to set, and tell me about the things that you're setting already." That way I would get a good feeling for setting up the product, rather than having to figure it out by myself, which is what I did."
"The analysis of ransomware attachments could be improved. Other solutions seem to detect ransomware faster than SpamTitan does."
"We would like to improve the number of quarantine reports received per day. At the moment, only one is received within 24 hours. So, there are a number of complaints that we get from customers who want to improve the reporting of the quarantined emails since they only get one copy per day. This means they may not receive other emails that have been received after they get the report. So, we would like SpamTitan to improve on the frequency of the quarantine report."
"The only improvement that comes to mind is updates. We are technically on TitanHQ's private cloud. We are responsible for updating our platform when a new version comes out. I would personally prefer to have SpamTitan just notify me, and say, "At this specific time on this specific day, we will be upgrading you to the newest platform.""
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution could be better by simplifying the business model of their licensing. It was hard to figure out how to get the licensing done for the environment, initially."
"For large enterprise organizations, they can definitely afford it, but for small and medium organizations, they might struggle to cover the expenses."
"From the pricing point of view, like any other product in the market, there is scope for negotiation."
"The pricing is normal. Considering its popularity, it's not overpriced."
"The license is expensive because the cost is based on the number of users."
"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."
"I know that the product is incredibly expensive."
"Microsoft Defender is expensive. I typically recommend it only if clients have the budget. Otherwise, I would suggest an alternative."
"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."
"The solution's pricing is moderate, where it is neither cheap nor expensive."
"Despite a list price possibly around $40 per user, their market price allows customers to easily buy the solution."
"Barracuda licensing model is good."
"The price of Barracuda Essentials is better than some of the competing products."
"Price-wise, this product is middle-of-the-road."
"The price is similar to that of Microsoft 365."
"The product is expensive."
"We're satisfied with the pricing and licensing for SpamTitan."
"Cloud-based solutions charge per mailbox, which isn't ideal sometimes. A company could have 300 total mailboxes and only 50 in regular use, but they would have to pay the same for all of them. I want a cloud-based solution that gives a price based on the volume of email traffic."
"The pricing is ideal. A lot of other anti-spams are integrated in Exchange, counting technical mailboxes that are not sending any emails outside. So, they are not scanned and only for internal communication. SpamTitan only counts the emails that it scans. This is one of the best licensing models that I saw for anti-spam solutions because it is counting dynamically the number of emails that senders are sending. It counts these uniquely by week. It provides a very realistic picture. This is very useful because we are not counting the emails doing inbound or outbound notifications from our company."
"I pay $650 per year for 50 licenses."
"As a small business, every penny is counted here... I really thought that something like SpamTitan would be more expensive, but it cost me about $70 (or about £60) a month. I'm more than happy to pay that."
"The pricing was a little bit below the average of what we were looking at."
"It's not extremely expensive. Other solutions get really pricey, really fast."
"The reason that they can be so reasonable with their cost is that they don't have to spend a lot on support. It's such a stable product that you're not needing to contact them that much. If their customers don't need to call support every other day, they can give them a solution that is cost-effective."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
I don't have detailed specifics on pricing, setup cost, or licensing.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
I am generally satisfied with how it currently is. If I could improve anything, I would reduce the cost.
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 t...
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 ...
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 defa...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TitanHQ SpamTitan?
Pricing is affordable. We renewed for three years, and the cost is reasonable.
What needs improvement with TitanHQ SpamTitan?
The GUI is problematic. It's a mess and absolute rubbish now. We also face issues with the settings that are not yet ...
 

Also Known As

MS Defender for Office 365
Barracuda Essentials
No data available
 

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
De Montfort University, Scope Services, Park County School District, NRC, Quality Smith, Toyota, CarTrawler, Videotron
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Protection vs. TitanHQ SpamTitan and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.