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

Barracuda Email Security Gateway vs Cisco Secure Email comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

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 Security Ga...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
DMARC Authentication Software (2nd), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (3rd)
Cisco Secure Email
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (3rd), Cisco Security Portfolio (8th)
 

Featured Reviews

Mohammed Shah Newaj - PeerSpot reviewer
Instantly blocked and reduced our spam emails
The solution has to improve in a very specific way. When we allow our customers to send or scan email through our Barracuda Email Security Gateway, we are permitting their email server IP address, but not any domain. One of our customers has an email server where they are hosting five domains within their server. They are sending and receiving email through that server by using Barracuda Email Security Gateway. Therefore, we allow their IP address to send email through our Barracuda Email Security Gateway, then we declare MX for receiving email on behalf of our customers. After receiving the email, we deliver it to the specific IP address of the customer. Since we are only allowing the IP address, if an incident happens within a customer's email server or an email server gets compromised, then it starts sending spam. That creates a huge problem for the solution as it allows all emails because the customer's IP address is allowed to relay email through our Barracuda Email Security Gateway. Barracuda should add an option where it can add multiple domains, such as abc.com, bbc.com, and cbc.com. Therefore, this domains' emails will be allowed and other domains' emails will not be relayed through Barracuda Email Security Gateway. Whereas, if you allow the IP address, then any of the domain's emails will be relayed through Barracuda Email Security Gateway. That is the drawback that I have observed. So, Barracuda should work on this.
Kostas Karidas - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps prevent security breaches but fails to improve in the area of AI
I have not noticed any impressive advanced threat protection mechanisms in the tool. I don't know if there are any AI features in the product. I don't know if there is any other technology embedded in the solution. Cisco Secure Email successfully mitigated potential email threats. My company has seen plenty of scenarios where Cisco Secure Email successfully mitigated potential email threats, spam emails, and fraudulent domains. The product is good for dealing with spam emails, and it can take care of more than 100 spam emails per day. A huge number of spam emails are monitored with the help of Cisco Secure Email. I would not recommend the product to other businesses because you need to have some kind of expertise in configuring and knowing a bit about the tool's GUI. The tool also lacks in the area of AI mechanics. If I would like to have an overview and review another solution, I would go for another product other than Cisco Secure Email. I can definitely suggest others to look at the product and review it, but I would also recommend that they compare it with the other solutions in the market. I wouldn't prioritize Cisco Secure Email over other tools. Either the support partner of the product or I take care of the tool's maintenance phase by looking into the configurations and doing some fine-tuning. I rate the tool a seven to eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"With the cloud service, one of the nice things about Barracuda is the quarantine service. It gives the ability for our users to go in and check what has been quarantined, and then connect with our IT staff to release anything that should be fine so that we can test it before we release."
"The performance is good."
"It is very simple to whitelist addresses."
"The product safeguards user mail for gateway defense, data protection, business continuity, AI-based inbox defense, and automated threat detection and incident response."
"We have found some of the valuable features to be how easy the solution is to configure, the graphic support, and the intuitive dashboard."
"This solution has helped to significantly reduce the amount of junk email that we receive."
"The most valuable feature of the Barracuda Email Security Gateway is the ATP."
"Customer support is the solution's strongest point."
"Initially, the most valuable feature for us was the SenderBase Reputation, because that reduced the number of emails that were even considered by the system by a huge number..."
"It does a great job of preventing spam, malware, and ransomware. I can only go by what people have told me and what I've seen, but I have not seen spam in a year and a half to two years in my own company mailbox. And there are not a lot of catches where it's catching something that should have gotten through, either."
"ATP has been the most valuable in improving our email security posture."
"The most valuable features are Advanced Malware Protection, URL filtering, and of course Reputation Filtering."
"The tool has a DLP solution which we can implement. Its database is updated regularly."
"The added value of it is that every migration to a new version is initiated by the Cisco version itself, so that is a bunch of work that you don't have to do on the Cisco ESA system on-premise. As it becomes a safe platform, you don't need to invest anything in your own data center or in your upgrade path."
"It's flexible. There are a lot of rules and policies that can be easily applied for certain employees or certain mailboxes."
"The tool comes with AI features. It is good for clients who already use Cisco products due to integration."
 

Cons

"False positives have given us issues."
"The UI could be a little cleaner and require less clicking around in different modules. They give the illusion of a single pane of glass, but as you click around to different products, you're actually being transferred into a different system."
"Barracuda has shown difficulty in providing us with the solutions we sought."
"The reports are standard, and it would be nice to be able to customize them."
"We still have critical threats coming into our environment and delivered to our users. When we compare it with other solutions, these other solutions can already detect those threats."
"Two improvements that are needed include an enhancement in the proxy feature, as well as the ability to more fully automate patches and updates."
"The scalability needs improvement, it's the only feature that is required."
"Some customers experience issues with integration."
"Licensing is quite complicated for a number of customers, including ourselves."
"We have been struggling in the last month with Cisco encryption and with the S/MIME encryption. I don't know if it is an issue on our side or if these features of the solution are not working very well."
"There are some concerns in the way the architecture is set up, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The discontinuation of physical hardware solutions is a significant area for improvement in Cisco Email Security Appliance. This decision has posed challenges as virtual appliances are now the only option, which may not be suitable for all industries. The uncertainty regarding the future of the hardware aspect of the solution is a notable concern."
"The user interface could be updated."
"The configuration UI should be made more intuitive. Currently, it takes a while to understand how to do the basic configurations."
"They can do it better with web links, with the URLs. They have a technology called Outbreak but it doesn't work as well as we would like."
"The solution does not have a strong outbound service. It should also integrate DLP."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is priced low. We have received a good price discount here in Sri Lanka. There are additional licenses we have to purchase a license for the ATP."
"The price of Barracuda Email Security Gateway is approximately $17 per user annually."
"The licensing cost is competitive, it's not too high and not too low."
"e solution's pricing is exceedingly high, and it continues to increase."
"It is an expensive solution and I would rate it 5 out of 10."
"We typically purchase a one or three-year license for Barracuda Email Security Gateway."
"We find the solution's pricing okay."
"We paid for an annual license."
"The pricing for the Cisco Email Security Appliance involves recurring costs for licenses based on the contracted time frame, such as one year, three years, or five years. Renewals are required after the license expires."
"The license was not per user, the license model was per feature. You could choose anti-virus, anti-spam, etc. It was feature-based and charged yearly."
"I don't have the insights into it, but compared to different products, it seems to have a medium level of pricing."
"We were using Proofpoint and then we switched to Cisco... reportability was one of the main reasons we switched, but the biggest one was cost. If you can get an equivalent functionality for a better price it's wise to do so. That's what our primary decision came down to: We could get equivalent functionality at a lower price point."
"The solution is expensive."
"Licensing costs depend on how many users there are. It could range between $5 and $7 per month, per user."
"I would rate the pricing a ten out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"At times, we feel the pricing is a bit too high, but then, there is also room for discounts. We enjoy a lot of discounts, and that is why we are still with them. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Secure Email Gateway (SEG) solutions are best for your needs.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Answers from the Community

KK
Dec 12, 2022
Dec 12, 2022
Hi Kamal, Firstly, you would have to recognize that there is/are no fast and hard rules to choosing a final preferred product, what works well for company A may not work extensively well for company B. Reason being that: the efficiency of the Security capabilities provided by one tool can be amplified by another tool, particularly for secure email gateway. Hence, if you have an XDR that you in...
2 out of 7 answers
SimonClark - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 20, 2022
Top brands don't mean best or most cost-effective. My advice is to look a bit further before you make a decision. Evidence suggests that most top brands are pretty good at detecting and blocking malicious attachments, best case letting through 1%, but can be worse than 50% when it comes to detecting malicious links in the text of the email.  There are numerous less well-known vendors with lower-cost AI-based solutions that have a far better success rate, also providing employees the ability to report on suspect emails which auto-removes them from other staff members' inboxes until they have been properly assessed. Some will provide a visual risk score to the recipient to give them advance warning to be more cautious. Combining this kind of capability with staff awareness products keeps your vendor list lower and further improves efficiency. For around £2 GBP per user per month (less than $3) we provide different vendors depending upon the customer's environment but provided as a managed service. This allows our customers to outsource some of the monitoring and day-to-day management, spread the cost on a monthly basis, and flex how many licences they need on a monthly basis too i.e. if you drop 20 users don't pay for them but if you increase by 20 you don't need complex co-termination and pro rata discussions.
DM
Jun 21, 2022
I only can recommend Cisco because it´s the only one with which I'd worked enough. I think it is powerful enough and has a lot of possibilities. In addition, to a great support team. 
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
53%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Government
3%
Educational Organization
27%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Barracuda Email Security Gateway?
Barracuda Email Security Gateway is very simple to use.
What needs improvement with Barracuda Email Security Gateway?
Barracuda Email Security Gateway should include ATP in the next release.
What do you like most about Cisco Secure Email?
Cisco Secure Email is a budget-friendly solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Email?
The licensing is expensive and a bit complex with the new approach Cisco has taken. It is considered more complicated than other vendors.
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Email?
The primary areas for improvement are the pricing and the complexity of deployment. The pricing is considered expensive, and the deployment process is complex, involving many steps and usually requ...
 

Also Known As

Barracuda Spam and Virus Firewall, Barracuda Sentinel
Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Evolution Recruitment Solutions, Evans Delivery Company, Osoyoos Credit Union, Synovis Life Technologies, Camden County Technical Schools, DEK, Evans Delivery Company, Colgate Rochester Crozer, Hemmera, South Carolina Heart Center, Ferma Corporation, Major League Baseball (MLB), Healy Brothers Automotive Group
SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Security Gateway vs. Cisco Secure Email and other solutions. Updated: January 2024.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.