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

Barracuda Email Security Gateway vs Fortinet FortiMail 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)
Fortinet FortiMail
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Messaging and Collaboration solutions, they serve different purposes. Barracuda Email Security Gateway is designed for Secure Email Gateway (SEG) and holds a mindshare of 10.3%, down 17.0% compared to last year.
Fortinet FortiMail, on the other hand, focuses on Email Security, holds 5.4% mindshare, down 5.8% since last year.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
Email Security
 

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.
Andras Solt - PeerSpot reviewer
Reasonable pricing and good spam filtering but does not offer robust gatekeeping
It's mainly suited for mid-size companies, not for bigger companies like us. We are more than 1,000 people. In fact, we're over 2000 users, so that's why we investigated some other products, and Clearswift, for example. We likely won't increase usage. We're looking at GFI in a year or so.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Barracuda is good at keeping the garbage from reaching your inbox."
"The solution's anti-spam features are its most valuable aspect."
"The most important features of Barracuda Email Security Gateway are the simple and quick configuration, interactive console, and easy-to-understand logs."
"Before this solution, we didn't have any separate feature for protecting our emails. We used to only have a firewall but now we have email security. It has a graphical interface and we can see the log every time. We can see that the performance is fine."
"It is very simple to whitelist addresses."
"Its backups are valuable."
"The most valuable feature of Barracuda Email Security Gateway is the complete capabilities it provides. Additionally, the phishing security and sandbox features are effective."
"Eliminating inbox clutter creates an opportunity to be more productive instead of wasting time manually sorting through spam."
"The biggest implementation my team has done for Fortinet FortiMail was for more than five thousand people, and the most valuable feature was its anti-spam feature."
"The most valuable features are the endpoint defense features, it is very secure."
"I like the anti-spam and security features of Fortinet FortiMail, and that its features complement each other."
"Fortinet FortiMail is easy to use and the detection rate is very good. You can customize content filters and profiles are done easily. Additionally, there is a sandbox integration feature that is good."
"Fortinet utilizes specialized processing units, which network faster and sample more efficiently compared to others."
"Technical support is great. They are able to look at their patches and offer quick responses. We even have an account manager in the Middle East. They are very good."
"It has a very high level of security through special licensing with solutions like FortiGuard, sandboxing solutions in the cloud, and URL rewriting solutions."
"The important feature is the application control, which makes administration much easier. It also has an intrusion prevention feature. There's also the wireless functionality, which works well with Huawei devices."
 

Cons

"The pricing needs improvement."
"Barracuda should have a sandbox feature in the appliances."
"We had an incident where we didn't want to receive any emails or spam from a certain site and email address. We selected the mail ID, and we send it to Barracuda for analysis to see if it's spam or something like that. As of now, we haven't gotten any update or notification as to what happened with it."
"I would like to have better integration with third-party archival vendors to facilitate moving data in and out."
"The pricing is a little bit high, and it is causing the company to rethink renewal. If they could lower the pricing, that would be ideal."
"The dashboard's UI could be improved to make changes to the blocklist."
"Barracuda Email Security Gateway can improve reporting and anti-spam. The anti-spam engine is not working well. We are seeing a lot of problems where spam is going through the gateway. Additionally, access privilege should be given to the IT support, because they don't have a lot of privileges. We are forced to give our IT support administrative access in order to clear and deliver emails and this should not be happening."
"Few customers require an on-premises fabric ATP box for attack detection and response."
"A room for improvement in Fortinet FortiMail is that it only has a hardware version. I also didn't find the solution scalable, so that's another area for improvement."
"I would like the integration to be easier."
"The only drawback to this solution is that the firmware is frequently updated, and each update results in downtime."
"Fortinet FortiMail could improve general user management. There are no password policies for users."
"Sometimes, authentic emails get blocked by the solution's firewall."
"Sometimes it takes a little bit too long to determine if an email is good or not. If they could shorten that time span, it'd be so much better. It does delay our email, which does not make users happy. That said, I would have to say we have not been blacklisted for quite a while now."
"I don't know if it is possible, but I would like to see Artificial Intelligence and machine learning introduced."
"An additional feature that could be added is a pop-up screen notifying you that an email has been blocked, without having to double click on it to take you there it could provide you with a summary explaining why it was on hold or why was it spam when you hover over it with your cursor."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is an annual license required for this solution."
"I rate the price of Barracuda Email Security Gateway a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"The regular pricing was initially very reasonable, but three years ago, Barracuda revised their price list and SKUs, resulting in a significant doubling of the standard prices."
"Barracuda Email Security Gateway is an affordable solution that caters to small, midsize, and high-end businesses with great revenue."
"As far as advanced email security systems, this product is mid-range on the pricing scale."
"For overall value and cost, Barracuda came in as most appropriate, price as well as services provided. In terms of price, it's average . It's not the most expensive, it's not the least expensive but it works well."
"We find the solution's pricing okay."
"The solution requires a license and we pay annually."
"FortiMail is not cheap."
"The solution is reasonably priced compared to one of its competitors."
"My company has a three-year license for Fortinet FortiMail, including the support, but I'm not so sure of how much the solution costs because I'm not part of the procurement team. What's more important to me is the functionality and stability of Fortinet FortiMail. In terms of Fortinet FortiMail licensing, the cost is calculated based on company requirements. For example, it's based on the features you need for your environment, on capacity, how many CPUs you have, etc."
"It is an expensive product."
"The pricing is on the higher side."
"The tool is very expensive."
"Fortinet FortiMail is inexpensive."
"Fortinet FortiMail is a little bit expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Secure Email Gateway (SEG) solutions are best for your needs.
838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
54%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Government
3%
Educational Organization
50%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Government
4%
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiMail?
The pricing of Fortinet FortiMail is cheaper compared to Cisco, which was quite expensive.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail?
The area that could use some improvement in Fortinet FortiMail is the integration process. I would like the integration to be easier.
 

Also Known As

Barracuda Spam and Virus Firewall, Barracuda Sentinel
FortiMail
 

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
Magromer Cueros y Pieles S.A.
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Security Gateway vs. Fortinet FortiMail and other solutions. Updated: January 2024.
838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.