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Barracuda Email Security Gateway vs Proofpoint Email Protection comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 7, 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...
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
DMARC Authentication Software (2nd)
Proofpoint Email Protection
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (2nd), Security Awareness Training (2nd), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Office 365 Protection (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Barracuda Email Security Gateway is 10.5%, down from 16.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 20.7%, down from 22.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

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.
AhmedRamadan - PeerSpot reviewer
Optimize email security with effective sandboxing and auto Pull for quarantine
Proofpoint is used as an email security gateway for big enterprises, primarily for their on-premises servers. Many customers also use it alongside Office 365 Proofpoint offers a complete solution for email security with features like DLP, email archiving, and encryption. The most valuable…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is lightweight, and we can filter all of our inbound and outbound emails. We have controls for rate control, quarantine, and tagging. We can see whether an email is a spam email or a phishing email."
"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 client has the option to blacklist or whitelist any email address or domain based on the sender and recipient filters. If they want, they can restrict any IP addresses so email won't be received from those IP addresses."
"All features it provides on the cloud environment are very, very useful, including the antivirus that is enabled on it."
"The solution is scalable."
"Eliminating inbox clutter creates an opportunity to be more productive instead of wasting time manually sorting through spam."
"One advantage is its immediate deployment capability. So the fast speed to deploy is a big plus point."
"It is an excellent, intelligent solution that provides maximum security from email attacks."
"I would recommend Proofpoint Email Protection to others because it is useful, simple to use, and provides whatever is required."
"The most valuable feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is the central location dashboard for viewing all the related information for risk."
"The most valuable feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is the blocking capabilities, it blocks a lot of potential threats."
"The Phish Alarm button allows users to submit questionable emails for review and complete analysis."
"The stability is very good."
"The solution has very strong detection for most of the phishing and malicious emails received from the outside."
"I recommend all of my customers to migrate and start using Proofpoint as it is secure, minimizes risk, and eliminates phishing attacks."
"The most valuable feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is the TAP Dashboard. It provides more detailed information that can be used for forensic analysis. This is an advantage that other email security providers, such as Cisco, IronPort, or Microsoft do not offer in their dashboards."
 

Cons

"Barracuda should have a sandbox feature in the appliances."
"There are some times when legit emails are trapped on Barracuda and we are unable to get that information unless we actually log on to the network to find out."
"There are limited administration controls that should be improved."
"Its integration with other solutions can be improved. There should be integration for telemetry information, system information, and other types of information with other solutions. Barracuda currently doesn't have that. Barracuda has its own platform. Its integration with firewalls is quite good, and it communicates really well with firewalls, but I have not seen any other integration. Based on what I know, it does have an API at the backend, but I have not used it."
"Barracuda isn't catching everything. We're still getting quite a few phishing emails, so we're looking for something else."
"I have noticed that it takes a little time to get familiar with after deploying and some tweaks need to be done as things come up."
"There is room for improvement in the management of multiple domains."
"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."
"It has too many screens. It is kind of a conglomeration of products. In other words, they built product A, product B, and product C, and they are yet to integrate them into a single administrative console. I would certainly like to see a more seamless administrative interface. I would also like to see them include more bang for the buck, by including features like email fraud protection, rather than making their product so piecemeal, where you are buying little pieces. I agree with the idea of having multiple tiers or layers, but maybe as small, medium, and large, as opposed to an a la carte menu."
"Phishing detection could improve further to match some of the capabilities offered by competitors."
"Some use cases haven't been dealt with yet."
"The false positives are an issue."
"The price could be improved."
"There is room for improvement in detecting and preventing phishing attacks. While the solution performs well in some aspects, it struggles with phishing threats."
"You only receive one model in Proofpoint Email Protection and the other ones you have to purchase at a high price. There should be more available with the solution and additional models should be less expensive."
"The setup requires expertise. It needs someone with experience on managing it, and I would rate the implementation as needing someone experienced."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We paid for an annual license."
"The licensing cost is competitive, it's not too high and not too low."
"The licensing fees are part of a bundled support package that we pay for."
"Barracuda has the best price. Every year we need to renew our license, and every year I need to compare Barracuda to two or three other players in the market. Barracuda always has a price that is 30 to 40 percent less than the other players' prices."
"The solution requires a license and we pay annually."
"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."
"We typically purchase a one or three-year license for Barracuda Email Security Gateway."
"We are using the trial version right now, and before purchasing the license, we need to solve some of the issues that we are facing. We need a proper solution for our email, and then we will look into pricing. We have a vendor for licensing."
"The end customer is buying our solution, which can be for monthly or annual usage depending on our payment and business model."
"The solution charges per user per month to use it. There are not any additional fees in addition to the standard living fees."
"It is expensive."
"I rate the price of Proofpoint Email Protection a four out of five."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has comparable pricing."
"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."
"I rate the product price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"The licensing is basically $8/user."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
54%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Government
3%
Educational Organization
31%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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 Proofpoint Email Protection?
Proofpoint is considered a very expensive solution compared to others like FortiMail, being double in cost. Customers pay around $90,000 yearly for a 1,000-user organization, with the subscription ...
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
Phishing detection & Response capabilities could improve further to match some of the capabilities offered by competitors. Proofpoint could expand its PDR capabilities to improve its efficiency...
 

Also Known As

Barracuda Spam and Virus Firewall, Barracuda Sentinel
Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Cofense PhishMe, Proofpoint Digital Protection
 

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
Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Security Gateway vs. Proofpoint Email Protection and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
841,004 professionals have used our research since 2012.