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Barracuda Email Security Gateway vs Sophos Email comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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)
Sophos Email
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (10th), Office 365 Protection (1st)
 

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 10.5%, down 16.6% compared to last year.
Sophos Email, on the other hand, focuses on Email Security, holds 2.4% mindshare, down 2.7% 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.
NaveedAli - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides good identity proxy features, but sandboxing and spam control features could be improved
Sophos gives you a feature set to manage your on-premises firewall on the cloud. I just integrated my on-premises firewall into the cloud, and I can manage the tool through the cloud as well if needed. I recommend using Sophos Email as a proxy. For email gateways, I advise choosing mature products with rich feature sets, like Trend Micro or CrowdStrike. The solution's integration with other tools is very simple. I easily integrated Sophos Email with my Active Directory. My organization needs a WAF with a limited feature set, which we use through Sophos. Purchasing additional WAF will be costly, but I get sandboxing and WAF features free of cost with Sophos, which is included in the license. Overall, I rate the solution a seven 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

"It can scale."
"This product is powerful and quite simple to use."
"Eliminating inbox clutter creates an opportunity to be more productive instead of wasting time manually sorting through spam."
"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."
"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."
"The link protection and anti-phishing features are great."
"I like Barracuda's cloud sandbox feature."
"Sophos Email is a stable solution."
"The anti-spam functionality of Sophos Email is good."
"Sophos Email provides both inbound and outbound filtering."
"I find the comprehensive features of Sophos Email most valuable."
"The platform is scalable when installed on server-based systems."
"It has enhanced our approach to tackling malware and spam. It is a reliable product with a good user interface."
"The feature of Sophos Email that we find most effective for detecting suspicious emails is primarily based on their signatures."
"When you say email security, it's about everything, incoming email, outgoing email, spam, phishing emails, unwanted marketing emails. You can set rules, but the main feature of Sophos Email is to make sure you don't get hacked. 95% of people who are hacked do not get hacked by typing the router password. They are hacked from the inside out, which means they send you a document that is a zero-day attack, you open it, nothing happens, but technically the attack is running in the background of your computer. This is how they gain access to your PC."
 

Cons

"We are using the tool’s 400 model which does not offer accurate spam detection. We have also had performance issues with the tool."
"The dashboard's UI could be improved to make changes to the blocklist."
"Artificial intelligence improvement could be used to help block spam and phishing mail that is directly delivered to users."
"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."
"Barracuda isn't catching everything. We're still getting quite a few phishing emails, so we're looking for something else."
"The technical support is not available globally 24/7 and this is the biggest problem with the product."
"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."
"This product can always be made more secure."
"A lot of legit emails get quarantined."
"The tool's integration becomes an issue when the internet connection is weak."
"Sophos Email needs to increase the number of promos."
"The tool’s stability should be improved."
"The tool has some performance issues and bugs, making it an area where improvements are required."
"Sophos Email has few improvements to implement, including the handling of incoming emails in the systems. It needs to add additional feature that helps in enhancing the scanning processes of these emails. While adding these features, it should work towards improving the current features also."
"Sophos Email can improve security."
"It was sometimes hard to find the settings in the solution's interface."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As far as advanced email security systems, this product is mid-range on the pricing scale."
"The price of Barracuda Email Security Gateway is approximately $17 per user annually."
"Our licensing fees are approximately $4,000 per year, and this includes updates for the antivirus and spam signatures."
"It is a cost-effective and relatively cheap solution as compared to others. Our customers have a yearly subscription. We do have a few customers with monthly subscriptions, but they have cloud-based Email protection, which is a different type of solution. Both solutions are very good."
"We paid for an annual license."
"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 pay between $8 and $10 USD per user per month."
"The licensing cost is competitive, it's not too high and not too low."
"I rate the price of Sophos Email a four out of five."
"The solution is expensive."
"Sophos Email is neither cheap nor expensive."
"It falls somewhere in the middle—it's not excessively expensive nor very cheap."
"Most of our clients are on a perpetual license. If there is a budget issue, they can choose a subscription. However, most of the clients choose the perpetual license."
"Sophos Email is priced lower than its competitors."
"We use exchange licenses, for which we get immediate support from Sophos."
"The pricing could improve by having additional discounts. For example, when customers buy have more than 50 or more users, there should be additional discounts."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
53%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Manufacturing Company
3%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Retailer
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 do you like most about Sophos Email?
The solution's identity proxy feature is very good and reliable.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sophos Email?
Sophos Email pricing is a bit high, especially since I purchase through a partner, and they sell it at a higher price since they also seek to make a profit.
What needs improvement with Sophos Email?
Email installation could be more user-friendly so that it can be done without involving the partner. If made more user-friendly, even a user could do it on their own.
 

Also Known As

Barracuda Spam and Virus Firewall, Barracuda Sentinel
Sophos Email Security
 

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
Del Monte Foods, Terra Verde, spicerhaart, RIVERLITE, Dataprise, SureBridge, Reed's School, Sayfol International School
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Security Gateway vs. Sophos Email and other solutions. Updated: January 2024.
842,388 professionals have used our research since 2012.