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Barracuda Email Threat Scanner vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

 

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

Barracuda Email Threat Scanner
Ranking in Anti-Malware Tools
30th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Anti-Malware Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
197
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Anti-Malware Tools category, the mindshare of Barracuda Email Threat Scanner is 0.3%, down from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 15.6%, down from 21.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Anti-Malware Tools
 

Featured Reviews

S. M. Rabiul Islam - PeerSpot reviewer
Is an easy, user-friendly solution that provides strong email security
The most valuable feature of Barracuda Email Threat Scanner is the security it provides by delaying the delivery of suspicious emails until they can be reviewed inside the Barracuda control panel. It keeps the mail inside the system unless it is deemed okay, and then can be sent to the client.
John Rallo - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers excellent visibility into vulnerabilities and the attack surface itself
Attack surface reduction and limiting attack surface vectors are valuable features. It's helpful to isolate specific devices and get super granular with the features they offer. The visibility into the attack surface is good. It gets highly granular. I don't work on that side, but the people who do tell me they get more visibility.

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 of Barracuda Email Threat Scanner is the security it provides by delaying the delivery of suspicious emails until they can be reviewed inside the Barracuda control panel."
"The main benefit that I am getting from this solution is that it filters almost 95% of my spam mail. Some spam mails bypass Barracuda Email Threat Scanner, but when I add those domains or addresses to the filter list, they get blocked. Some users on my premises do not understand which mail attachments or links should be opened. By filtering with Barracuda Email Threat Scanner, we are not getting any type of phishing mails. So, our infrastructure is safer, and as an IT person, I feel relaxed."
"It was easy to learn the product."
"The endpoint detection of threats is valuable. The initial detection of things like ransomware and viruses and being able to shut down machines immediately and stop a threat is valuable. We can stop a threat at a source versus allow it to propagate it across the network."
"The most valuable feature is that it comes with the package, so there is no additional installation of third-party software. It's also easy to use."
"Defender works in the background monitoring the traffic for viruses."
"The stability is great. I haven't seen any outages with Microsoft."
"The threat hunting service is very useful for a security professional."
"The detection features are valuable, as is the fact that it is easier to port these logs into Sentinel. That is also useful for us. It is more comprehensive."
"DFE organizational security posture has been a positive experience. We're a Microsoft house. It works. Once it's deployed and once it's configured, it works and our clients tend to be happy with it. I haven't really experienced anyone who has been so unsatisfied with the platform that they wanted to go a couple of different directions, that has never happened to me."
"Microsoft Defender is always running. It is doing its job, so it is fine. I don't have any issues with the way it was implemented or how we are running it. We have been upgrading IT throughout the years, but there have been no issues."
 

Cons

"If the price were lower, perhaps we could purchase our own."
"We had an incident last month where the PCs of one or two colleagues, who were outside of our factory and were using a defined network, got infected by some kind of malware. From their PCs, more than 1,000 mails were produced per hour, causing spamming on our mail server. Barracuda blocked the full mail communication. Only one to two accounts were compromised, and for that, Barracuda blocked all incoming and outgoing mails. It created a great problem for other users and our office activities. Our server was blocked for three days, which we did not expect. Technically, only one or two accounts should be blocked. When a domain or IP is blocked, communication becomes tough. It may be a configuration issue at our provider's end, where there was a mistake in configuring Barracuda. It could also be a problem related to Barracuda."
"The product must improve the features associated with creating a blacklist."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can improve by providing more and different types of reports."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint could improve by making the reporting better."
"My main issue with the tool is that there are too many menus. This causes a steep learning curve for those without training or unfamiliar with Defender for Endpoint. From an end-user perspective, the solution is there on the machine and does its job; it works seamlessly. However, as a security professional dealing with it behind the scenes, the learning curve can be steep, but not too steep. Still, it has taken some of my analysts up to a month to get familiar with the product."
"Microsoft Defender in the basic form is not very useful for managing the security environment. The free version is not capable of covering the needs of centralized management, EDR, and behavioral analysis. If you don't have the commercial version, you can't have centralized management and set up the policies and other things. Each client is a standalone installation, which is not useful for security in an enterprise model."
"There are some areas in the proactive threats that are just overwhelming the SOC, so we've had to turn those off until we can figure out how to filter out the false positives."
"Auto recovery is the most important feature that we would need from this solution. For decryption, similar to Malwarebytes, there should be something to be able to recover the data up to the last normal status. Its ability to recover data to the last normal copy must not exceed 5 to 10 minutes."
"There is no behavior analytics for devices and endpoints. There is no behavior-based protection."
"The product development team makes frequent changes that affect the stability of the solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Barracuda Email Threat Scanner is provided by our IT service provider, who also provides all the support. The licensing fee that we pay to our provider is $200 per month, that is, $1 per user. There is no additional cost. Before taking the subscription from our provider, I researched the market for Barracuda. The cost is between $5,000 to $8,000 for three years. After that, the same cost is there for renewal. If you have 200 to 500 users, it is better to take a subscription from a provider. If you have more than 500 users, then you can own the Barracuda server through the cloud or on-premises deployments. It is costly for a lesser number of users. If you increase the usage or the number of users, then the overall cost decreases. They can reduce the cost of Barracuda Email Threat Scanner for a small number of users. We could not and would not have used this solution if we had not got the renting or subscription option."
"The solution is a bit expensive."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comes with Windows 10, and it's free. But for you to be able to manage it in the cloud and use the console, you need to have either an Office 365 E5 subscription or a Microsoft M365 subscription. You need to buy an extra license."
"It is free."
"The licensing fee is a function of your Office 365 license. The feature set you get is a function of the license as well. There is probably an E2 version, an E3 version, and an E5 version. There are several versions, and not all features are the same. So, you might want to check what features you're expecting because you might get shocked. If you only have an E3 license, the capability isn't the same."
"This product is included in the pricing for Windows."
"When customers haven't deployed the solution and don't have licenses, it can be expensive to start from scratch."
"It's included with the Windows Operating System, I don't pay for any licensing fees."
"You need a license to use this solution."
"Its price at the moment is very good because you get a lot of value for your money, especially with the subscriptions. If you have the E1, E3, or E5 enterprise subscription, you pay per month per user, and you get almost an infinite number of solutions. If you compare the price to the number of solutions that you get, it is a very good deal."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Performing Arts
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Educational Organization
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Barracuda Email Threat Scanner?
The product must improve the features associated with creating a blacklist. Currently, to add a content block, I have to go to a different screen. It seems cumbersome. The solution sells Impersonat...
How is Cortex XDR compared with Microsoft Defender?
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security solution. The tool reduces the attack surface, applies behavioral-based endpoint protection and response, and includes risk-ba...
Which offers better endpoint security - Symantec or Microsoft Defender?
We use Symantec because we do not use MS Enterprise products, but in my opinion, Microsoft Defender is a superior solution. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security s...
How does Microsoft Defender for Endpoint compare with Crowdstrike Falcon?
The CrowdStrike solution delivers a lot of information about incidents. It has a very light sensor that will never push your machine hardware to "test", you don't have the usual "scan now" feature ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Entisys 360,
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Threat Scanner vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.