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Abnormal Security vs Barracuda Email Security Gateway comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 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

Abnormal Security
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
6th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (12th)
Barracuda Email Security Ga...
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
DMARC Authentication Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Abnormal Security is 7.3%, down from 12.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Barracuda Email Security Gateway is 9.6%, up from 6.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Barracuda Email Security Gateway9.6%
Abnormal Security7.3%
Other83.1%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

ChrisBrown5 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Information Technology Technical Services at a wholesaler/distributor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Automated threat detection that protects against corruption with minimal intervention
Abnormal Security is valuable because it features an automated scoring tool that doesn't require much intervention from our team. It enhances threat detection capabilities by making the process automated and is easy to scale to our entire environment. Additionally, it protects us from being business email compromised, which is invaluable for maintaining our security.
MM
Graduate Student at ain shams
Secures email by identifying threats and managing email policies effectively
The intuitive management interface feature makes email security policies very easy to implement as it's all about features that need to be enabled or disabled. Our investigation in any incident or mail is very useful as it provides all details about incoming mails, enabling thorough review and detection. The real-time threat intelligence feature is particularly useful as it detects all kinds of threats identified by incoming mails. The Impersonation license utilizes AI tools. Sometimes some phishing mails are reported as phishing, but they are not actually phishing mails. They are detected due to certain words and languages that appear suspicious but were generated by AI tools. Everyone or an advisor may use it for their own purpose or learning, even though it indicates that the mail detected is phishing when it's not.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It does some really cool stuff that other tools aren't doing. We found it to be really effective, and the AI/ML functionality is really what differentiates them."
"Abnormal Security's AI capabilities are what we like most, as they can categorize and classify the emails, and based on the context of the email, understand if it's a graymail, a bulk mail, or a phish."
"What I like about Abnormal Security is that it notifies me if any of my partners or suppliers are experiencing a security breach by analyzing their database and identifying potential cyber threats."
"Initial auto-remediation allows us to auto-remediate before the email lands in the end user's inbox for a split second."
"I have never encountered any stability issues with Abnormal."
"I like Abnormal's threat protection with auto-remediation, but I also love its abuse mailbox feature, which automatically responds to the end user. That feature has a super-valuable security component and helps improve the user experience."
"Their ability to take things out of the mailbox and catch things much faster than users is excellent."
"It protects us from being business email compromised, which is invaluable for maintaining our security."
"The feature that sets Barracuda apart from other solutions is the Office 365 cloud-to-cloud backup."
"The security protection is the best and it's GUI is user-friendly."
"This solution has helped to significantly reduce the amount of junk email that we receive."
"The solution is largely stable, it can scale, and overall it has been working fine without issue, while the message tracking and messaging logs have proven to be quite useful."
"We find the product to be scalable."
"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 product safeguards user mail for gateway defense, data protection, business continuity, AI-based inbox defense, and automated threat detection and incident response."
"Barracuda's email service is simple and cost-effective, offering excellent overall protection."
 

Cons

"When we're working on something as engineers, and we find an idea or a method of doing something that would be greatly improved by doing it another way, there should be an ability for me to click the ideas button, type in an idea that I have, and submit it to a product review team or developers to have them think through the process a little bit more."
"One feature I'd love to see is outbound scanning."
"There could be more selectable options and more granular selections available."
"I, as such, do not have anything that I do not like or would like to add, but you could argue that because they are doing it API-based, there is a chance that something could slip through temporarily before they are able to pull it out. In theory, it could happen just because of the nature of the system. They are not in line with the delivery of the mail. They are kind of asynchronous, which is a pro as well as a con. If it is synchronous, then I know it would always stop them, but because it is asynchronous, things could get through temporarily or because of some system issues on the Microsoft side or their side. It is the nature of the beast, but it is a little bit of a con."
"The biggest pain point for us is the lack of support for on-premise email systems."
"The pricing for academic institutions and student mailboxes is challenging."
"I would like to have the ability to customize the auto-remediation feature."
"Abnormal should add more automatic reports. I have an open request to our account team for more notification and report types that can be sent automatically. For example, they have an awesome report that gets sent weekly, and I also want them monthly, so I don't need to do so much adding up when my director wants numbers over time."
"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 solution could improve by adding DomainKeys (DKIM) functionality. This is something that is essentially required nowadays for outbound security. They do not have it on their on-premise solution appliance but they have alternate arrangements for their cloud solution."
"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."
"Barracuda has shown difficulty in providing us with the solutions we sought."
"Barracuda Email Security Gateway should add auto-remediation to improve the solution. Additionally, there are times when we have false positives and our general emails get locked, we have mentioned this to Barracuda."
"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."
"This product can always be made more secure."
"The downsides of the solution stem from the fact that it is an expensive product, and one may see too many false positives when using it, making them both areas where improvements are required."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license is based on the user count, so the number of users that have an email address in the organization."
"The pricing appears fair, and they demonstrate a genuine willingness to work with us on it."
"Overall, we'd certainly prefer lower pricing, but Abnormal Security doesn't seem unreasonable compared to similar offerings in the market."
"Abnormal Security, on the other hand, provides the same level of functionality for just over $60,000 – that's half the price!"
"We typically purchase a one or three-year license for Barracuda Email Security Gateway."
"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."
"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."
"The solution requires a license and we pay annually."
"The licensing fees are part of a bundled support package that we pay for."
"It is an expensive solution and I would rate it 5 out of 10."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise13
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Abnormal Security?
I find the pricing to be favorable, but I did not disclose the exact cost.
What needs improvement with Abnormal Security?
Ease of use is important, and Abnormal Security's responsiveness and ability to deliver solutions when issues arise are crucial. However, there is always room for improvement, as achieving a perfec...
What is your primary use case for Abnormal Security?
The main use case for Abnormal Security is as a spam filter and for mail hygiene. This use case is for the finance industry.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda Sentinel?
Compared to the features and stability, Barracuda Email Security Gateway is affordable in terms of pricing, setup cost, and licensing.
What needs improvement with Barracuda Sentinel?
On technical aspects, I think Barracuda needs to provide a fast response to any vulnerability on the system and enhance Barracuda support. Customer support for Barracuda Email Security Gateway need...
What is your primary use case for Barracuda Sentinel?
My main use case for Barracuda Email Security Gateway is to protect our email and our email users, protecting our business from most of the sophisticated attacks like phishing attacks and spam. We ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Barracuda Spam and Virus Firewall, Barracuda Sentinel
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Foot Lcoker, Xerox, Liberty Mutual, Mattel, Boston Scientific
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Abnormal Security vs. Barracuda Email Security Gateway and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.