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AppRiver Email Security vs Barracuda Email Protection comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 19, 2026

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

AppRiver Email Security
Ranking in Email Security
37th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Barracuda Email Protection
Ranking in Email Security
9th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (3rd), Security Incident Response (9th), Office 365 Protection (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of AppRiver Email Security is 0.7%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Barracuda Email Protection is 2.6%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Barracuda Email Protection2.6%
AppRiver Email Security0.7%
Other96.7%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

John Zupancic - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President / Branch Manager / Senior Technician at Aperion Information Technologies, Inc.
Pricing that is competitive, excellent technical support, and email security
They do a better job of distinguishing between what's real and what's not than most of the other solutions we've tried. They are very easy to use. We don't have as many problems with email security. They have some areas that could be improved. For example, we also use Zix email Encryption for email encryption, which was clunky and could be improved, but the email security itself has been excellent.
Xavie Simons - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Development Manager at Procter & Gamble
Improved email security has reduced spam, simplified encrypted mail, and strengthened user trust
The best features Barracuda Email Protection offers include good spam filtering and very good sandboxing of all links, as well as good encryption. It also has integrated logging for user management of their own spam. It has better filtering technology, so few are false positives as well, with excellent anti-spam engines and logging. It is extremely easy to install, configure, and set up, and there is excellent message tracking for folks that say they have not received an email they were expecting. Integrated logging and user management make my daily work easier because it is very easy to log in and to manage this tool, hence making it a very good tool for email protection. It also has excellent, easy-to-add designated users as site administrators, and it is competitively priced. It has a user-friendly portal, strong cloud-based features, and no additional maintenance cost, along with responsive support. Barracuda Email Protection has positively impacted my organization by handling encryption better than any other tool I have used before, which has increased our email protection significantly. Our security has also increased from forty percent to sixty-five percent, especially when dealing with all the threats that come through emails. It has been a great tool because we can handle email delays and delays on file scanning. When our partners are happy, we are very happy, and it has helped us have less time chasing bad emails. The fast implementation of encrypted mail keeps employees working with less interruption since they are happy, satisfied, and secure.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"They are very easy to use."
"It's easy to use and user-friendly. Users can also easily release spam emails."
"They do a better job of distinguishing between what's real and what's not than most of the other solutions we've tried."
"The most valuable aspect includes attempts to spoof or compromise domains from external sources."
"The product is easy to deploy and maintain."
"The main benefits Barracuda Email Protection provides for us are saving time and money because we don't run into any kind of attack or disruption in the mail service that we may face, including ransomware attacks."
"We check the reports sometimes to see that frequent attacks and malicious emails are being blocked by the solution."
"Barracuda Email Protection has positively impacted our organization because we rely on it to stop spear-phishing and phishing overall, enabling us to conduct our business securely."
"I'm quite satisfied with the graphical user interface for Barracuda products."
"The beauty of Barracuda Email Protection is that it is easy to manage and simple to deploy."
"We now have a secondary backup of Office 365 that's much easier to retrieve compared to Microsoft. If someone deletes something in Office 365, we can get it back within Office 365, but it's difficult. Barracuda is much easier. There is a lot less management needed using Barracuda. The management becomes much easier for Office 365 and it's no longer on-prem, so there are fewer hours managing on-prem devices, servers, and things of that nature. We don't have network appliances anymore for the backup of our information."
 

Cons

"It needs to make sure that the application is up to date with new attacks. They should also send us the demo or introductions for their new incoming features."
"Email security checks contain a small number of false positives."
"Technical support is no longer as good as it once was."
"The licensing and pricing need to be improved."
"I wish the interface of Barracuda Email Protection could have worked in a more responsive way, as sometimes I feel it is slow or laggy when I try to interact with it."
"They can still improve."
"There is room for improvement, particularly in reaching out to technical support during deployment."
"The solution's reporting mechanism is a little poor and could be improved."
"I would like to see better integration with other products."
"Barracuda Email Protection can be improved by enhancing the reporting feature."
"The platform's pricing needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I can rate it five out of ten because there are different platforms that also offer the same services for lower prices. But AppRiver is more flexible."
"They're fairly inexpensive, but they're right in the ballpark of most of the other online products like that."
"We didn't have to pay a lot for the solution because we got it from a good vendor with a good user volume."
"We pay annually. They never charged us for anything else. And they were quite a bit under that $20,000 mark. It was $19,074. And they've been pretty good about not skyrocketing the price or anything like that. It has gone up. It's gone up to $24,000 in 2020."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"Price-wise, this product is middle-of-the-road."
"Despite a list price possibly around $40 per user, their market price allows customers to easily buy the solution."
"Barracuda licensing model is good."
"The price is similar to that of Microsoft 365."
"The price of Barracuda Essentials is better than some of the competing products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Retailer
11%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about Barracuda Email Protection?
Barracuda Email Protection is easy to deploy and maintain. It doesn't require a specialized resource to manage this tool.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda Email Protection?
I would say the price for Barracuda Email Protection is very nice; the solution is not expensive.
What needs improvement with Barracuda Email Protection?
Considering it integrates with Azure, I would like to be able to effectively set up policies where people are by default included in certain settings. For instance, for email quarantine, I can't se...
 

Also Known As

AppRiver Advanced Email Security
Barracuda Essentials, Barracuda Forensics and Incident Response
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

IHMC
ACT Government, Acumen Group, AGIP, Delta Dental Plans Association, Desai/Nasr Consulting Engineers, Inc., Equinox Information Systems
Find out what your peers are saying about AppRiver Email Security vs. Barracuda Email Protection and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.