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AppRiver Email Security vs Barracuda Email Security Gateway comparison

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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

AppRiver Email Security
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (38th)
Barracuda Email Security Ga...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
DMARC Authentication Software (2nd), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Messaging and Collaboration solutions, they serve different purposes. AppRiver Email Security is designed for Email Security and holds a mindshare of 0.7%, down 0.8% compared to last year.
Barracuda Email Security Gateway, on the other hand, focuses on Secure Email Gateway (SEG), holds 9.7% mindshare, up 6.5% since last year.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AppRiver Email Security0.7%
Proofpoint Email Protection5.9%
Microsoft Defender for Office 3655.2%
Other88.2%
Email Security
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Barracuda Email Security Gateway9.7%
Proofpoint Email Protection18.0%
Mimecast Advanced Email Security14.1%
Other58.2%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

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.
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

"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."
"It's easy to use and user-friendly. Users can also easily release spam emails."
"The most valuable feature of the Barracuda Email Security Gateway is the cloud ATP functionality not available on the on-premise version. Most of the zero-day attacks can be mitigated with ATP. Additionally, the reporting functionality is good."
"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."
"The link protection and anti-phishing features are great."
"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."
"Barracuda Email Security Gateway has a good feature of email spooling, which acts as a first line of security."
"Overall, this is a good product with wonderful security capabilities and I definitely recommend it."
"By choosing Barracuda as our solution for filtering, year by year we have seen a big improvement in our environment with a significant reduction in the number of threats."
"The feature that sets Barracuda apart from other solutions is the Office 365 cloud-to-cloud backup."
 

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."
"Technical support is no longer as good as it once was."
"Email security checks contain a small number of false positives."
"Barracuda Email Security Gateway should include ATP in the next release."
"Solution requires regular checking to ensure it's 'keeping up' with spam."
"There is room for further integration with the wider platform."
"The reporting can be improved."
"Sometimes there are false positive emails coming through, so they should improve further on detection technologies and techniques."
"The solution should include an improvised anti-phishing feature, since it blocks certain genuine emails."
"My customers were sending OPT bulk emails and Barracuda Email Security Gateway was not able to handle it. We have to go with another different solution, such FortiMail for the task. We are implementing these combinations of the Barracuda and FortiGate, for email security. The FortiGate FortiMail security gateway we use to send only the bulk email, not for receiving emails."
"Barracuda has shown difficulty in providing us with the solutions we sought."
 

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."
"This is one of the major points for integrating this solution in any organization. Barracuda Email Security Gateway needs to make it a bit more tolerable for customers because it is increasing every year. They should create a plan for reducing the cost."
"The price of the solution should be reduced. The price in the USA is less than where we are. Our local distributor of the solution is manipulating the market."
"The price of Barracuda Email Security Gateway is approximately $17 per user annually."
"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 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."
"I rate the price of Barracuda Email Security Gateway a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Retailer
9%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business35
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise13
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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

AppRiver Advanced Email Security
Barracuda Spam and Virus Firewall, Barracuda Sentinel
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

IHMC
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 Proofpoint, Microsoft, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Email Security. Updated: August 2026.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.