Barracuda CloudGen Firewall vs Menlo Secure comparison

Barracuda Networks and Menlo Security are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Barracuda Networks is ranked #27 with an average rating of 8.3, while Menlo Security is ranked #52. Barracuda Networks holds a 0.5% mindshare in Firewalls, compared to Menlo Security’s 0.1% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Barracuda Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Menlo Security users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall and Menlo Secure compete in the network security category. Menlo Secure has the upper hand in web content security while Barracuda offers comprehensive network protection.

Features: Barracuda CloudGen Firewall users value its advanced threat protection, network visibility, and policy management. Menlo Secure users prioritize its web isolation capabilities, protection against malware, and phishing prevention. Menlo Secure’s emphasis is on web content security whereas Barracuda provides an all-around network security.

Room for Improvement: Barracuda CloudGen Firewall could use improvements in VPN capabilities, simpler configuration, and better user interface. Menlo Secure would benefit from better integration with other tools, enhanced reporting, and expanded threat intelligence. Targeted improvements are needed for both products, focusing on user-specific requirements.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Barracuda CloudGen Firewall requires technical expertise for deployment but is generally considered straightforward. Customer service is positive. Menlo Secure offers an easier deployment process with very responsive support, catering well to users with varying expertise levels.

Pricing and ROI: Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is seen as cost-effective with a strong long-term ROI. Menlo Secure’s higher pricing reflects its specialized features, providing significant value for its unique security capabilities. Users consider Barracuda a good investment with a lower initial cost.

To learn more, read our detailed Barracuda CloudGen Firewall vs. Menlo Secure Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall vs. Menlo Secure

April 2025

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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

Fortinet FortiGate

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.4%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Menlo Secure is 0.1%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls

Featured Reviews

EhabAli

Sr. Cybersecurity Solutions Architect at BMB

Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable

In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.

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RobertSmith15

Product Manager - Cyber Security at M247 Ltd Miami

Ensures data security with advanced intrusion prevention and 24/7 monitoring

I rate the initial setup as ten out of ten. It is straightforward to set up a CloudGen file, taking a couple of hours. Once we have the configuration agreed with the customer, the setup and onboarding are completed within a few hours. We receive the box from Barracuda or from our stores, pre-stage it into our network for initial configuration and Soak testing to ensure functionality. The customer can install it at their location, or we do it on their behalf. We run the firewall in simulation mode to observe traffic and ensure service transition is effective. After confirming functionality with the customer, we transition to a live service.

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Olivier DALOY

Group Information Systems Security Director - CISO at Faurecia

Secures users wherever they are and enable us to inspect SSL traffic, but we encountered too many issues

The solution should have no impact but it does have a bit of impact on end-users. For example, we encountered some issues in the downloads that took longer than they did without using Menlo. That is clearly not transparent for users. We expected not to have any latency when downloading anything from the internet with Menlo compared to without Menlo. We are now transitioning to another solution. The main reason for that is that managing all of the exceptions and troubleshooting all of the issues our users have had connecting to the internet has become too significant in terms of workload, compared to what we hope we will have with another solution. In other words, we hope to get the same level of protection, while reducing the number of visible bugs, issues, latencies, impacts on performance, et cetera, that we have today with Menlo. We already solved most of them, but we still have too many such instances of issues with Menlo, even though it is protecting us for sure. The weak point of the solution is that it has consumed far too much of my team's time, taking them away from operations and projects and design. It took far too much time to implement it and get rid of all of the live issues that we encountered when our users started using the solution. The good point is that I'm sure it is protecting us and it's probably protecting us more than any other solution, which is something I appreciate a lot as a CISO. But on the other hand, the number of issues reported by the users, and the amount of time that has been necessary for either my team or the infrastructure team to spend diagnosing, troubleshooting, and fixing the issues that we had with the solution was too much. And that doesn't include the need to still use our previous solution, Blue Coat, that we have kept active so that whatever is not compatible or doesn't work with Menlo, can be handled by that other solution. It is far too demanding in terms of effort and workload and even cost, at the end of the day. That is why we decided to transition to another solution. If we had known in the beginning that we would not be able to get rid of Blue Coat, we probably would not have chosen Menlo because we were planning to replace Blue Coat with something that was at least able to do the same and more. We discovered that it was able to do more but it was not able to replace it, which is an issue. It is not only a matter of cost but is also a matter of not being able to reduce the number of partners that you have to deal with. In addition, they could enhance the ability to troubleshoot. Whenever a connection going through Menlo fails for any reason, being able to troubleshoot what the configuration of Menlo should be to allow it through would help, as would knowing what level of additional risk we would be taking with that configuration.

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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 features of Fortinet FortiGate are it is one of the most mature firewalls in the UTM bundle."

"We use a southern institution that's audited for IT security and the reporting that automatically comes off the unit makes it much easier to meet compliance standards and makes it easier as far as the amount of time that has to be spent to compile that information. If you get your reporting set up correctly when you initially set it up, you just select the one you want and hit print. The auditing trail on it is the best feature."

"The inspection and web security features are most valuable."

"The dashboard I have found the most valuable in Fortinet FortiGate."

"It has very easy management and an amazing ETM configuration."

"It's very fast and easy to configure."

"Fortinet FortiGate has many valuable features, such as IDS, and intrusion detection. It has security features that are in part with the technologies that are available in the market."

"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and the UI. It has always provided me with what I needed. I have no need for additional costs that other solutions have, such as Sophos."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"Live monitoring of what is happening inside and on the interfaces, either ingress or egress."

"The most valuable features of Barracuda CloudGen Firewall include antivirus protection, anti-DDoS, and IPS."

"I would most definitely recommend this solution to other people."

"What I like best about this product are the support and the features."

"Its stability and SD-WAN features are the most valuable."

"Barracuda is very prompt at blocking any new spam which comes out."

"Scalability is good; the company wants to be able to handle large customers."

"Their GPS possibilities and the security that it has, especially the SD-WAN functionality, is very good."

More Barracuda CloudGen Firewall pros

"Accessing the internet with a proxy from anywhere is the most valuable feature. It ensures that users are only able to browse legitimate websites. If they happen to go to a legitimate website with a malicious payload, the isolation feature will take care of that."

"The fact that it is a cloud proxy solution is another feature we like. For example, if you acquire a new company, you can use it to protect that new company without the need to install anything physically on their networks."

"For us, the primary goal is protection on the web, and that's extremely important. We're not using any of the other services at this time. The web part is key to the success of the organization. It gives us the ability to protect. It can isolate. It opens the session in an isolated format so that the code isn't running locally. It is running over in the Menlo environment, not in ours. It is not running on the local computer, whereas if you were to go to a normal website, it would run Java or something else on the local machine and potentially execute the malicious code locally. So, it does give us that level of protection."

"It has reduced security events to follow up on. While it is not 100%, there has been probably a 90% or more reduction. We were getting hit left, right, and center constantly from people browsing the Internet and hitting bad websites. It was not just bad websites that were stood up to be malicious, but good sites that were compromised."

Cons

"Lacks training for new features."

"Vulnerability scanning could be improved."

"The reports are very basic."

"The setup is pretty complex and not easy to implement."

"The only issue that I have is with FortiNAC. The firewall is fine, but the FortiNAC interface is a little bit too jumbled or too complicated, not as straightforward as it is on the Fortinet FortiGate firewall and FortiAnalyzer."

"The logging details need to be improved."

"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having a frequent ask questions(FAQ) area for people to receive quick answers to popular questions. Additionally, it would be beneficial to have an SMS notification feature. For example, if you cannot access your email you could receive an SMS message."

"The reporting in Fortinet FortiGate could improve. Customers are having to purchase additional reporting components. When I have used the Sophos solution it is a complete solution, in Fortinet FortiGate you have to use additional tools to have the features needed."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"If you experience an attack it can take a very long time to find a solution."

"The analytics are weak."

"While using Barracuda CloudGen Firewall, we encounter issues with VPN profiles for Windows."

"If you have another brand of VPN where you have to put an SSL VPN between two devices, Barracuda doesn't support that at a certain point. You can't actually build the VPN between Barracuda and a different device of a different brand."

"We would like to see a solution that is focused on container deployment, which is very important right now."

"The technical manuals, at times, have images that don't match the actual screens and are not always as clear as they could be on the configuration."

"When you login from some sources, there is no feature in this box which can log you out after a certain timeout."

"There could be improvements in licensing."

More Barracuda CloudGen Firewall cons

"In the best of all worlds, we wouldn't have to make any exceptions. However, that is a big ask because a lot of that depends on how websites are constructed. For example, there are some very complex, application-oriented sites that we end up making exceptions for. It is really not that big an issue for us to make the exceptions. We feel like we are doing that without a huge impact on our security posture, but we do have to make some exceptions for complex sites, e.g., mostly SaaS-type sites and applications."

"We are now transitioning to another solution. The main reason for that is that managing all of the exceptions and troubleshooting all of the issues our users have had connecting to the internet has become too significant in terms of workload, compared to what we hope we will have with another solution."

"Currently, I don't have a good way to see which of my rules are being used in the access control lists. I have numerous entries, but are they all still needed? A report that would show me my list of who is allowed and whether we're actually using it would be useful because I can then go clean up my list. It would be easier to manage. We would eliminate the vulnerability of unused services."

"The user monitoring could still be improved."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It was probably about $2,500 per firewall. It was all included. It included support, services, threat management software, and 24/7 FortiCare on it. Cisco products are more expensive."

"The main reason we chose Fortinet FortiGate was that the price was better than the competition."

"They are very competitive, but we like to have the factory warranty taken care of."

"When you look at these end security systems and firewalls, these firewalls even five years ago were $50,000 or perhaps $25,000 to implement in some types of customer sites. Now we're talking about tools that are $1,000. In this case, it might have been $500 or something like that."

"The pricing for this solution is good."

"The price for the Fortinet FortiGate is reasonable. Secure SD-WAN is free of charge. If you have their firewall, it's free of charge. It's very tempting."

"The price is fine."

"It's not the cheapest, but it's value for money. Given everything we've got out of it: the DMZ port, the VPN, and the high availability, it's a pretty reasonable price."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"Pricing and licensing are fine. It's worth the value because every four years, if I buy any other product, I have to replace my hardware. But with Barracuda I get a free hardware upgrade. Today I'm using Xbox. After four years I can take another Xbox or a Ybox."

"We pay around 150 to 200 Euros per year and there are no additional costs."

"The 600 series is about USD $10,000 a year and the 80 is USD $400 a year."

"Its licensing is on a yearly basis. There is an upfront purchase price, and there is also an annual maintenance fee. There are no additional fees."

"When the corporation purchases something, it follows a request-for-proposal process and the best price wins. So, I think Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is reasonably priced, though I’m not sure of the exact amount"

"We evaluated a lot of different options. We concluded that Barracuda NG Firewall provided the most features for an exemplary price. "

"The product is a bit cheaper than some solutions."

"The solution costs more than 800 Euros to purchase an F18, which is an entry model, and then another 500 Euros for instant replacement, and 500 Euros for energized updates. The total package would be around 1,900 Euros for five years license and all updates for an entry model."

More Barracuda CloudGen Firewall pricing and cost advice

"We save a ton of money and time. Previously, the numerous hits that we were receiving from our security tools, prior to implementing them, had to all be chased down, dispositioned, and endpoints had to be reimaged. It was just a ton of effort to do all that. That is where the savings from time and money come in."

"The solution is expensive. It's more expensive than the solution I previously used. Compared with the other cloud-based solutions, it's very competitive."

"It is appropriately priced for what they're doing for us. Considering the protection provided, I feel their pricing is spot-on."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

20%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Government

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?

When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...

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What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?

From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...

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What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?

As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...

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What do you like most about Barracuda CloudGen Firewall?

The encryption and the security standards are valuable.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda CloudGen Firewall?

The license price of Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is lower than others, and maintenance or support is included.

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What needs improvement with Barracuda CloudGen Firewall?

The interface of Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is not as user-friendly as others. It is a bit complicated and could be ...

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Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 21% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

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OPNsense vs Barracuda CloudGen Firewall

Compared 12% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Barracuda CloudGen Firewall

Compared 10% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Barracuda CloudGen Firewall

Compared 9% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Barracuda CloudGen Firewall

Compared 8% of the time

Azure Firewall vs Barracuda CloudGen Firewall

Compared 8% of the time

More Barracuda CloudGen Firewall Competitors

Cisco Umbrella vs Menlo Secure

Compared 22% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Menlo Secure

Compared 18% of the time

Prisma Access Browser vs Menlo Secure

Compared 15% of the time

Symantec Endpoint Security vs Menlo Secure

Compared 12% of the time

Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway vs Menlo Secure

Compared 12% of the time

More Menlo Secure Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

May 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall

May 2025

Download Barracuda CloudGen Firewall product report

Buyer's Guide

Menlo Secure

May 2025

Download Menlo Secure product report

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall

Barracuda NextGen Firewall, Barracuda CloudGen Firewalls

Menlo Security Web Security, Menlo Web Security

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate offers comprehensive network security and firewall protection across multiple locations. It effectively manages data traffic and secures environments with features like VPN, intrusion prevention, and UTM controls.

Organizations rely on Fortinet FortiGate for its robust integration with advanced security policies, ensuring significant protection for enterprises, cloud environments, and educational sectors. It facilitates network segmentation, application-level security, and authentication management, securing communication within and between locations such as branches and data centers. Its efficient SD-WAN and UTM features enable streamlined data management and enhanced threat protection capabilities. Users appreciate its centralized management, facilitating seamless operations across diverse environments.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?

VPN Capabilities: Ensure secure remote access for users and seamless site-to-site connections.
Intrusion Prevention System (IPS): Detect and prevent security threats and vulnerabilities.
Advanced Firewall: Offers robust firewalling with application control and web filtering.
SD-WAN: Optimizes application performance and enhances bandwidth management.
SSL VPN: Provides reliable and secure access for remote workers.

What benefits should users expect from Fortinet FortiGate?

High-performance Security: Delivers effective threat mitigation with high availability.
Centralized Management: Simplifies network operations with cloud-based management tools.
Detailed Analytics: Provides comprehensive insights into network activity and security threats.
Load Balancing: Ensures optimal resource distribution and traffic management.

Fortinet FortiGate is crucial in sectors like education, offering robust networks for secure data flow between campuses and facilitating remote learning. In enterprise environments, it allows efficient management of application traffic and security across multiple branches, while in the cloud, it seamlessly integrates with diverse platforms to enhance security infrastructure.

Fortinet

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is a comprehensive network security solution that provides advanced protection for organizations of all sizes. It offers next-generation firewall capabilities, including application control, intrusion prevention, and web filtering.

With its integrated VPN functionality, it ensures secure remote access for employees. CloudGen Firewall also includes advanced threat intelligence, leveraging real-time updates to detect and block emerging threats. Its centralized management console simplifies administration and provides visibility into network traffic.

CloudGen Firewall can easily adapt to changing business needs based on its scalable architecture.

Barracuda Networks

Menlo Security Secure Application Access

Menlo Security Secure Application Access makes zero trust access easy, giving users secure connectivity to private applications, including web and legacy applications. At the core of Secure Application Access is the Menlo Secure Cloud Browser, which fetches, secures and delivers the content for users.

In addition to providing simple-to-deploy, clientless ZTA, Secure Application Access and the Menlo Secure Cloud Browser protect applications from attacks such as session hijacking, cookie manipulation, and other tactics that employ protocol manipulation.

Secure Application Access protects applications from Internet threats and provides granular controls for added protection of the application and associated data. These security controls include Read-only/Read-write, Upload/download, Copy/paste, AV scanning, Sandboxing, and Data Loss Prevention.

Last Mile Data Protection

Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection identifies and prevents sensitive data from leaving your company by meticulously inspecting all file uploads and user input across browsing sessions. Leveraging the Secure Cloud Browser, users are protected from the internet and you can protect your organization from data loss with comprehensive traffic monitoring and controls. This approach addresses the growing concerns surrounding data leakage in the age of AI tools like ChatGPT.

By identifying sensitive data through file types, regular expressions, or predefined libraries, Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection empowers security teams to regulate data input into AI platforms and prevent unauthorized uploads. This capability provides crucial protection for intellectual property, PII, and other confidential information.

The solution leverages the Menlo Cloud Security Platform's visibility and control over traffic to reliably detect and prevent data leaks originating from both browser submission forms and non-browser traffic. With the ability to inspect encrypted web traffic, Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection enforces DLP policies consistently across all users and devices, ensuring comprehensive data protection.

Menlo Security

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya

ARZ, Bauer, CBCX Technologies, Diamant-groep, Eissmann Group Automotive, European Youth Olympics, Exalo Drilling, FineLine Technologies, Geocell, Grimaldi, Infront Sports & Media, Odlo, Schenker Deutschland AG, Tilak, Verbandsgeneinde Zell, Conservas El Cidacos S.A., Institute for Emergency Medicine and Medicine Management, Erwin Muller GmbH, Info-Tech: NGF is Champion, Schoellerbank, IZB Informatik-Zentrum, RHI AG, Berglandmilch, Antenne Bayern, Sanochemia

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall vs. Menlo Secure

April 2025

Free Report: Barracuda CloudGen Firewall vs. Menlo Secure

Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda CloudGen Firewall vs. Menlo Secure and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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