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Barracuda CloudGen Firewall vs Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.1
Barracuda CloudGen Firewall enhances network security and performance with effective spam blocking, easy maintenance, and free upgrade options.
Sentiment score
5.6
Determining ROI from Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is challenging due to package inclusion and unclear financial benefits.
As a Microsoft partner, we receive significant discounts, making the solution affordable for us.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.3
Barracuda CloudGen Firewall's customer service is accessible and knowledgeable, though support quality varies due to language and documentation issues.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Defender's customer service receives mixed reviews, highlighting inconsistent support and varying effectiveness in technical assistance.
Barracuda's partner support is better than the majority, and it stands out as one of their strengths.
The overall security has been satisfactory, with no breaches.
The technical support from Barracuda is very good.
They are sometimes responsive, however, often issues cannot be reproduced on their end, making it challenging.
The support we receive from Microsoft is declining, and for example, after taking advanced support, we have not received satisfactory answers.
My team raised multiple support tickets for the product, and we were able to get responses from Microsoft support team.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Barracuda CloudGen Firewall offers excellent scalability and management for various business sizes, though future capacity planning is advised.
Sentiment score
8.4
Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is praised for its high scalability and seamless integration, receiving consistently high user ratings.
When positioning into customers, some larger enterprise customers tend to move towards one of the top three: either Cisco, Fortinet, or Palo Alto.
It is scalable; I evaluated the product and decided to use Defender on over 700 of our company servers.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is highly reliable and stable, with effective support and improved performance, despite minor bugs and past issues.
Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Defender is rated highly stable with 99% availability, despite minor portal, compatibility, logging, and memory issues.
We have very few issues with Barracuda Firewall, even in the case of zero-day vulnerabilities.
Version 8.0 had issues, but the newer version 9.0 seems to have improved performance regarding these issues.
There are compatibility issues occasionally arising with false positives when other security tools are not whitelisted in Microsoft Defender.
It is very resource-intensive, consuming a lot of memory and CPU.
I would rate the overall stability as an eight.
 

Room For Improvement

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall suffers from complex usability, unclear manuals, limited reporting, challenging licensing, high pricing, and VPN issues.
Microsoft Defender needs improvements in accuracy, customization, integration, resource efficiency, macOS support, user-friendliness, and affordability.
Integration with AI would be helpful as modern attacks often utilize AI.
It would be beneficial to merge the existing application policy with the main policy into a single unified policy to improve manageability.
Some licensing aspects are challenging; for example, if you're using an active-passive setup, you have to license both firewalls.
This scoring should be for specific industries as well. If I belong to the healthcare industry using Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management, it should provide me with a risk score and show how I fare against the risk score of my industry.
A vulnerability I patch within 15 minutes takes 24 additional hours for an update.
The product is not stable; it often uses excessive memory and CPU, which makes it slow.
 

Setup Cost

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is cost-effective with transparent licensing, offering significant savings and includes a four-year replacement program.
Microsoft Defender offers varying pricing; complex licensing may incur additional costs, but security benefits can justify the investment.
The license price of Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is lower than others, and maintenance or support is included.
It is neither the cheapest nor the most expensive option available.
Overall, every organization wishes for cheaper options, but we look at the security side as well, so we are good for now.
For non-partners, however, the cost could be seen as higher, between seven to ten.
The pricing is reasonable, and it's included in the whole Microsoft E5 bundle, so it's all-inclusive.
 

Valuable Features

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall offers robust security and seamless integration, ideal for efficient network management with advanced features and centralized control.
Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management excels in integration, compliance, risk prioritization, and real-time assessments, enhancing security across diverse environments.
This integration helps secure our data and applications from attackers trying to gain access and detect malicious activity.
The most valuable features of Barracuda CloudGen Firewall include antivirus protection, anti-DDoS, and IPS.
The most valuable features of Barracuda CloudGen Firewall are its next-generation capabilities such as URL filtering and application control.
The main advantage of Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is that it can locate and prevent most threats even when the endpoints are not connected to the corporate network, as long as the internet is available.
The most valuable aspect is the kind of assessment results I get, and the recommendations provided in Microsoft products really help in taking care of the resources.
The integration with Sentinel has been one of the most valuable features for my organization.
 

Categories and Ranking

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
19th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (27th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (11th), IoT Security (6th), WAN Edge (11th)
Microsoft Defender Vulnerab...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (12th), Microsoft Security Suite (21st), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is 0.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

RobertSmith15 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
NaySan @ Suraj Verma - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides actionable vulnerability insights and recommendations with notable efficiency
They may need to improve the portal refresh rate for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management because it takes time for recommendations to disappear after mitigation; sometimes, it takes one week, when it should ideally take only one to two hours. Overall, everything is good with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management, but the portal refresh rate can take up to seven days in some cases and three or four days in others to reflect changes.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Retailer
8%
Government
7%
Construction Company
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Barracuda CloudGen Firewall?
The encryption and the security standards are valuable.
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.
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 improved. The initial setup can also be complex because it involves navigating d...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
I would rate the price as a three for us due to the partnership discounts. For non-partners, however, the cost could be seen as higher, between seven to ten.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
I have not thought about improvements for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management as of now, but this is typically an operational maintenance process. The operational maintenance process refers...
 

Also Known As

Barracuda NextGen Firewall, Barracuda CloudGen Firewalls
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
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Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda CloudGen Firewall vs. Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.