No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall vs Zyxel Unified Security Gateway comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (21st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (9th), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (19th), IoT Security (6th), WAN Edge (10th)
Zyxel Unified Security Gateway
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
4.9
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Unified Threat Management (UTM) (11th)
 

Featured Reviews

Jennifer  Bernice - PeerSpot reviewer
Dotnet Developer at Kohl's
Centralized firewall management has saved time and improved network security across locations
Barracuda CloudGen Firewall could be improved as it has a very high learning curve. It is definitely not a one and done firewall, as a one and done firewall requires a lot of dedicated time to get the machine running the way you want. To improve Barracuda CloudGen Firewall, there should be a lot of tutorials and videos online to help new users. Multiple ways to configure for the same service or feature takes time to determine your customized build. In addition to previous points, the interface can sometimes be clunky when trying to determine how it is organized or arranged.
reviewer2399337 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales and technical consultant at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
User has benefited from stable performance and effective completion of security tasks
I use it mostly for VPN and for some firewall solutions When considering my main use case with VPN, I can say that I got the Zyxel Unified Security Gateway, and it works fine. However, we are thinking about using a different solution based on open source because Zyxel Unified Security Gateway…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Scalability is always good because the company wants to be able to handle large customers."
"When you are sending information to an external email address, Barracuda can warn you when you are trying to access a private or personal email, or trying to upload information and not allow you to do that."
"Scalability is good - there are many different models and you can pretty much go from small shop to giant ISP."
"The ability to be deployed and supported remotely is valuable."
"Live monitoring of what is happening inside and on the interfaces, either ingress or egress."
"It provides a lot of functionality adhering to the current trends."
"Its stability is great."
"It has offered improved network monitoring and intrusion prevention which we otherwise had none of, and the office was under constant spamming by Chinese and Russian IP sub-nets and at one time the exchange server was covertly hijacked as an SMTP relay, and the NG gateways helped mitigate these issues."
"This is a capable appliance and the standard features work well for us."
"The Zyxel Unified Security Gateway solution is stable and does its job effectively."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from web filtering, malware protection, and antivirus."
"The solution can scale well."
"The cost is very low."
 

Cons

"I would like to see a more user-friendly dashboard and an easier interface."
"However, the solution isn’t perfect. It sometimes lets through emails incorrectlycategorized as safe but malicious. I believe the tool could be improved by incorporating artificial intelligence to enhance its email analysis capabilities, though I’m unsure if this feature is currently available."
"Technical support used to be at a very high level but it is now a bit less so."
"However, when I worked on Barracuda CloudGen Firewall, the option towards configuring the use cases was quite limited."
"It would be better if they had a trace and trap feature. It's hard for me to say anything bad about Barracuda. This is because we had a firewall go down in the town of Kirkland Lake, and it was a blown-out port, and they had an instant replacement."
"I was a long-time strong fan of this product, but unfortunately, I will change the vendor for another one."
"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."
"From a performance and scaling perspective, I have seen that performance can be impacted when all security features are enabled."
"Although manageable, the user interface is a little bit slow and could be improved. The advanced UI allows me to do whatever I want, but this is where the issue of speed exists."
"The integration capability is quite challenging. The system is very complicated, and many features are hidden."
"I have never seen it in any company that I've worked with before, and I would advise other companies not to buy it."
"The product has some scalability and data management issues where improvements are required."
"Sometimes it reboots when you least expect it, and that's the main issue."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a product with a very transparent model of licensing. In the sense of hidden expenses, they do not exist with this model. ​"
"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."
"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."
"We pay around 150 to 200 Euros per year and there are no additional costs."
"In general, it tends to be cheaper than most solutions."
"It's not the most expensive, but it's certainly not cheap."
"The platform is inexpensive compared to other vendors."
"The pricing is very cheap compared to Cisco ASA, which we used before, and compared to Palo Alto Networks and Fortinet. Barracuda has different solutions for different people. So for my SMB-level infrastructure, Barracuda has given me a proper solution that is half of the price of Palo Alto or Fortinet."
"The price of Zyxel Unified Security Gateway is good compared to other similar products in the market."
"This gateway is pretty cheap."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Firewalls solutions are best for your needs.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
18%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise13
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda CloudGen Firewall?
Although I am not directly involved in that particular segment, from what I understood from the pricing information, it is a very cost-effective solution compared with other well-known firewall ven...
What needs improvement with Barracuda CloudGen Firewall?
When I consider what I dislike about Barracuda CloudGen Firewall, there are a lot of competitors in the market. Next-gen firewalls offer a lot of capabilities. From a capability standpoint, competi...
What is your primary use case for Barracuda CloudGen Firewall?
I use Barracuda CloudGen Firewall for multiple functionalities. One function is an email security gateway. It also acts for network security protection, network security and threat protection, whic...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?
I cannot definitively comment on whether Zyxel Unified Security Gateway is an affordable product as I haven't done comparisons with other solutions. When our license expires, we plan to explore ope...
What needs improvement with Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?
The integration capability is quite challenging. The system is very complicated, and many features are hidden. I'm looking for something new that is slightly simpler. Regarding user experience, the...
What is your primary use case for Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?
I use it mostly for VPN and for some firewall solutions. When considering my main use case with VPN, I can say that I got the Zyxel Unified Security Gateway, and it works fine. However, we are thin...
 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda CloudGen Firewall vs. Zyxel Unified Security Gateway and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.