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Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials) vs N-able Cove Data Protection comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024

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 Email Gateway Def...
Ranking in Cloud Backup
40th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
N-able Cove Data Protection
Ranking in Cloud Backup
17th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (30th), SaaS Backup (8th), MSP Backup (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Cloud Backup category, the mindshare of Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials) is 0.2%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of N-able Cove Data Protection is 2.5%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Backup
 

Featured Reviews

Alex Clerici - PeerSpot reviewer
Valuable, reliable, and offers a comprehensive dashboard
Setting up Barracuda was moderately complex and it took about an hour with initial support from Barracuda engineers. While the deployment process wasn't overly complicated, having some knowledge about Barracuda or assistance from an engineer is advisable, especially when dealing with customer architectures. Once set up, ongoing support wasn't necessary, making it a relatively straightforward process.
Per MøllerJacobsen - PeerSpot reviewer
Delivers cost-effective data backup with room for search improvements
The challenges I face especially are those I've mentioned, that finding some specific data in N-able Cove Data Protection is not as easy as it is in some other systems. You cannot just search for something—you need to know where it was and when it was there to restore it, plus it would be nice to take out data from Microsoft 365 in some portable format, which is currently not an option. I would like to extract the data from Microsoft 365 in a portable format, something like a database or maybe just to take out a PST file or SharePoint and Teams files to the file system. Especially in these times, where we discuss potential risks with the Microsoft cloud for European companies, companies would want to know how to access their data from the backup if they suddenly don't have a tenant. I believe there should be the ability to take out data from Microsoft 365 in a portable format. I know that Cohesity is working on making such a thing. It's not there yet; I asked last week for something for forensics, and the support team said it's not possible yet, but I know from our technical account manager they are working on some solutions.

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 functionality is their robust blocking feature, along with fundamental rules for our environment."
"If a customer faces an email security issue, we'll do some initial troubleshooting. If the issue isn't resolved, we work with the Barracuda team for further assistance."
"It makes it easier for customers to access emails during security incidents."
"I find Barracuda Essentials' dashboard incredibly valuable as it provides everything I need at a glance."
"The integration of N-able Cove Data Protection into our existing infrastructure is easy."
"The monitoring makes it very easy to check whether a backup has gone bad."
"The most valuable feature by far is the Virtual Disaster Recovery. On top of that is the bare-metal recovery. The recovery options that we have are great. We have tested the Virtual Disaster Recovery and the bare-metal recovery in just about any scenario you can think of. We have even restored bare metal, a full server, to a laptop, and had full functionality. It's just insane how well it works and how simple it is. It does most of the work for you."
"It provides a single dashboard for all types of data protection, we monitor everything through a single dashboard. It simplifies everything overall. It allows us to see everything, whether passing or failing any issues, any problems through a single pane of glass that we don't have to click through or adjust as we go forward."
"I know I won't have an issue if the data is there. The reliability and the confidence that we have is amazing. It doesn't matter. We've had customers have ransomware. We've had customers that have had corruption. We've had customers that have had employees destroy their data. As long as it's been backed up, I know that I can get it back and I know I have nothing to worry about. Our confidence level is very high."
"It's extremely important that Cove provides cloud-based data protection with backup, disaster recovery, and archiving. That is a necessity for my insurance. As an IT company, my insurance would cost more if my backups were not offsite and off-network."
"It's their cloud, it's their storage. I don't have to buy a space on Amazon or Google's cloud and then use their software to push it. That works well for me. This way, I don't have to worry about another option or the opportunity that there might be a credential leak."
"We use a neat feature called VDR status, Virtual Disaster Recovery status. It only works on servers... It's automated. Once or twice a month it will virtually mount the backup and provide a screenshot and advise whether or not there have been any errors."
 

Cons

"Enhancements are required on the data transmission front."
"There Is room for improvement in the quarantine and user interface."
"Sometimes there are minor issues that can be frustrating, but not consistently bad."
"They could implement scheduled reporting in the product."
"We would like to have better reporting."
"I have some issues with the agent failing on workstations. I've had to completely uninstall several of them, delete everything, and start over to get them to work."
"The recovery side, the restore side, could be a little more optimized."
"We don't use the solution’s automated recovery testing because SolarWinds made me cross. When they released it, I went, "Oh, well, that's quite good." Because if you use the system, then it supposedly spins up, and on the portal, it gives you a screenshot of the booted device. So, I phoned up, and I said, "Oh, that's really quite cool. How much is that?" They said, "No, no, no. It's all included in your license." I went, "Okay then," and went and deployed it on about half the fleet. One of the options that our customers have is they can pay us a small amount every month for us to test the recovery just to prove that it's viable, and I thought, "Well, this will do that for us. Nice." Then, in the next invoice, we got a charge for it. While It was not a huge amount, I took offense at the fact that we were told that it would be a no extra cost option that was part of our license, but it turns out that it's chargeable. Therefore, we haven't used it since."
"The reporting feature and functionality need improvement. We would like to see a little bit more detailed reporting that offers more CEO or C-level focused reporting options."
"The only area that needs improvement is that it is a little bit difficult when you get into virtual machines. The initial deployment of Cove is a little tedious, not for standard machines, but when you get into specialty stuff, like Hyper-V."
"This solution is not very good for image restores, mainly just files. The solution also does not allow you to enable or disable backups. Sometimes, our users will connect via mobile device and it will use their data to perform the backup. If they were able to enable and disable the backup, they would not have this issue."
"There aren’t any challenges. Regarding the additional features, Cove is limited to disaster recovery with Azure. It would be great to make disaster recovery compatible with AWS."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is cheaper compared to other products."
"The product's price is higher than other vendors."
"The cost is around ten dollars per workstation a month and that includes a certain amount of data."
"When you have a device/appliance on the site quite a lot of the other enterprise class backup people insist that you have their appliance, which is frankly offensively expensive. Because when you pry the top off, it's just a standard 19-inch tin box with a standard Intel I5 in it, some RAM, and a hard drive. Then, you go, "Why have they just charged me 5,500 quid for a box, which I could have probably build for under 500." Whereas, with the SolarWinds product, they don't have that. The backup appliances that we have onsite are just plain cooking PCs. We can build our own machines, which is reflected in the price that we can offer a customer."
"Cove only takes the data you have on the physical server. I can back that up for long periods of time, and I don't accrue high charges to have the data in the cloud. It stays at one rate. This allows me to forecast payment for the next one or two years and show clients their estimated growth."
"I believe that the price is very reasonable in comparison to other options. It is cheaper than both Redstor and Acronis and, since we are now using our own on-premise cloud, there is absolutely no comparison since we have unlimited storage rather than paying per gigabyte used for their onsite storage. We are currently able to backup fifty computers for the same price that we use to backup five computers."
"The pricing of SolarWinds seems to be fair compared to the rest of the industry."
"The price isn't extreme, but I'd love to pay less."
"The only option I would like to see is an adjustable scale. Right now we have 250 seats and we're not using all of them. It would be nice to be able to save that little bit of money by being able to buy just what we need."
"N-able Cove Data Protection is an averagely-priced product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Real Estate/Law Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials)?
If a customer faces an email security issue, we'll do some initial troubleshooting. If the issue isn't resolved, we work with the Barracuda team for further assistance.
What needs improvement with Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials)?
The features and product itself are good. Sometimes there are minor issues that can be frustrating, but not consistently bad.
What do you like most about N-able Backup?
The initial setup of N-able Cove Data Protection was very easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for N-able Backup?
In terms of pricing, N-able Cove Data Protection is neither cheap nor expensive compared to other competitors.
What needs improvement with N-able Backup?
The challenges I face especially are those I've mentioned, that finding some specific data in N-able Cove Data Protection is not as easy as it is in some other systems. You cannot just search for s...
 

Also Known As

No data available
N-able Backup, SolarWinds Backup, SolarWinds MSP Backup & Recovery, SolarWinds MSP Backup
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Computer Depot, Leading Edge Computers, IT Logic Australia
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials) vs. N-able Cove Data Protection and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,533 professionals have used our research since 2012.