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Barracuda Email Protection vs Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense 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 Protection
Ranking in Email Security
14th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (2nd), Office 365 Protection (5th)
Cisco Secure Email Threat D...
Ranking in Email Security
26th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Barracuda Email Protection is 3.1%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is 1.1%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

LeeMiles - PeerSpot reviewer
Very good threat protection, spam filtering, and cloud backups
Considering it integrates with Azure, I would like to be able to effectively set up policies where people are by default included in certain settings. For instance, for email quarantine, I can't set up a global setting. Users must go through an induction session where I guide them in configuring quarantine alerts rather than having default settings based on group membership. This seems like an oversight since they already use Active Directory details. They should assign policies based on group membership, which configures these settings by default.
Enrique-Diaz Jolly - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides comprehensive threat protection with suggestions for modernizing controls
I use the email gateway as the core of the email exchange between the Internet and our domain. The email gateway serves as the email exchanger The product offers protection, email security, anti-spam, and antivirus. It includes threat intelligence with advanced malware protection and many…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best feature of Barracuda Email Protection is that it provides protection for Microsoft 365."
"The most valuable features of Barracuda Essentials are it's a trusted name and is rated very high on review sites. It blocks high percentages of spam and junk email and it's in the cloud. They have hardware appliances, but this is in the cloud. The solution is very effective at blocking malware and blocking spam and this is what we are looking for. There's not a whole lot of complexity, you want a solution that is very good at blocking out all of the unwanted emails."
"The most valuable features are security and ease of use."
"I would rate the solution nine out of ten."
"The solution is straightforward to set up."
"The most valuable aspect includes attempts to spoof or compromise domains from external sources."
"We check the reports sometimes to see that frequent attacks and malicious emails are being blocked by the solution."
"Barracuda email protection is stable. I would give it a nine because of its strong cybersecurity features."
"The ability to see east-west traffic is its most valuable feature. Traditionally, email defense focuses on north-south, inbound-outbound, egress-ingress traffic. With Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox, it's able to quickly identify, track, tag, and categorize emails that are internal. That can typically give us visibility into if there's an internal compromised account (for example). Someone can then use that internal compromised account to email additional accounts with either malicious software or links, but internal within that Office tenant. Effectively, that email message never leaves the tenant. Any of the mail gateways really do not have any method or way of seeing this traffic since it's not leaving the environment."
"The product offers protection, email security, anti-spam, and antivirus."
"Cisco has a threat mechanism called cloud-based Talos, where all the threats are inbuilt."
"This solution is easy to use."
"Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox can handle a complete portfolio, which is required to protect any kind of attack coming from emails. However, it does not have advanced phishing, but it is available through Cisco. If you compare Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox with the competition, in the competition you have to have one or two solutions together to address the customer's requirement, whereas Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox is addressing everything, such as web domain and email protection. If there is any kind of challenge it will come across through email."
"Regarding stability, Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is very stable."
"The features and functionalities are much better than Microsoft's in-built Defender plan."
"On ease of use, it rates very high. It's something that I was able to get into without really looking at any documentation. I wanted to see what it felt like before I started looking at any documentation on how to use it, and it was very easy to use. It works very smoothly. The user experience is very intuitive. They did an amazing job on that."
 

Cons

"Barracuda Essentials can improve by continually adding more features."
"Considering it integrates with Azure, I would like to be able to effectively set up policies where people are by default included in certain settings."
"Barracuda Email Protection needs better reporting and more robust integration with security awareness training platforms and third-party solutions."
"The solution's reporting mechanism is a little poor and could be improved."
"Considering it integrates with Azure, I would like to be able to effectively set up policies where people are by default included in certain settings."
"The customer service and support could be improved if the support were available directly in Europe. Currently, the support is often managed from India, so we sometimes need to wait due to the time zone difference. It would be quicker and better if the support were provided by European staff."
"I would like to see better integration with other products."
"Two to three months back, we got fraudulent emails in which someone in the organization was being blamed."
"The product's complexity at times results in redundant rule sets that are difficult to untangle, highlighting the need for streamlined management systems and a more user-centric approach to system configuration."
"The physical appliance has been discontinued, although the platform still exists."
"From a technical point of view, Cisco is far behind in terms of cybersecurity, and it has to improve very much."
"The solution is a bit expensive."
"The tool gives false positives and it needs to be more accurate. I would like to see AI as a new feature."
"This solution could be improved by integration with Sandbox."
"Customers will benefit greatly from monthly billing because the majority of customers today use the cloud, be it Office 365, or Google Cloud."
"The behavioral analysis capability of Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is not particularly helpful for identifying new, evolving threats within my company, as it keeps flagging legitimate emails as malicious."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price-wise, this product is middle-of-the-road."
"The solution's pricing is moderate, where it is neither cheap nor expensive."
"Despite a list price possibly around $40 per user, their market price allows customers to easily buy the solution."
"We pay annually. They never charged us for anything else. And they were quite a bit under that $20,000 mark. It was $19,074. And they've been pretty good about not skyrocketing the price or anything like that. It has gone up. It's gone up to $24,000 in 2020."
"The product is expensive."
"The price of Barracuda Essentials is better than some of the competing products."
"The price is similar to that of Microsoft 365."
"Barracuda licensing model is good."
"It is expensive compared to other vendors."
"The solution’s pricing is manageable."
"The feedback from vendors and customer is that it is expensive."
"Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox does not have any competition with Sophos, Trend Micro, or other vendors of the world. However, there is a pricing premium for the solution. One has to look at it from that angle that while they are buying Cisco, there will be a premium, and Cisco justifies that premium value. That's why they're charging a high price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
23%
Healthcare Company
8%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Barracuda Email Protection?
Barracuda Email Protection is easy to deploy and maintain. It doesn't require a specialized resource to manage this tool.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda Email Protection?
Their list price is too high, but in India, the selling price is affordable at around $10 per user per year. Despite a list price possibly around $40 per user, their market price allows customers t...
What needs improvement with Barracuda Email Protection?
Considering it integrates with Azure, I would like to be able to effectively set up policies where people are by default included in certain settings. For instance, for email quarantine, I can't se...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Secure Email Threat Defense?
The pricing for Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is relatively high. For an organization that already has the legacy system, it makes sense to continue hosting it. However, new organizations might...
What needs improvement with Secure Email Threat Defense?
Modernization is an area that could be improved for Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense, as some features have lagged behind newer competitors, potentially offering more advanced analysis capabilitie...
What is your primary use case for Secure Email Threat Defense?
The main use case for Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is as a gateway for email traffic into and out of the organization. It serves as the primary conduit for emails, providing content filtering,...
 

Also Known As

Barracuda Essentials
Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox, Cisco CMD, Cisco Cloud Mailbox Defense
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ACT Government, Acumen Group, AGIP, Delta Dental Plans Association, Desai/Nasr Consulting Engineers, Inc., Equinox Information Systems
Luiss University, Lone Star College, T-Systems, Magyar Telekom
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Protection vs. Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.