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Barracuda Email Protection vs Darktrace comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

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
12th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (2nd), Office 365 Protection (4th)
Darktrace
Ranking in Email Security
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (2nd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (1st), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (1st), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (6th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (12th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (11th), Attack Surface Management (ASM) (4th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (3rd), AI Observability (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Barracuda Email Protection is 3.1%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Darktrace is 2.4%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Darktrace2.4%
Barracuda Email Protection3.1%
Other94.5%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

LeeMiles - PeerSpot reviewer
Director, Information Technology at St Albans High School For Girls
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.
AM
Technical Consultant - Unix Platform Services at BITS AND BYTE IT CONSULTING PVT LTD
Consistent threat hunting and anomaly detection deliver valuable insights for network security management
In terms of improvement for Darktrace, pricing is the main concern. Pricing bothers me and this is one of the major factors when choosing a solution. When we get feedback from customers, that's the only felt need. When we factor in Darktrace, we do it only limited. We put it on where the perimeters and connections are, but still, some gray areas are left out, especially if we have multiple branches. We need Darktrace on each branch to get the data out, and I suggest having some kind of a centralized product that gets data from multiple sources to aggregate and provide the data.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product is easy to deploy and maintain."
"The solution's most valuable feature is impersonation detection."
"The beauty of Barracuda Email Protection is that it is easy to manage and simple to deploy."
"The best feature of Barracuda Email Protection is that it provides protection for Microsoft 365."
"The most valuable features of Barracuda Email Protection are flexibility and customization."
"The most valuable features are security and ease of use."
"I would rate the solution nine out of ten."
"Barracuda email protection is stable. I would give it a nine because of its strong cybersecurity features."
"The initial setup is simple."
"It is very stable and easy to use."
"Darktrace is very stable, and I would rate its stability a ten out of ten."
"The scalability of Darktrace is very high."
"The solution can scale."
"I have found the most valuable features to be artificial intelligence for cybersecurity, advanced machine learning capabilities, enterprise Immune System, Antigena Network, and Antigena Email. The way the solution detects the threat over the network before it spreads is very good. It notifies you of what the threat is exactly doing and gives you all the details about the execution of that application that had created the threat over your network."
"The most beneficial feature in Darktrace is identifying phishing emails with the help of the AI engine and machine learning."
"AI analytics are built directly into the product."
 

Cons

"The solution's graphical user interface (GUI) could be improved visually."
"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 product must enable bulk user management."
"There is room for improvement, particularly in reaching out to technical support during deployment."
"I would like to see better integration with other products."
"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."
"Sometimes it is somewhat laggy, especially on the Archiver side. It should have improved performance on their Message Archiver."
"The policies are set up in Barracuda by default; we don't have any control over them."
"Its documentation is not up to the mark. At times, I have a lot of trouble finding a solution. Even when I posted questions on the community chats, it took a lot of time for me to get answers. That's something that can be improved. Darktrace can focus on creating a more interactive community. If there are more people from Darktrace to focus on community chats, it would be better."
"There aren't so many third-party vendor platforms natively integrated with the platform."
"The product is considered expensive compared to others."
"Upper management wasn't sold on the value proposition."
"I'd love them to see maybe covering the cloud a bit more."
"Darktrace could improve by being more user-friendly."
"The management dashboards and the meter dashboards should be more user-friendly and simple to use for easy management."
"It would be useful if there was a way to check to see if there are certain devices that are not in sync with the solution. I'm not sure if this is an option or not."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price-wise, this product is middle-of-the-road."
"We didn't have to pay a lot for the solution because we got it from a good vendor with a good user volume."
"Barracuda licensing model is good."
"The price of Barracuda Essentials is better than some of the competing products."
"Despite a list price possibly around $40 per user, their market price allows customers to easily buy the solution."
"The solution's pricing is moderate, where it is neither cheap nor expensive."
"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 price is similar to that of Microsoft 365."
"This solution is expensive."
"I'm unfamiliar with the exact cost, but we have a yearly license and had to pay for Darktrace's services before the deployment. The product is very expensive, so some organizations can't afford to pay the total amount directly, meaning they often seek a partner or pay in installments, which increases the price more."
"The cost is moderate."
"The tool's pricing is costly."
"It's an expensive solution."
"The pricing is a little high compared to the competition."
"The pricing is subscription-based and it is high."
"Prior to negotiating, Darktrace offered their appliance and service for $80,000 per year."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise29
 

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...
How does Crowdstrike Falcon compare with Darktrace?
Both of these products perform similarly and have many outstanding attributes. CrowdStrike Falcon offers an amazing user interface that makes setup easy and seamless. CrowdStrike Falcon offers a cl...
Which is better - SentinelOne or Darktrace?
Which solution is better depends on which is more suitable specifically for your company. Darktrace, for example, is meant for smaller to medium-sized businesses. It is also a good option for organ...
What do you like most about Darktrace?
A very useful feature in Darktrace for real-time threat analysis is the packet inspection that analyzes the packet traffic in real time.
 

Also Known As

Barracuda Essentials
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ACT Government, Acumen Group, AGIP, Delta Dental Plans Association, Desai/Nasr Consulting Engineers, Inc., Equinox Information Systems
Irwin Mitchell, Open Energi, Wellcome Trust, FirstGroup plc, Virgin Trains, Drax, QUI! Group, DNK, CreaCard, Macrosynergy, Sisley, William Hill plc, Toyota Canada, Royal British Legion, Vitol, Allianz, KKR, AIRBUS, dpd, Billabong, Mclaren Group.
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Protection vs. Darktrace and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,259 professionals have used our research since 2012.