Barracuda Email Protection vs Kiteworks comparison

Barracuda Email Protection

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024

Kiteworks and Barracuda Email Protection compete in secure email communication. Kiteworks appeals to those valuing pricing and support efficiency, whereas Barracuda offers robust features, validating its higher cost.

Features: Kiteworks provides compliance capabilities, secure file sharing, and secure content management. It supports large file transfers, two-factor authentication, and centralized content tracking. Barracuda Email Protection offers advanced threat detection, spam filtering, and AI-driven impersonation protection. It includes email archiving, user management interfaces, and Microsoft 365 integration.

Room for Improvement: Kiteworks could improve by enhancing mobile access, offering more intuitive administration logs, and expanding training resources. Barracuda Email Protection may refine reporting features, improve integration with other security platforms, and increase policy creation flexibility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Barracuda Email Protection provides flexible deployment with on-premise and cloud options, supported by thorough technical documentation and responsive service. Kiteworks features straightforward deployment with dedicated support channels, emphasizing efficiency and quick setup.

Pricing and ROI: Kiteworks is noted for competitive setup costs, offering attractive ROI for budget-conscious organizations through streamlined services. Barracuda Email Protection involves higher initial costs but provides comprehensive security measures, aligning with enterprises prioritizing advanced protection and long-term value.

To learn more, read our detailed Barracuda Email Protection vs. Kiteworks Report (Updated: September 2025).

Barracuda Email Protection vs. Kiteworks

September 2025

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Helped 869,202 peers since 2012

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

Ranking in other categories

Email Archiving (2nd), Office 365 Protection (5th)

Kiteworks

Ranking in Email Security

32nd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Content Management (16th), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (5th), Content Collaboration Platforms (14th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (11th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Barracuda Email Protection is 3.0%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kiteworks is 0.5%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Email Security Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Barracuda Email Protection	3.0%
Kiteworks	0.5%
Other	96.5%

Email Security

Featured Reviews

LeeMiles

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.

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Sukkanta Banerjee

Senior Software Engineer at Wipro Limited

Two-factor authentication and .ZIP format make large file transfers very secure

The most valuable feature is the ability to send a large file of 30 GB in size and more. In Outlook and other email applications, you cannot send files that are larger than 20 MB. But with Kiteworks, 30 GB is transferable by default and, with the proper approval, a file of up to 100 GB can be sent. It makes file transfer very easy and smooth. Also, only the .ZIP format is supported because it is a very secure mode of file transfer, and that is why it is recommended. It also has built-in antivirus, so if it detects any malware it will quarantine the file and it won't be delivered. This is really important to keep the service up and running in a proper and secure manner. With people working from home, the data needs to be checked to see what kind of data is being sent. It has a two-factor authentication mechanism. For example, if a person with a particular domain is using Kiteworks and sends a file to a party outside of his domain, that external party has to go through two-factor authentication. The receiver gets a link that takes them to the setup of a temporary account, which will be valid for three days. The recipient will also receive a customized password separately. Only after all these steps will they be able to access the file. That access is only available to a person with the mail ID to which the file was sent. In addition, admins can see who is sending sensitive content, what that content is, and to whom it is being sent, and can track emails. One week of good training will give a user complete knowledge for using the solution. The system is very easy to use. You just click on "Compose," attach a file, and send it. It's very easy compared to Outlook or Teams. It's quite simple, even for someone logging in for the first time. It is very smooth and easy to send files.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We now have a secondary backup of Office 365 that's much easier to retrieve compared to Microsoft. If someone deletes something in Office 365, we can get it back within Office 365, but it's difficult. Barracuda is much easier. There is a lot less management needed using Barracuda. The management becomes much easier for Office 365 and it's no longer on-prem, so there are fewer hours managing on-prem devices, servers, and things of that nature. We don't have network appliances anymore for the backup of our information."

"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 of Barracuda Email Protection are flexibility and customization."

"We check the reports sometimes to see that frequent attacks and malicious emails are being blocked by the solution."

"The solution's most valuable feature is impersonation detection."

"I would rate the solution nine out of ten."

"The solution is straightforward to set up."

"The product is easy to deploy and maintain."

More Barracuda Email Protection pros

"We can see when people are sending things. We can definitely see who is sending to whom. From the administrative logs, we can see who is sending to an outside entity, and those logs are retained for quite a while."

"I can identify from which region our users are uploading or downloading files."

"The best part of this solution is that we can generate multiple reports about how the data is transferred and about user information or IP."

"Scalability is impressive."

"The solution can be used remotely; it's easy to upload and share files."

"The most valuable aspect of Kiteworks is undoubtedly the private content network. This feature is particularly beneficial for us. Furthermore, it serves as a centralized platform that enables us to track and manage our information exchange."

"The solution removes the limitations with file attachment size that is found with regular email."

"The top two features are the two-factor authentication, which is pretty good. It's easily understood by the users. And their API is rather robust. We have numerous integrations that work off the API."

More Kiteworks pros

Cons

"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."

"I would like to see some additional functionality in terms of employee monitoring, as part of a work-from-home security solution."

"The product must enable bulk user management."

"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."

"The policies are set up in Barracuda by default; we don't have any control over them."

"Barracuda Essentials can improve by continually adding more features."

"The solution's reporting mechanism is a little poor and could be improved."

More Barracuda Email Protection cons

"The one feature, which I have also requested directly to Kiteworks, is to have a scheduled upgrade function. Currently, one of my engineers logs in after hours for the upgrade. We're a hospital, and we're 24/7, but the primary users are seven to five. So, we log in the early evening just to push a button to tell it to do the update. It would be nice if that could be very easily scheduled."

"Perhaps there could be a notification to users about their bandwidth or network packet loss."

"There is no offboarding process for end-users in Kiteworks. It's a manual process. There is no automated syncing with LDAP and checking to see if the account is still active. It's a manual process to get people out of here, which isn't the best way."

"I would like to see immediate releases of fixes because now it takes at least a week. If that time span can be reduced to one day or two days, that would be very helpful for users so that things are sorted and transactions work smoothly."

"I noticed the Kiteworks login UI is very basic, lacking customization. Allowing more HTML tags to add hyperlinks or user-friendly information on the home page would be very useful."

"It could be more stable. In the next release, it would be better if it was more stable with improved performance."

"There are always issues when there are bugs or upgrades. The challenge with upgrading is getting more storage from the customer. Every time we have a new version, it requires additional storage. This means that the customer would need to procure more storage for their server, which they don't like because it means additional cost to them. So, I think my request would be that the version upgrades don't require any significant storage requirement."

"It would be nice if Kiteworks could provide a free version of the platform so that it could be used for a certain number of file transfers. We could be charged a fee if we exceeded the number of allotted file transfers."

More Kiteworks cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Barracuda licensing model is good."

"The product is expensive."

"Despite a list price possibly around $40 per user, their market price allows customers to easily buy the solution."

"The price is similar to that of Microsoft 365."

"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."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."

"The price of Barracuda Essentials is better than some of the competing products."

"We didn't have to pay a lot for the solution because we got it from a good vendor with a good user volume."

More Barracuda Email Protection pricing and cost advice

"The solution is very expensive because we are buying with Malaysian Ringgit and it's sold in US dollars."

"The price of Kiteworks is reasonable."

"The license management is changing and confusing. If I could make one change to it, it would be better license management through the API."

"I believe it's a little costly, but given the faith that we put into it from a security perspective to maintain the integrity of our patient information that is being transferred through this system, that's a small price to pay. So, on the surface, it might look like a lot of money, but depending on the need for security, which is where we feel it shines, it's okay price-wise."

"It is not really expensive. I mean, to me it's obviously expensive, but it's worth it."

"They changed it midstream. We were being charged a certain flat rate for SFTP traffic. For whatever reason, at the beginning of the year, our pricing changed, and we are now being charged more for using a feature of the product than we were when we first bought it. That has been our experience with billing. It turned out to be more expensive than when we started with it."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Government

15%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Retailer

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	12
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	3

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Large Enterprise	11

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?

What is Kiteworks?

Kiteworks is a secured file sharing platform that enables users to collaborate with different parties across a robust offering of secured protected channels. Users have the option of virtual privat...

What needs improvement with Kiteworks?

I'm not a network expert, however, there must be some room for improvement. Perhaps there could be a notification to users about their bandwidth or network packet loss. If users receive such notifi...

What advice do you have for others considering Kiteworks?

Scalability is impressive. It can be highly available, resilient, and scalable infrastructure. I can confidently give it a nine. It suits any level of organization, whether a small setup with two a...

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Product Reports

Barracuda Email Protection

October 2025

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Download Kiteworks product report

September 2025

Also Known As

Barracuda Essentials

Accellion

Overview

The popularity of Microsoft 365 means criminals test and design their attacks to bypass its native security features. And that means you need additional layers of defense. With Advanced Threat Protection enabled, Barracuda uses multiple layers of detection, including signature, static, and behavioral analysis, along with CPU-emulation sandboxing to accurately detect and block zero-hour targeted attacks and ransomware.

Traditional email gateways use static rules and policies—reputation analysis, block lists, and malicious payloads—to determine if an email is malicious.

Barracuda protects your Microsoft 365 inbox against evasive threats with a powerful AI engine that learns the unique communication patterns within your organization through access to internal and historical emails. Once it understands what legitimate emails looks like for each user, it can detect anomalies that signal malicious intent. This context-based detection is more effective at blocking targeted attacks, which are designed to bypass traditional rule-based email security.

Barracuda Networks

Kiteworks empowers organizations to effectively manage risk in every send, share, receive, and save of sensitive content over numerous communications channels: email, file sharing, managed file transfer, APIs, and web forms. The Kiteworks platform unifies, tracks, controls, and secures sensitive content moving within, into, and out of an organization, significantly improving risk management and ensuring regulatory compliance.

Sample Customers

ACT Government, Acumen Group, AGIP, Delta Dental Plans Association, Desai/Nasr Consulting Engineers, Inc., Equinox Information Systems

United States Securities and Exchange Commission, National Health Service, Husch Blackwell LLP, NYC Health + Hospitals, Viatris, MITRE Corporation, Chubb, Kraft Heinz, KPMG, Kohler, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Purdue Pharma, AVL