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Barracuda Email Protection vs Microsoft Defender for Office 365 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 Archiving
2nd
Ranking in Email Security
14th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Office 365 Protection (5th)
Microsoft Defender for Offi...
Ranking in Email Archiving
1st
Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (10th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Barracuda Email Protection is 2.9%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 12.6%, down from 17.6% 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.
Tolu Omolaja - PeerSpot reviewer
Great URL scanning and attachment scanning, but I would like more proactive threat analysis
The two main features that prove most beneficial for us are URL scanning and attachment scanning. URL scanning involves an automatic scan of links and emails. When a user clicks on a link within an email, the system promptly checks the link's safety. If the link is deemed safe, access is granted automatically. However, if it is flagged as unsafe, we receive feedback and notification to caution us about the potentially harmful link. At this point, we are presented with the option to proceed or return. I have personally witnessed the system identify a few unsafe links, making this the primary advantage of using the solution. The second crucial aspect is the scanning of attachments. When an email containing an attachment arrives, we receive a notification of the new email, along with information that the attachment is being scanned for threats. This additional layer of security provides peace of mind for our organization. While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 offers numerous features, these two stand out as particularly impressive and valuable to us.

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 features are security and ease of use."
"The solution's most valuable feature is impersonation detection."
"The best feature of Barracuda Email Protection is that it provides protection for Microsoft 365."
"I'm quite satisfied with the graphical user interface for Barracuda products."
"I would rate the solution nine out of ten."
"The most valuable features of Barracuda Email Protection are flexibility and customization."
"The most helpful aspect for me is the out-of-the-box configuration, which is fairly good."
"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."
"Our customers are satisfied with Defender for 365 because Microsoft products are easy to use and customize to meet the client's needs. Everything is in one place, so we can adjust policies as needed for phishing, DLP, ATP, or any other security features that our clients want to apply."
"It also gives the vulnerability status according to the versions you have selected. Let's say you have Google Chrome. It mentions the versions it has, and it updates. Within two hours of an update, it is reflected in the dashboard. That's really nice to have."
"There are several features that I consider valuable."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's most valuable feature is its performance."
"Some of the valuable features on the email side are anti-phishing, anti-malware, and Safe Links."
"The most valuable feature is protection against malicious links, fishing, and impersonation. You can train people to be aware of these threats, but they're not always careful. When they're using their phones between meetings, they click on a link, and it's game over."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is the ease of use."
"The technical support is good and quick to resolve issues."
 

Cons

"The policies are set up in Barracuda by default; we don't have any control over them."
"I would like to see some additional functionality in terms of employee monitoring, as part of a work-from-home security solution."
"There is room for improvement, particularly in reaching out to technical support during deployment."
"Two to three months back, we got fraudulent emails in which someone in the organization was being blamed."
"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 better integration with other products."
"The technology works on a supervised engine, but it would be better if it ran on an unsupervised engine."
"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 UI needs to be more user-friendly."
"I am generally satisfied with how it currently is. If I could improve anything, I would reduce the cost."
"I'd like some additional features any product can give me to protect our environment in a better way."
"Several simulation options are available within 365, and the phishing simulation could be better."
"There's room for improvement regarding the time frame for retrieving emails."
"The product must provide better malware detection."
"There is room for improvement in terms of reporting."
"Too many false positives and lacks an accurate capability to detect malicious SharePoint sites."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price-wise, this product is middle-of-the-road."
"The product is 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."
"Barracuda licensing model is good."
"We didn't have to pay a lot for the solution because we got it from a good vendor with a good user volume."
"The price of Barracuda Essentials is better than some of the competing products."
"The price is similar to that of Microsoft 365."
"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."
"Microsoft Defender is expensive. I typically recommend it only if clients have the budget. Otherwise, I would suggest an alternative."
"Compared to other brands, Microsoft Defender for Office 365's pricing is competitive."
"The solution could be better by simplifying the business model of their licensing. It was hard to figure out how to get the licensing done for the environment, initially."
"The license is expensive because the cost is based on the number of users."
"It is much more expensive than using another solution because we have had to include some options and upgrade our license."
"The pricing has become expensive."
"I was working in the government and it was too expensive for us to use our Microsoft products."
"It's a user-base subscription."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
University
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
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 do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of various email campaigns, pinpointing where they emanate from, and identifying the indi...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Microsoft is quite affordable with a lot of features available for any size organization.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Microsoft could improve by offering recommendations for domain spoofing attacks, especially scenarios where DNS records like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are not properly published. It's essential to enhan...
 

Also Known As

Barracuda Essentials
MS Defender for Office 365
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ACT Government, Acumen Group, AGIP, Delta Dental Plans Association, Desai/Nasr Consulting Engineers, Inc., Equinox Information Systems
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Protection vs. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.