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Barracuda Email Protection vs Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 29, 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 Archiving
2nd
Ranking in Email Security
12th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Office 365 Protection (4th)
Microsoft Defender for Offi...
Ranking in Email Archiving
1st
Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (10th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (1st)
 

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 Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 10.4%, down from 14.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Office 36510.4%
Barracuda Email Protection3.1%
Other86.5%
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.
Emeka Ndulu - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Improves threat visibility and response while reducing manual tasks and training users against phishing
I appreciate the attack simulation feature whereby I get to train users and educate them on how to identify phishing emails and spam emails, as well as the anti-spam protection. It gives me visibility into my threat environment and threat landscape to ensure that I am one step ahead of any likelihood of threats within my environment. I get to detect it and respond, so the threat intelligence is very effective. Microsoft security solutions save my time. It saves money because once I protect my environment, I don't lose money. It has decreased my detection time and my time to respond.

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 is straightforward to set up."
"The most helpful aspect for me is the out-of-the-box configuration, which is fairly good."
"The most valuable features are security and ease of use."
"The best feature of Barracuda Email Protection is that it provides protection for Microsoft 365."
"We check the reports sometimes to see that frequent attacks and malicious emails are being blocked by the solution."
"When we got the service, it included the email archiver with unlimited storage."
"The most valuable aspect includes attempts to spoof or compromise domains from external sources."
"The feature of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 that I like the most is probably the email features specifically, because those are the ones that a typical end user will accidentally click on a link not knowing what it is, and it'll catch it, and then it'll feed it over to Defender and stop the attack from happening before it actually can."
"It gives me visibility into my threat environment and threat landscape to ensure that I am one step ahead of any likelihood of threats within my environment."
"I would say that 90% of the spam and phishing attack emails get blocked right off the bat."
"The initial setup is straightforward. You just add the license, click it, and then you can set up the rules. It is quite simple."
"Some of the valuable features on the email side are anti-phishing, anti-malware, and Safe Links."
"The most valuable aspect of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is its ability to protect us from malware."
"My experience with customer support and technical support for Microsoft Defender for Office 365 has been excellent."
"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 individuals within our organization who are affected."
 

Cons

"The product must enable bulk user management."
"The platform's pricing needs improvement."
"There is room for improvement, particularly in reaching out to technical support during deployment."
"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."
"Barracuda Essentials can improve by continually adding more features."
"The solution's reporting mechanism is a little poor and could be improved."
"Barracuda Email Protection needs better reporting and more robust integration with security awareness training platforms and third-party solutions."
"Specifically, within Microsoft Defender for Office 365, I want it to improve the DLP capabilities."
"There needs to be an improvement in integrating the product to work across multiple operating systems, and to have better support for non-Microsoft file types."
"The UI needs to be more user-friendly."
"They have moved features from one console to another. Things have been moved around in the interface and it takes me time to find where certain features are."
"One area for improvement is integration. For example, when it comes to external SaaS platforms, we were not able to get a lot of information on integrations with such apps for security and authentication."
"The inbuilt analysis of false positives can be faster. It's not slow, but it can be faster."
"I think that Microsoft Defender for Office 365 could be improved if it could use VirusTotal to compare the programs or anything that I download."
"The only thing they should improve is the licensing model. They should stop changing it. A year ago, the five features I mentioned were included in one product. Now, three of them are bundled into one product, and you have to pay extra for the other two. I don't mind paying extra, but I don't want them to change it every year or every six months. I need to know what I'm looking at and not worry about it next year."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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 product is expensive."
"Barracuda licensing model is good."
"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."
"Despite a list price possibly around $40 per user, their market price allows customers to easily buy the solution."
"The price of Barracuda Essentials is better than some of the competing products."
"Price-wise, this product is middle-of-the-road."
"Defender is a little bit more expensive as compared to others. We are in the manufacturing environment. So, we don't have a high budget for all of our endpoint devices. Its cost is a major concern for us."
"For licensing, it's usually a yearly package for customers who are subscribed to Office 365, but they can also pay on a monthly basis."
"While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 necessitates pricier E3 or E5 subscriptions, the extensive functionality offered by these licenses across various Microsoft products justifies the investment."
"The pricing is normal. Considering its popularity, it's not overpriced."
"Compared to other brands, Microsoft Defender for Office 365's pricing is competitive."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."
"The pricing has become expensive."
"It is much more expensive than using another solution because we have had to include some options and upgrade our license."
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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
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

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 Business23
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise31
 

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 needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
The inbuilt analysis of false positives can be faster. It's not slow, but it can be faster.
 

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: December 2025.
879,259 professionals have used our research since 2012.