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Barracuda Email Protection vs Proofpoint Email Protection 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
Ranking in Office 365 Protection
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (2nd)
Proofpoint Email Protection
Ranking in Email Security
2nd
Ranking in Office 365 Protection
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
Security Awareness Training (2nd), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (3rd)
 

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 Proofpoint Email Protection is 8.5%, down from 9.8% 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.
AhmedRamadan - PeerSpot reviewer
Optimize email security with effective sandboxing and auto Pull for quarantine
Proofpoint is used as an email security gateway for big enterprises, primarily for their on-premises servers. Many customers also use it alongside Office 365 Proofpoint offers a complete solution for email security with features like DLP, email archiving, and encryption. The most valuable…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is straightforward to set up."
"The beauty of Barracuda Email Protection is that it is easy to manage and simple to deploy."
"The product is easy to deploy and maintain."
"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."
"Barracuda email protection is stable. I would give it a nine because of its strong cybersecurity features."
"The most valuable aspect includes attempts to spoof or compromise domains from external sources."
"The most valuable features are security and ease of use."
"It's detection of true positives are great, as it's cloud based it's very scalable and stable."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"Proofpoint is the main tool for blocking spam because it denies the connection altogether."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is a good product, and its most beneficial feature is the Threat Response Auto-Pull. I also like that it's an integrated email security solution."
"The Tap and Trap features. They are the best features."
"Proofpoint Email Protection's initial installation is straightforward. It took us less than a day to complete the implementation."
"The most valuable features of Proofpoint Email Protection are the performance from being on the cloud."
"There is no downtime."
 

Cons

"I would like to see some additional functionality in terms of employee monitoring, as part of a work-from-home security solution."
"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."
"Barracuda Essentials can improve by continually adding more features."
"The technology works on a supervised engine, but it would be better if it ran on an unsupervised engine."
"Sometimes it is somewhat laggy, especially on the Archiver side. It should have improved performance on their Message Archiver."
"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."
"Two to three months back, we got fraudulent emails in which someone in the organization was being blamed."
"Integration and filtering out who you want and don't want to have integrated ID could be improved."
"It's scalable, but the devil's in the details — you have to know your email volumes."
"I want Security Awareness Training in there as a package deal. A lot of companies are starting to value email security a little bit more and take it a little bit more seriously, and the great product that we link together with a lot of these sales is a training product called Security Awareness Training. It is an upsell that we do with Proofpoint, and it is definitely something that I recommend everybody with email security to look into. It would be great if Security Awareness Training is included with the email security."
"Pricing for the platform could still be cheaper."
"The Secure Mail aspect should have an Outlook add-in, instead of an external dashboard that outside users have to access."
"The setup requires expertise. It needs someone with experience on managing it, and I would rate the implementation as needing someone experienced."
"The scalability can be improved, and the solution can be optimized."
"The solution should add post-sales training."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Barracuda Essentials is better than some of the competing products."
"Price-wise, this product is middle-of-the-road."
"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."
"Despite a list price possibly around $40 per user, their market price allows customers to easily buy the solution."
"The product is expensive."
"The solution's pricing is moderate, where it is neither cheap nor expensive."
"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 end customer is buying our solution, which can be for monthly or annual usage depending on our payment and business model."
"Annually, it costs us about $92,000. This is pretty much what it costs us. There is no additional cost."
"Pricing has recently been increased and the cost is a downside"
"The solution uses a licensing model that is reasonable compared to other products."
"Customers pay around $90,000 yearly for a 1,000-user organization, with the subscription license being the main expense, apart from implementation fees."
"It is expensive."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is a reasonably priced product, which means that it is neither too low nor too high in terms of price."
"We sell annual licenses for this solution."
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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
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Proofpoint Email Protection?
In terms of pricing, it is okay compared to others. I would say it is normal. Additional costs do come in, but it enhances security.
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
It became very expensive due to the nature of local circumstances, and I may advise Proofpoint to adjust marketing solutions based on each country.
 

Also Known As

Barracuda Essentials
Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Cofense PhishMe, Proofpoint Digital Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ACT Government, Acumen Group, AGIP, Delta Dental Plans Association, Desai/Nasr Consulting Engineers, Inc., Equinox Information Systems
Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Protection vs. Proofpoint Email Protection and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.