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Barracuda Email Protection vs SonicWall Email Security comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 19, 2026

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
6th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (3rd), Security Incident Response (6th), Office 365 Protection (3rd)
SonicWall Email Security
Ranking in Email Security
26th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Barracuda Email Protection is 2.3%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall Email Security is 0.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Barracuda Email Protection2.3%
SonicWall Email Security0.9%
Other96.8%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

Xavie Simons - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Development Manager at Procter & Gamble
Improved email security has reduced spam, simplified encrypted mail, and strengthened user trust
The best features Barracuda Email Protection offers include good spam filtering and very good sandboxing of all links, as well as good encryption. It also has integrated logging for user management of their own spam. It has better filtering technology, so few are false positives as well, with excellent anti-spam engines and logging. It is extremely easy to install, configure, and set up, and there is excellent message tracking for folks that say they have not received an email they were expecting. Integrated logging and user management make my daily work easier because it is very easy to log in and to manage this tool, hence making it a very good tool for email protection. It also has excellent, easy-to-add designated users as site administrators, and it is competitively priced. It has a user-friendly portal, strong cloud-based features, and no additional maintenance cost, along with responsive support. Barracuda Email Protection has positively impacted my organization by handling encryption better than any other tool I have used before, which has increased our email protection significantly. Our security has also increased from forty percent to sixty-five percent, especially when dealing with all the threats that come through emails. It has been a great tool because we can handle email delays and delays on file scanning. When our partners are happy, we are very happy, and it has helped us have less time chasing bad emails. The fast implementation of encrypted mail keeps employees working with less interruption since they are happy, satisfied, and secure.
Mahendra Basera - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Engineer at InterGlobe Technology Quotient
Improved email threat visibility and security posture through adaptive reputation and analytics
I have experience with Cisco and other vendors like Sophos. I have more than 10 years of experience in this field. I worked with the Adaptive Reputation Management feature of SonicWall. Machine learning plays an important role in updating threat intelligence, particularly with SonicWall. The pricing for SonicWall Email Security is reasonable and budget-friendly. My overall rating for SonicWall Email Security is 8 out of 10 because, apart from the areas that need improvement, it was overall good.

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 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 archiving and search features are very good."
"The most valuable aspect includes attempts to spoof or compromise domains from external sources."
"The most valuable feature is the gateway."
"The best feature of Barracuda Email Protection is that it provides protection for Microsoft 365."
"The most valuable features are security and ease of use."
"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."
"At the moment, I am working with Sophos Cloud, Sophos Intercept X; when they introduced the XDR, we used it, and then when they introduced the Optix, we used it, and then we upgraded our subscription with them to MDR, so we are now utilizing Sophos Cloud Central MDR."
"According to our customers, the product's most valuable feature is the ability to detect spam and reduce phishing emails."
"The most valuable feature is that it protects from spam."
"SonicWall Email Security has benefited the company by preventing attacks, protecting us from threats such as ransomware and phishing, and notifying the IT team when phishing emails have been blocked."
"There are no wasted extras and the interface is really simple."
"Beside a few issues with specificity in the email protection controls, this product is very good at handling email security."
"Behind the reason we chose SonicWall for my company is it has excellent packet analysis of normal and SSL encrypted traffic, application intelligence visualization and control, multiple Gigabit Ethernet LAN and WAN ports, flexible configuration and redundancy options."
"This solution provides very good email security that protects us against spamming and malware."
"It is a very scalable solution."
 

Cons

"They can still improve."
"Barracuda Email Protection can be improved by enhancing the reporting feature."
"The solution's graphical user interface (GUI) could be improved visually."
"The email encryption could be improved."
"Barracuda Email Protection needs better reporting and more robust integration with security awareness training platforms and third-party solutions."
"The technology works on a supervised engine, but it would be better if it ran on an unsupervised engine."
"They could simplify the licensing and the pricing."
"There is room for improvement, particularly in reaching out to technical support during deployment."
"Policy deployment could be time consuming and represents an area for improvement in SonicWall Email Security."
"The pricing could be improved."
"Previously, we had an issue with a faulty appliance and had to wait over two weeks for a replacement."
"They should integrate the solution with third-party platforms."
"Updates could be released more frequently."
"Load balancing is not stable."
"Other than that, really I think the features are perfect, but attachment controls are so important it hurts the usability of the product."
"The after-sale support needs improvement. They don't have representation in my country."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 is similar to that of Microsoft 365."
"Despite a list price possibly around $40 per user, their market price allows customers to easily buy the solution."
"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 solution's pricing is moderate, where it is neither cheap nor expensive."
"The price of Barracuda Essentials is better than some of the competing products."
"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."
"I rate the application’s pricing a five out of ten."
"The cost is cheaper than Sophos. I would rate it as five out of ten."
"Our customers purchase the solution's yearly license."
"When compared with Cisco, it is very well priced. Cisco is very expensive."
"We have a two-year license subscription and the price is very high."
"The overall price of SonicWall Email Security should be reduced and there should be an option to purchase one or two licenses more instead of their current policy of bulk increases only. There should be more flexibility in the licensing model. Each license cost approximately $33 annually."
"The platform offers a yearly license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise3
 

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?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Barracuda Email Protection is that it is a bit high. However, when I look at the service and the features, I am satisfied with it.
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 needs improvement with SonicWall Email Security?
Policy deployment could be time consuming and represents an area for improvement in SonicWall Email Security.
What is your primary use case for SonicWall Email Security?
SonicWall Email Security was used for security purposes, which aligns with the product's core function.
 

Also Known As

Barracuda Essentials, Barracuda Forensics and Incident Response
Dell SonicWALL Email Security Platform, SonicWall Hosted Email Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ACT Government, Acumen Group, AGIP, Delta Dental Plans Association, Desai/Nasr Consulting Engineers, Inc., Equinox Information Systems
Star Kay White, Locala Community Partnerships
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Protection vs. SonicWall Email Security and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.