Barracuda Email Protection vs Sophos Email comparison

Barracuda Networks and Sophos are both solutions in the Email Security category. Barracuda Networks is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.8, while Sophos is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.0. Barracuda Networks holds a 2.9% mindshare in Email Security, compared to Sophos’s 2.1% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Barracuda Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Sophos users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024

Barracuda Email Protection and Sophos Email compete in the email protection domain. Barracuda Email Protection has an advantage in ease of deployment and customer support, while Sophos Email stands out with advanced features and higher ROI.

Features: Barracuda Email Protection offers robust spam filtering, data loss prevention, and a user-friendly experience with easy configuration. Sophos Email provides advanced threat protection, detailed reporting, and real-time threat intelligence to suit complex security needs.

Room for Improvement: Barracuda Email Protection could improve its reporting features and enhance integration with other security solutions. Additionally, its initial pricing might not suit larger enterprises prioritizing extensive features. Meanwhile, Sophos Email's deployment can be complex, and occasionally users experience false positives in threat detection, which could be refined. Improving the simplicity of integration with existing infrastructure is another area for enhancement for Sophos.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Barracuda Email Protection is known for quick deployment and responsive support, making it favorable for businesses seeking ease of use. Sophos Email, although more complex to deploy, offers comprehensive support and a thorough onboarding process to manage its advanced features effectively.

Pricing and ROI: Barracuda Email Protection is often cost-effective with a lower initial setup cost, providing a quick ROI for smaller businesses. Conversely, Sophos Email requires a higher upfront investment but delivers substantial long-term value and higher ROI, particularly for enterprises focusing on comprehensive security measures.

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

Buyer's Guide

Barracuda Email Protection vs. Sophos Email

May 2025

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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

Microsoft Defender for Offi...

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 12.6%, down from 17.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Barracuda Email Protection is 2.9%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sophos Email is 2.1%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Email Security

Featured Reviews

Tolu Omolaja

Head of Department of Network Communications at Eko electricity

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.

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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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Ahmed_Fahmy

Operations Technical Lead at IT Supporters

Provides a powerful and simple email protection with proven management benefits

Sophos Email is integrated with Office 365 and Google Workspace. It offers anti-spam functionality, which is easy to manage and comes with documentation on how to integrate it with Office 365 and Google Workspace. It provides a defense layer for email protection, scanning every incoming and outbound email for malware and spam. It can also function temporarily as an email solution if my vendor from Office 365 or Google Workspace is out of service.

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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

"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is a stable solution."

"The stability of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is fantastic."

"The most valuable feature is the integration. It's a single console, so we don't have to switch around between multiple products. Another valuable feature is the ease of operations and maintenance."

"Defender enables us to secure all 365-related activity from a single place. It gives us visibility into everything happening in Outlook, protecting us against phishing and other email-based threats. Defender helps us detect any suspicious behaviors."

"It’s easy to handle integrations, and we don't need a lot of people in our IT team."

"We use Microsoft Defender for its ability to integrate with existing business technologies, which is beneficial for protecting business areas."

"The basic features are okay and I'm satisfied with the Defender."

"My experience with customer support and technical support for Microsoft Defender for Office 365 has been excellent."

More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 pros

"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."

"The archiving and search features are very good."

"I'm quite satisfied with the graphical user interface for Barracuda products."

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

"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 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."

More Barracuda Email Protection pros

"Sophos Email offers encryption and malware protection, provides visibility into emails, has 99% accuracy in catching spam, enhances organizational safety, integrates with various vendors like Microsoft, is deployable with any email service, prevents data loss, features authentication rules, synchronizes with Active Directory and Azure, and includes a self-service portal. The product is very flexible."

"Good VIP protection, time of click protection and the Sandstorm feature."

"The anti-spam functionality of Sophos Email is good."

"The most valuable feature of Sophos Email is the sandbox. We're able to scan the file, isolate it, and look at it before it is delivered. It is highly effective."

"The tool is a good solution for protecting against email attacks and monitoring networks. It supports our compliance efforts and is easy to use and stable."

"Endpoint and server protection are very effective."

"The tool's most valuable feature is the anti-spam detection filter. Its threat email intelligence features help to identify email data."

"I would recommend Sophos Email to both end-users and other entities that want to protect their emails."

More Sophos Email pros

Cons

"There's room for improvement regarding the time frame for retrieving emails."

"About eight months ago, we started to measure the quantity of phishing and spam that we have been receiving, and it has been increasing a lot. That means that protection for our email is not as good as we were expecting."

"We need to be able to whitelist data at the backend."

"The visibility into threats is not up to the mark, as I do not have control. I rate my experience with Microsoft Defender for Office 365 as six out of ten due to troubleshooting and pricing concerns."

"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 must improve the overall management style, including the GUI. It also needs to change the filters so that it is easy to whitelist and blacklist data."

"Microsoft could improve by offering recommendations for domain spoofing attacks, especially scenarios where DNS records like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are not properly published."

"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 should be more proactive."

"Microsoft security solutions work as expected. They are constantly updating the solutions to make them better. At the same time, the changes can impact a customer's environment, and we need to adjust settings. Sometimes we aren't aware of the changes, and nothing is pushed from the backend automatically."

More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 cons

"They could simplify the licensing and the pricing."

"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."

"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."

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

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

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

More Barracuda Email Protection cons

"It was sometimes hard to find the settings in the solution's interface."

"Sophos Email can improve mail security."

"The security of the solution could improve."

"However, the setup was tricky, particularly with the DNS routing between Microsoft Exchange Online and Sophos cloud services. It took me about four attempts to get it working correctly. Despite that, Sophos Email does everything we need, so we don't require any additional capabilities now."

"I would like to see improvements in the initial setup process, ensuring better compatibility with diverse customer infrastructures."

"The solution's technical support is slow and unresponsive. You need to book time in order to get support."

"The tool’s stability should be improved."

"Lacks visibility into spam emails."

More Sophos Email cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"I know that the product is incredibly expensive."

"Defender for 365 comes in various plans and licenses, along with other Microsoft security solutions. Purchasing this kind of package or security bundle gives good value for money, and that's what I recommend."

"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."

"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."

"It's a user-base subscription."

"The pricing has become expensive."

More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 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."

"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 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."

"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 is similar to that of Microsoft 365."

"The solution's pricing is moderate, where it is neither cheap nor expensive."

More Barracuda Email Protection pricing and cost advice

"The platform is inexpensive. It offers a cost-effective licensing model. We purchase its yearly license."

"The pricing is affordable, so I’d rate it around a four out of ten on the pricing scale. We pay about fifty pounds a month, including hardware so that costs may differ without it."

"Licensing is paid on a yearly basis."

"The pricing is fair."

"Sophos Email is neither cheap nor expensive."

"The tool's price is reasonable. On a yearly basis, there is a 20 percent increase in prices, but it is not an issue."

"The pricing is quite reasonable, with a fixed cost and no additional charges."

"I rate the product's pricing a seven out of ten."

More Sophos Email pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

19%

Construction Company

Manufacturing Company

University

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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 variou...

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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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?

Microsoft could improve by offering recommendations for domain spoofing attacks, especially scenarios where DNS recor...

See all answers

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 t...

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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 ...

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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 defa...

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What do you like most about Sophos Email?

The solution's identity proxy feature is very good and reliable.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sophos Email?

Sophos Email pricing is a bit high, especially since I purchase through a partner, and they sell it at a higher price...

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What needs improvement with Sophos Email?

Sophos Email does not work with split delivery. If I have a domain with 100 mailboxes and want to protect only 50, it...

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Comparisons

Proofpoint Email Protection vs Microsoft Defender for Office 365

Compared 13% of the time

Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration vs Microsoft Defender for Office 365

Compared 7% of the time

Mimecast Email Security vs Microsoft Defender for Office 365

Compared 5% of the time

Abnormal Security vs Microsoft Defender for Office 365

Compared 5% of the time

Avanan vs Microsoft Defender for Office 365

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Competitors

Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration vs Barracuda Email Protection

Compared 20% of the time

Abnormal Security vs Barracuda Email Protection

Compared 9% of the time

Avanan vs Barracuda Email Protection

Compared 6% of the time

Mimecast Email Security vs Barracuda Email Protection

Compared 5% of the time

Proofpoint Email Protection vs Barracuda Email Protection

Compared 4% of the time

More Barracuda Email Protection Competitors

Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) vs Sophos Email

Compared 11% of the time

Hornetsecurity 365 Total Protection vs Sophos Email

Compared 7% of the time

Fortinet FortiMail vs Sophos Email

Compared 6% of the time

Barracuda Email Security Gateway vs Sophos Email

Compared 5% of the time

Cisco Secure Email vs Sophos Email

Compared 5% of the time

More Sophos Email Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Office 365

May 2025

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 report

Download Microsoft Defender for Office 365 product report

Buyer's Guide

Barracuda Email Protection

June 2025

Download Barracuda Email Protection product report

Buyer's Guide

Sophos Email

May 2025

Download Sophos Email product report

Also Known As

MS Defender for Office 365

Barracuda Essentials

Sophos Email Security

Overview

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is a comprehensive security solution designed to protect organizations against advanced threats in their email, collaboration, and productivity environments. It combines the power of Microsoft's threat intelligence, machine learning, and behavioral analytics to provide real-time protection against phishing, malware, ransomware, and other malicious attacks.

With Microsoft Defender for Office 365, organizations can safeguard their email communication by detecting and blocking malicious links, attachments, and unsafe email content. It employs advanced anti-phishing capabilities to identify and prevent sophisticated phishing attacks that attempt to steal sensitive information or compromise user credentials.

This solution also offers robust protection against malware and ransomware. It leverages machine learning algorithms to analyze email attachments and URLs in real-time, identifying and blocking malicious content before it reaches users' inboxes. Additionally, it provides advanced threat-hunting capabilities, allowing security teams to proactively investigate and respond to potential threats.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 goes beyond email protection and extends its security features to other collaboration tools like SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams. It scans files and documents stored in these platforms, ensuring that they are free from malware and other malicious content. It also provides visibility into user activities, helping organizations detect and mitigate insider threats.

Furthermore, this solution offers rich reporting and analytics capabilities, providing organizations with insights into their security posture and threat landscape. It enables security administrators to monitor and manage security incidents, track trends, and take proactive measures to enhance their overall security posture.

Microsoft

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

Sophos Email is a comprehensive email security solution designed to protect organizations from advanced threats and data loss. It offers robust protection against malware, phishing attacks, and spam, ensuring that only legitimate emails reach users' inboxes.

With advanced threat intelligence and machine learning algorithms, it can detect and block sophisticated attacks in real-time. Additionally, it provides encryption and data loss prevention capabilities to safeguard sensitive information.

The solution is easy to deploy and manage, with a user-friendly interface and centralized control. Sophos Email offers seamless integration with popular email platforms, ensuring uninterrupted communication while maintaining security.

With its comprehensive features and proactive approach, Sophos Email is a reliable choice for organizations looking to enhance their email security.

Sophos

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.

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

Del Monte Foods, Terra Verde, spicerhaart, RIVERLITE, Dataprise, SureBridge, Reed's School, Sayfol International School

Buyer's Guide

Barracuda Email Protection vs. Sophos Email

May 2025

Free Report: Barracuda Email Protection vs. Sophos Email

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