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Barracuda Email Protection vs Sophos Email 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
12th
Ranking in Office 365 Protection
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (2nd)
Sophos Email
Ranking in Email Security
11th
Ranking in Office 365 Protection
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 Sophos Email is 2.0%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Sophos Email2.0%
Barracuda Email Protection3.1%
Other94.9%
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.
Kalyan  Chowdhury - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder at Computech infosysetm
Stronger email and mobile security has protected users from ransomware and simplified management
Price is obviously a challenging part, and I think it is the biggest problem we have suffered from over the last two or three years due to a 7 to 8% hike per year, twice a year, which is why we have some renewals on Sophos Email, Sophos XDR, EDR, and the firewall, but due to price hike, they are unable to renew it. The price is going to be very high. It would be better if Sophos can provide a more flexible pricing model for different types of businesses. Price could be lower. The main competitor for Sophos in the market is Palo Alto, which has reduced their price by more than 35 to 40%, making it a very challenging part to sell this product. Palo Alto provides the same functionality for email security, which adds to the challenge because the price is going very high.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I'm quite satisfied with the graphical user interface for Barracuda products."
"The beauty of Barracuda Email Protection is that it is easy to manage and simple to deploy."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable features of Barracuda Email Protection are flexibility and customization."
"When we got the service, it included the email archiver with unlimited storage."
"The best feature of Barracuda Email Protection is that it provides protection for Microsoft 365."
"I would rate the solution nine out of ten."
"The most significant aspect is the response filtering concerning attachments and links."
"The anti-spam functionality of Sophos Email is good."
"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."
"The solution's identity proxy feature is very good and reliable."
"Sophos Email is in the cloud and integrated with its firewall."
"I found the user interface friendly."
"The best thing about it is the logs."
"Good VIP protection, time of click protection and the Sandstorm feature."
 

Cons

"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."
"The policies are set up in Barracuda by default; we don't have any control over them."
"I would like to see better integration with other products."
"I would like to see some additional functionality in terms of employee monitoring, as part of a work-from-home security solution."
"Barracuda Email Protection needs better reporting and more robust integration with security awareness training platforms and third-party solutions."
"The platform's pricing needs improvement."
"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 tool's pricing is expensive. In its future release, the tool should make reporting easier to view."
"The installation of Sophos Email could be easier. It's a bit difficult because setting up the email virtually requires some bit of technical knowledge."
"Price is obviously a challenging part, and I think it is the biggest problem we have suffered from over the last two or three years due to a 7 to 8% hike per year, twice a year, which is why we have some renewals on Sophos Email, Sophos XDR, EDR, and the firewall, but due to price hike, they are unable to renew it."
"The tool’s stability should be improved."
"Sophos Email has few improvements to implement, including the handling of incoming emails in the systems. It needs to add additional feature that helps in enhancing the scanning processes of these emails. While adding these features, it should work towards improving the current features also."
"Sophos Email could better detect fake emails, especially when the domain names are similar. It needs to improve spotting spoofed domains, like when one letter differs in a domain name. It also needs to incorporate AI detection. Barracuda detects suspicious emails better. However, malware scanning is better in Sophos Email."
"A lot of legit emails get quarantined."
"The main drawback is regarding the technical support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."
"Price-wise, this product is middle-of-the-road."
"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 solution's pricing is moderate, where it is neither cheap nor 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."
"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."
"Sophos Email is neither cheap nor expensive."
"It falls somewhere in the middle—it's not excessively expensive nor very cheap."
"The platform is inexpensive. It offers a cost-effective licensing model. We purchase its yearly license."
"The tool's pricing is medium."
"The pricing is quite reasonable, with a fixed cost and no additional charges."
"We use exchange licenses, for which we get immediate support from Sophos."
"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 solution is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
 

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 Sophos Email?
The solution's identity proxy feature is very good and reliable.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sophos Email?
Regarding Sophos Email pricing, I would rate it between six or seven out of ten.
What needs improvement with Sophos Email?
While Sophos Email is generally sufficient, one challenge we face is the 24-hour email storage limitation. This presents an issue when internal systems are down for more than 24 hours. The solution...
 

Also Known As

Barracuda Essentials
Sophos Email Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Protection vs. Sophos Email and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
877,318 professionals have used our research since 2012.