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Barracuda Email Protection vs VMware Carbon Black Endpoint comparison

 

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 Security Incident Response
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (2nd), Email Security (13th), Office 365 Protection (4th)
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint
Ranking in Security Incident Response
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (37th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (30th), Ransomware Protection (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Security Incident Response category, the mindshare of Barracuda Email Protection is 1.9%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is 4.7%, down from 10.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Incident Response Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint4.7%
Barracuda Email Protection1.9%
Other93.4%
Security Incident Response
 

Featured Reviews

Sherif Fouad - PeerSpot reviewer
Group ICT Manager at a mining and metals company with 501-1,000 employees
Have raised concerns about scanning engines and automation while continuing to rely on layered protection strategies
Incident response is something that requires more development from Barracuda's side. Regarding room for improvement for Barracuda Forensics and Incident Response, for the product, developing or improving the scanning engine is important, but it's a bit tricky. I know that they are working on it heavily. The difference between Barracuda and Sophos is Sophos focused heavily on cybersecurity while Barracuda tried to increase their product portfolio. Sometimes, in some cases, this might end up with their teams being unfocused or a bit thin and stretched and super busy. However, there is room for improvement. The product is great. The teams that are supporting are great. But there is always room for improvement. Even if you have a product that you would give a rating of 10 out of 10, there is always room for improvement. The day we stop improving is the day we die. Regarding the scanning engine, Barracuda Forensics and Incident Response has a very good feature where you can create automated flows for how to handle specific emails that are detected as incidents. This needs a bit of an improvement. That's the only component of Barracuda Forensics and Incident Response that I believe requires improvement.
reviewer2689206 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior VP, Technology & Leading Technology Office at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Behavior analytics has strengthened threat prediction yet still needs to improve overall standing
Regarding the real-time monitoring feature with VMware Carbon Black Endpoint, it is helpful in addressing unseen threats. I find the behavior analysis feature beneficial. I assess VMware Carbon Black Endpoint's machine learning capabilities in detecting unknown threats as fantastic. The behavior and analytics feature employs machine learning, and these are features which make the product and give that distinguishing, differentiating factor. The intelligent threat hunting capabilities have impacted my customers' cybersecurity efforts by giving them the edge to be prepared well in advance. Whenever this feature provides prediction, you know what action to take. You are aware of a possible attack and what kind of attack it may be, so you are much better prepared.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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 best feature of Barracuda Email Protection is that it provides protection for Microsoft 365."
"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."
"I would rate the solution nine out of ten."
"The product is easy to deploy and maintain."
"The most valuable feature is that it detects and stops malicious executables."
"The solution has a library where we can have multiple threat intels onboarded. We just have to subscribe to a particular site intel and they'll provide us with all of the truncated details so that we can create IOCs and alerts on the basis of those IOCs."
"Carbon Black Defense has a higher detection ratio because it's cloud-based and it also does a lookup to virus total."
"Carbon Black has very good market strategies."
"One of the most valuable features is that it will block vulnerable sites. If there was a connection between one of our devices to a known malware site, it will block it."
"Carbon Black Cb Defense has a nice component called Alert Triage. It contains full details of the process execution "kill chain" and "go live" for immediate remediation."
"It is stable and easy to set up."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the support it provides."
 

Cons

"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 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."
"The product must enable bulk user management."
"Sometimes it is somewhat laggy, especially on the Archiver side. It should have improved performance on their Message Archiver."
"Two to three months back, we got fraudulent emails in which someone in the organization was being blamed."
"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 solution needs better overall compatibility with other products."
"There's some disparity between the on-premise and the cloud type of application."
"The solution needs expanded endpoint query tools."
"Based on all the security roles and the release privilege, it could take time for an application to be whitelisted and approved for use."
"Report generation can be improved."
"I would like to see the user credentials feature improved. I would also like to see more reporting features and better ways to roll the reports out."
"The feature set for the firewall needs improvement."
"The EDR portion could be better. I'm not a big fan, but it works."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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 of Barracuda Essentials is better than some of the competing products."
"Barracuda licensing model is good."
"The product is expensive."
"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."
"​The cost/benefit factor has great relevance in Cb Defense implementations​."
"VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is an expensive product."
"It is more expensive, but it's worth it. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."
"Price-wise, VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is a highly-priced solution. Regarding the licensing cost of the solution, one needs to opt for an annual subscription."
"The cost is a considerable factor, but the benefit factor is the most important. When you compare it with other products, the price is high. Carbon Black will negotiate the price."
"Carbon Black might be a touch more expensive than Symantec. They tend to get a premium for their capabilities. They're sort of an industry leader in a lot of areas with the functionality that they provide."
"In terms of licensing costs, Carbon Black CB Defense was all associated with CROW and the services my company is using with them, so it came all-inclusive."
"The product’s price is less expensive than other vendors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise9
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 to choose: an endpoint antivirus, an EDR solution or both?
I can recommend Carbon Black, an award-winning next-gen anti-virus (NGAV) and endpoint detection and response (EDR) security solution. The CB Predictive Security Cloud platform combines multiple hi...
What's the difference between Carbon Black CB Response and Carbon Black CB Defense?
Carbon Black offers two different levels of Endpoint Detection and Response. One is the VM Carbon Black Cloud Endpoint Standard (CB Defense), and the other is the Carbon Black Endpoint Detection an...
What do you like most about Carbon Black CB Defense?
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is a highly stable solution.
 

Also Known As

Barracuda Essentials, Barracuda Forensics and Incident Response
Carbon Black CB Defense, Bit9, Confer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ACT Government, Acumen Group, AGIP, Delta Dental Plans Association, Desai/Nasr Consulting Engineers, Inc., Equinox Information Systems
Netflix, Progress Residential, Indeed, Hologic, Gentle Giant, Samsung Research America
Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Proofpoint, Trellix and others in Security Incident Response. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.