Barracuda Email Security Gateway and Cisco Secure Email compete in the email security solutions category. Barracuda appears to have the upper hand regarding pricing, offering a more cost-effective solution.
Features: Barracuda Email Security Gateway is known for its anomaly-based spam detection, integration with LDAP and Active Directory, and cloud-based functionalities like quarantine services. Cisco Secure Email offers advanced phishing protection, integrated threat intelligence, and comprehensive logging and reporting capabilities.
Room for Improvement: Barracuda could enhance its backup and recovery processes, refine configuration updates, and improve handling of DoS attacks. Cisco could improve its sandboxing capabilities, streamline configuration management, and make its user interface more intuitive.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both products offer flexible deployment options, including on-premises, hybrid, and cloud configurations. Barracuda's technical support receives praise for its promptness, though time zone differences can affect accessibility. Cisco is recognized for comprehensive support, but could improve integration with other security solutions.
Pricing and ROI: Barracuda is seen as a budget-friendly solution providing good ROI for small to midsize businesses. Cisco, while more premium priced, is considered valuable for its extensive feature set, providing excellent coverage and quality.
From the vendor, I would give the technical support an eight out of ten.
Cisco's tech support can be hit or miss, depending on the engineer you get.
The support is pretty decent, with a rating of eight out of ten.
The on-premises hardware is not very scalable, but switching to the SaaS offering is expected to improve scalability.
Based on my experience, the stability of Cisco Secure Email is very strong.
Sometimes there are false positive emails coming through, so they should improve further on detection technologies and techniques.
If it's considered a phishing email, it should be blocked for all users, not just some.
Some mails pass while others are dropped without any apparent logic, despite having the policy set for specific recipients or senders.
The solution should better analyze the actual content rather than only focusing on the email header or origin.
It would be beneficial to have the functionality of the Email Threat Defense integrated into the Email Security Gateway so customers don't have to buy two products for full email protection.
Compared with others, Barracuda Email Security Gateway is cheaper.
Its cost is bundled with other Cisco products.
The pricing structure is good as it is user-based or email client-based, which is positive for clients.
The licensing is a mess and needs sorting out.
The real-time threat intelligence feature is particularly useful as it detects all kinds of threats identified by incoming mails.
Whenever mail comes, the Barracuda gateway scans it and maintains advanced threat protection capability.
It is highly effective in catching phishing and spam emails.
It also possesses multiple modules for spam detection, malware detection, and threat intelligence, which are valuable in categorizing emails and determining actions.
It covers everything through email, like antivirus, IDS, and IPS.
| Product | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| Barracuda Email Security Gateway | 6.6% |
| Microsoft Defender for Office 365 | 27.5% |
| Proofpoint Email Protection | 20.6% |
| Other | 45.3% |
| Product | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| Cisco Secure Email | 5.5% |
| Microsoft Defender for Office 365 | 10.9% |
| Proofpoint Email Protection | 7.8% |
| Other | 75.8% |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 34 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 12 |
| Large Enterprise | 13 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 22 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 18 |
| Large Enterprise | 25 |
Barracuda Email Security Gateway is a robust security solution that allows users to protect themselves from external threats as well as from potential data leaks. It can be managed and monitored from a centralized location. Users can efficiently and easily keep track of every aspect of their security suite all at one time. Customized protections can also be set up in a matter of minutes.
Benefits of Barracuda Email Security Gateway
Some of the benefits of using Barracuda Email Security Gateway include:
Reviews from Real Users
Barracuda Email Security Gateway is an email security tool that stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are the high level of flexibility that it gives to users and the solution’s powerful filtering feature. Barracuda Email Security Gateway offers users the ability to enact customizations that enable them to align the solution with their specific needs. It is highly flexible and allows for the completion of many different tasks. Additionally, it employs a powerful spam filter feature that gives users the ability to stop a large percentage of the threats to their devices before they get anywhere near their machines.
Mohammed N., the assistant general manager at CoLoCity Data Center, writes, “There are many customizable options:
The client has the option to blacklist or whitelist any email address or domain based on the sender and recipient filters. If they want, they can restrict any IP addresses so email won't be received from those IP addresses. Another interesting feature of Barracuda Email Security is the content filtering. If there is any word or sentence that we or our customers want to block, then we can add that thing in Barracuda Email Security Gateway. The content contained in the email will not be delivered or received by the recipient. Maximum customization options are available.”
Igor G., the information security officer and data protection officer at a manufacturing company, writes, “The spam filtering feature, in particular, is very important for us. We have a large volume of emails each month, something like 200,000, and Barracuda filters about 85 percent of the spam, malware, and phishing that comes in. It prevents our users from receiving this content on their computers.”
Cisco Secure Email provides email security with advanced threat protection, spam filtering, and easy integration with Cisco Talos, ensuring comprehensive protection against cyber threats like phishing and malware.
Cisco Secure Email offers a comprehensive platform for organizations seeking robust email security. With advanced threat protection and seamless integration with Cisco Talos, it enhances threat intelligence. The tool provides easy-to-use spam blocking and granular policy customization. Effective ransomware, phishing, and malware protection ensures stable network performance. It includes logging and reporting features, along with Active Directory integration, delivering enhanced security without extra hardware. Although it addresses threats efficiently, improvements in synchronization with reporting tools and phishing detection are needed. Organizations find cost and licensing complexities challenging for smaller networks and seek more intuitive configuration, advanced AI threat detection, and comprehensive reporting. Enhanced support, documentation, and cross-platform compatibility are desirable for better management and scalability.
What are the most important features?In industries like finance, healthcare, and IT, Cisco Secure Email is key to securing email communications. It serves as the primary email gateway in datacenters, scanning and filtering emails to defend against phishing, malware, and spam. Many organizations integrate it with Sophos Antivirus and Talos Threat Intelligence for heightened protection. It plays a crucial role in outbound message control and data loss prevention, ensuring compliance with security policies.
We monitor all Secure Email Gateway (SEG) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
