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Barracuda Email Security Gateway vs Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Security Ga...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
DMARC Authentication Software (4th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (7th)
Fortra's Clearswift Secure ...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
0
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (39th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Messaging and Collaboration solutions, they serve different purposes. Barracuda Email Security Gateway is designed for Secure Email Gateway (SEG) and holds a mindshare of 7.3%, up 7.1% compared to last year.
Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway, on the other hand, focuses on Email Security, holds 1.0% mindshare, up 0.7% since last year.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Barracuda Email Security Gateway7.3%
Microsoft Defender for Office 36524.2%
Proofpoint Email Protection20.3%
Other48.2%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway1.0%
Microsoft Defender for Office 3659.6%
Proofpoint Email Protection7.9%
Other81.5%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

MM
Graduate Student at ain shams
Secures email by identifying threats and managing email policies effectively
The intuitive management interface feature makes email security policies very easy to implement as it's all about features that need to be enabled or disabled. Our investigation in any incident or mail is very useful as it provides all details about incoming mails, enabling thorough review and detection. The real-time threat intelligence feature is particularly useful as it detects all kinds of threats identified by incoming mails. The Impersonation license utilizes AI tools. Sometimes some phishing mails are reported as phishing, but they are not actually phishing mails. They are detected due to certain words and languages that appear suspicious but were generated by AI tools. Everyone or an advisor may use it for their own purpose or learning, even though it indicates that the mail detected is phishing when it's not.
PC
Systems Administrator at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Stable, but malware needs improvement and customer support is poor
They need to improve the malware in the product. I am not satisfied with Clearswift because of the lack of customer support. The support is poor, the supplier takes a lot of time and it's expensive. We have some issues here when I contact the supplier, it takes a lot of time for them to get back to us but there's no solution. I am now looking at Symantec as a possible alternative.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"With the cloud service, one of the nice things about Barracuda is the quarantine service. It gives the ability for our users to go in and check what has been quarantined, and then connect with our IT staff to release anything that should be fine so that we can test it before we release."
"It not only tackles spam effectively but also incorporates advanced features like ATP and active features which ensures a comprehensive and adaptable email security solution tailored to their heterogeneous environment."
"The protection from Barracuda Email Security Gateway is essentially a sandboxing solution."
"It can scale."
"We find the email security to be valuable."
"Eliminating inbox clutter creates an opportunity to be more productive instead of wasting time manually sorting through spam."
"It can effectively combat phishing attacks, block spam, provide confirmation, and ensure operational manageability with a strong focus on product stability."
"The feature that sets Barracuda apart from other solutions is the Office 365 cloud-to-cloud backup."
"A stable solution."
"Ability to create your own content-filtering policies with relative ease."
 

Cons

"There are some times when legit emails are trapped on Barracuda and we are unable to get that information unless we actually log on to the network to find out."
"We had an incident where we didn't want to receive any emails or spam from a certain site and email address. We selected the mail ID, and we send it to Barracuda for analysis to see if it's spam or something like that. As of now, we haven't gotten any update or notification as to what happened with it."
"Barracuda Email Security Gateway should add auto-remediation to improve the solution. Additionally, there are times when we have false positives and our general emails get locked, we have mentioned this to Barracuda."
"The pricing is a little bit high, and it is causing the company to rethink renewal. If they could lower the pricing, that would be ideal."
"We detect some failures in some mails; not all mails pass through consistently. Some mails pass while others are dropped without any apparent logic, despite having the policy set for specific recipients or senders."
"Few customers require an on-premises fabric ATP box for attack detection and response."
"The reports are standard, and it would be nice to be able to customize them."
"Barracuda should add an option where it can add multiple domains, such as abc.com, bbc.com, and cbc.com. Therefore, this domains' emails will be allowed and other domains' emails will not be relayed through Barracuda Email Security Gateway. Whereas, if you allow the IP address, then any of the domain's emails will be relayed through Barracuda Email Security Gateway. That is the drawback that I have observed. So, Barracuda should work on this."
"FTP server and TRUST Manager functionality."
"Malware needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"e solution's pricing is exceedingly high, and it continues to increase."
"The pricing for the product is fine."
"Compared to other products, this solution is quite affordable."
"We are using the trial version right now, and before purchasing the license, we need to solve some of the issues that we are facing. We need a proper solution for our email, and then we will look into pricing. We have a vendor for licensing."
"Barracuda Email Security Gateway is an affordable solution that caters to small, midsize, and high-end businesses with great revenue."
"It is an expensive solution and I would rate it 5 out of 10."
"There is an annual license required for this solution."
"We typically purchase a one or three-year license for Barracuda Email Security Gateway."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
5%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise13
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda Sentinel?
I would suggest that pricing for Barracuda Email Security Gateway rates around seven. It is not too expensive, but it is a considerable cost. Compared with others, Barracuda Email Security Gateway ...
What needs improvement with Barracuda Sentinel?
Regarding real-time intelligent features of the Barracuda Email Security Gateway, some spam emails are still being released by the ESG to the end users, so the functionality is not working appropri...
What is your primary use case for Barracuda Sentinel?
My use case for the Barracuda Email Security Gateway is to protect our emails from phishing and spam emails to get them blocked by the ESG.
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Also Known As

Barracuda Spam and Virus Firewall, Barracuda Sentinel
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Evolution Recruitment Solutions, Evans Delivery Company, Osoyoos Credit Union, Synovis Life Technologies, Camden County Technical Schools, DEK, Evans Delivery Company, Colgate Rochester Crozer, Hemmera, South Carolina Heart Center, Ferma Corporation, Major League Baseball (MLB), Healy Brothers Automotive Group
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Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Proofpoint, Abnormal AI and others in Secure Email Gateway (SEG). Updated: January 2026.
879,455 professionals have used our research since 2012.