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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
7.0
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
DMARC Authentication Software (2nd), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (6th)
Fortra's Clearswift Secure ...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
0
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (30th)
 

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 9.6%, up 6.2% compared to last year.
Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway, on the other hand, focuses on Email Security, holds 1.2% mindshare, up 0.8% since last year.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Barracuda Email Security Gateway9.6%
Proofpoint Email Protection18.3%
Microsoft Defender for Office 36514.8%
Other57.3%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway1.2%
Proofpoint Email Protection6.3%
Microsoft Defender for Office 3655.7%
Other86.8%
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

"The most important features of Barracuda Email Security Gateway are the simple and quick configuration, interactive console, and easy-to-understand logs."
"The most valuable feature of Barracuda Email Security Gateway is that it blocks almost 99 percent of threats from users' email inboxes."
"All features it provides on the cloud environment are very, very useful, including the antivirus that is enabled on it."
"Barracuda Email Security Gateway is very simple to use."
"If you have raw spam, this solution is going to catch it."
"My current company had no product before Barracuda, and we get a lot of added value from the various things it does, ranging from advanced threat protection and spam filtering to protection from viruses and email spoofing, plus cloud-to-cloud backup."
"Its backups are valuable."
"We find the email security to be valuable."
"A stable solution."
"Go for it! I think it's an excellent product with great technical support."
"Ability to create your own content-filtering policies with relative ease."
"We use a few features for web proxy, and another feature is the email content filter and malware for our internal policy in the email content."
 

Cons

"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 appropriately."
"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."
"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."
"Barracuda should add an option where it can add multiple domains, such as abc.com, bbc.com, and cbc.com; therefore, only these 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 domains' emails will be relayed through Barracuda Email Security Gateway; that is the drawback that I have observed, so Barracuda should work on this."
"Barracuda's spam database isn't on par with its competitors. Users complain about the spam email they're receiving, and we report the issue. Barracuda said they are going to update their system to block the malicious email we received, but we're still getting the same spam. The signatures are not in their database. They need to update their spam signatures because spam is bypassing Barracuda."
"Solution requires regular checking to ensure it's 'keeping up' with spam."
"The initial setup can be a little bit complex."
"I had some difficulty in the past with the system getting swamped and overwhelmed trying to process all incoming traffic."
"Malware needs improvement."
"I am not satisfied with Clearswift because of the lack of customer support."
"FTP server and TRUST Manager functionality."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We find the solution's pricing okay."
"I rate the price of Barracuda Email Security Gateway a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"We typically purchase a one or three-year license for Barracuda Email Security Gateway."
"As far as advanced email security systems, this product is mid-range on the pricing scale."
"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."
"The price of the solution should be reduced. The price in the USA is less than where we are. Our local distributor of the solution is manipulating the market."
"Our licensing fees are approximately $4,000 per year, and this includes updates for the antivirus and spam signatures."
"The licensing cost is competitive, it's not too high and not too low."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Retailer
9%
Educational Organization
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business35
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise13
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda Sentinel?
Compared to the features and stability, Barracuda Email Security Gateway is affordable in terms of pricing, setup cost, and licensing.
What needs improvement with Barracuda Sentinel?
On technical aspects, I think Barracuda needs to provide a fast response to any vulnerability on the system and enhance Barracuda support. Customer support for Barracuda Email Security Gateway need...
What is your primary use case for Barracuda Sentinel?
My main use case for Barracuda Email Security Gateway is to protect our email and our email users, protecting our business from most of the sophisticated attacks like phishing attacks and spam. We ...
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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 Proofpoint, Microsoft, Mimecast and others in Secure Email Gateway (SEG). Updated: July 2026.
908,877 professionals have used our research since 2012.