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Barracuda Email Threat Scanner vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint 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 Threat Scanner
Ranking in Anti-Malware Tools
31st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Anti-Malware Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
197
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Anti-Malware Tools category, the mindshare of Barracuda Email Threat Scanner is 0.3%, down from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 15.2%, down from 20.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Anti-Malware Tools
 

Featured Reviews

S. M. Rabiul Islam - PeerSpot reviewer
Is an easy, user-friendly solution that provides strong email security
The most valuable feature of Barracuda Email Threat Scanner is the security it provides by delaying the delivery of suspicious emails until they can be reviewed inside the Barracuda control panel. It keeps the mail inside the system unless it is deemed okay, and then can be sent to the client.
John Rallo - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers excellent visibility into vulnerabilities and the attack surface itself
Attack surface reduction and limiting attack surface vectors are valuable features. It's helpful to isolate specific devices and get super granular with the features they offer. The visibility into the attack surface is good. It gets highly granular. I don't work on that side, but the people who do tell me they get more visibility.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Barracuda Email Threat Scanner is the security it provides by delaying the delivery of suspicious emails until they can be reviewed inside the Barracuda control panel."
"It was easy to learn the product."
"The main benefit that I am getting from this solution is that it filters almost 95% of my spam mail. Some spam mails bypass Barracuda Email Threat Scanner, but when I add those domains or addresses to the filter list, they get blocked. Some users on my premises do not understand which mail attachments or links should be opened. By filtering with Barracuda Email Threat Scanner, we are not getting any type of phishing mails. So, our infrastructure is safer, and as an IT person, I feel relaxed."
"The most valuable features are that it's easy to use and the updates are very simple."
"It is easy to use because it is already pre-installed in Windows 10. We don't have to do anything to configure it. You can also configure the firewall by using a group policy so that it can be easily adopted in an environment."
"Defender is stable, I haven't had any problems with viruses when using it, and it's easy to update."
"Provides good security features and you can view it in the central console."
"We use Microsoft Defender for the antivirus."
"Defender for Endpoint provides good visibility into threats and has favorable threat intelligence."
"The threat hunting service is very useful for a security professional."
"The fact that it's from Microsoft, you don't have many false positives, unlike products from other vendors might have."
 

Cons

"We had an incident last month where the PCs of one or two colleagues, who were outside of our factory and were using a defined network, got infected by some kind of malware. From their PCs, more than 1,000 mails were produced per hour, causing spamming on our mail server. Barracuda blocked the full mail communication. Only one to two accounts were compromised, and for that, Barracuda blocked all incoming and outgoing mails. It created a great problem for other users and our office activities. Our server was blocked for three days, which we did not expect. Technically, only one or two accounts should be blocked. When a domain or IP is blocked, communication becomes tough. It may be a configuration issue at our provider's end, where there was a mistake in configuring Barracuda. It could also be a problem related to Barracuda."
"The product must improve the features associated with creating a blacklist."
"If the price were lower, perhaps we could purchase our own."
"A concern is ransomware, whether people can penetrate and encrypt my data or steal my credit card/banking information."
"Notifications are always popping up — I hate that."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can have more options and more AI capabilities in the future, because everything keeps changing."
"It is not very scalable from the eyes of an MSP because there is no dashboard that you can use to see all of your devices that have Windows Defender unless you have your own dashboard or an RMM tool to actually look at it. So, you might not get to know that a particular computer of a client is doing something, and it might have got a virus. That person might know that, but unless you set it up to actually send you the information, you won't get to know that. That's one of the things that is hard with Microsoft Defender. It is not made for the MSP world where you have one pane of glass to see all of your clients with Microsoft Defender on it unless your RMM tool already has that built-in and it can see the telemetry from Microsoft Defender."
"We would like to see more tools for managing on-premises security... Sometimes, we have the tools, like Defender, to manage security in the cloud, but because we are so focused on the cloud, we forget the fact that we need to be sure about the security of the on-premises environment, specifically Active Directory."
"The system can always be simplified and have a better integration check. More detailed reports would be good. When it does the integrated check, it just shows if the system is okay but I want to know what happened."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can use more advertising to promote their features."
"I would like the solution to be able to prevent unauthorized programs from installing and to block unauthorised URLs which is similar to web filtering product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Barracuda Email Threat Scanner is provided by our IT service provider, who also provides all the support. The licensing fee that we pay to our provider is $200 per month, that is, $1 per user. There is no additional cost. Before taking the subscription from our provider, I researched the market for Barracuda. The cost is between $5,000 to $8,000 for three years. After that, the same cost is there for renewal. If you have 200 to 500 users, it is better to take a subscription from a provider. If you have more than 500 users, then you can own the Barracuda server through the cloud or on-premises deployments. It is costly for a lesser number of users. If you increase the usage or the number of users, then the overall cost decreases. They can reduce the cost of Barracuda Email Threat Scanner for a small number of users. We could not and would not have used this solution if we had not got the renting or subscription option."
"The solution is a bit expensive."
"Its price is fair. It has approximately the same price as the other products such as Kaspersky. It is much cheaper than Malwarebytes."
"The price is higher than others because it is doing more than what the others are doing."
"If we are acquiring everything in a single place, the front end becomes cost-effective."
"This solution is part of an enterprise license we have."
"It is within the same range as other products. It is not too expensive, and it is also not cheap. Its price can be better, but, well, it is Microsoft."
"I pay for it through the Windows Professional or Standard license. It is a one-time cost for me, and I use the same license."
"We pay a yearly license for Microsoft Defender. We also have a support contract with them."
"Microsoft Defender ATP is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Performing Arts
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Barracuda Email Threat Scanner?
The product must improve the features associated with creating a blacklist. Currently, to add a content block, I have to go to a different screen. It seems cumbersome. The solution sells Impersonat...
How is Cortex XDR compared with Microsoft Defender?
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security solution. The tool reduces the attack surface, applies behavioral-based endpoint protection and response, and includes risk-ba...
Which offers better endpoint security - Symantec or Microsoft Defender?
We use Symantec because we do not use MS Enterprise products, but in my opinion, Microsoft Defender is a superior solution. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security s...
How does Microsoft Defender for Endpoint compare with Crowdstrike Falcon?
The CrowdStrike solution delivers a lot of information about incidents. It has a very light sensor that will never push your machine hardware to "test", you don't have the usual "scan now" feature ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Entisys 360,
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Threat Scanner vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.