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Barracuda SecureEdge vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 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

iboss
Sponsored
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (6th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), ZTNA as a Service (7th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (7th)
Barracuda SecureEdge
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
17th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
ZTNA as a Service (21st), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (20th)
Microsoft Defender for Clou...
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (15th), Microsoft Security Suite (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) category, the mindshare of iboss is 4.5%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Barracuda SecureEdge is 1.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is 5.5%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps5.5%
iboss4.5%
Barracuda SecureEdge1.5%
Other88.5%
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
 

Featured Reviews

Ashok Ananthula - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Cloud gateway has strengthened remote web security and now needs better Mac and ISP support
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent for the Mac agents. That is where in 2025, we had to migrate to the Palo Alto-based platform. If your use case is for just Windows laptops,you can consider this platform as an option One issue is the data center resiliency part. In India especially, they are not tied up with the Tier 1 ISPs like Tata or Airtel; they were having Tier 2 ISPs and encountered many issues reaching few major sites that my organization depends on, and they were having problems that they could not fix quickly. They also lack a mechanism to route that traffic within their data center; rather, they ask customers to make a pac file change to route it to Singapore explicitly. It would be better if they route from their backend , i mean even if I send it to India DC, they should be able to route it internally to make that work; however, they fail to do that and ask the customer to route it in the pac file. Another suggestion is that in China, they do not have the proper setup; they used to have numerous problems with slowness and lack of premium circuits in China as well. That leads to multiple sites working slowly with latency-related issues. So the main issue is the ISP-related problems that need to be solved.
karan rathod - PeerSpot reviewer
network security engineer at a outsourcing company with 11-50 employees
Centralized security management has simplified remote access and improved network visibility
Overall, my experience with Barracuda SecureEdge has been positive, but there are always areas for improvement. One area where I believe the product could be enhanced is in reporting and analytics, with more customizable dashboards and deeper insight for security and performance monitoring. Additionally, having more advanced troubleshooting tools and diagnostic information directly within the platform would help administrators resolve issues even faster. While the interface is generally easy to use, some advanced configurations could be simplified further to reduce the learning curve for new administrators. The platform already provides strong security, centralized management, and reliable connection for our organization. One enhancement our team would appreciate regarding Barracuda SecureEdge is more advanced customization options for reporting and dashboards, allowing us to create role-specific views and more detailed analytics. We would also appreciate additional automation capability for routing administrative tasks and policy management, which could further reduce operational effort and streamline security operations. While the platform already provides strong visibility and management capability, having more built-in troubleshooting and diagnostic tools would help analyze issues when they occur. Nothing major comes to mind about improving Barracuda SecureEdge. If I had to suggest something, I would like to see more customizable reporting and a few additional troubleshooting tools. Overall, the platform meets our requirements well and has been easy to manage.
Abdulrahman Muhammadi - PeerSpot reviewer
information Security and IT Manager at Discover Dollar Technologies Pvt Ltd.
Integration with existing cloud workflows has simplified compliance and threat detection
Licensing cost is a significant concern. With Defender Plan 1, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps comes with a pay-per-use model. Each feature has its own pricing when activated on VMs. For example, the vulnerability assessment has separate pricing, the base model including encryptions has separate pricing, and the compliance features have separate pricing. This applies to each VM and Azure resource individually. It is not straightforward where you can take one license and apply it to everything. Each feature has its own pricing model which can be tedious, as the costs keep accumulating. The only lacking feature currently is XDR (extended detection and response). Apart from that, I have only positive experiences with the whole Microsoft suite, except for the pricing structure.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent."
"As I mentioned, the return on investment is significant, as it saved our office locations' bandwidth because when you are working remotely at home, your internet traffic routes directly to iboss and will not go to your office building, saving bandwidth bottlenecks and ensuring that issues with our building internet circuits will not impact your internet connectivity because you are directly going to the iboss data center."
"Valuable features: Within the filter: Controls (Web categories, applications, and Allow/Block list) and Network (local Subnets). Within the reporter: Logs (Event Log) and Reports."
"We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"I would say iboss is a very good product; its scalability is very good, and it's seamless for the user."
"I would rate the technical support of iboss a solid 10 without a shadow of a doubt."
"Barracuda SecureEdge has provided a good balance of security, connectivity and ease of management."
"I have seen specific outcomes since using Barracuda SecureEdge, such as tool consolidation that combines multiple tools like VPN, firewall, secure web gateway, and SD-WAN into one solution, resulting in around a twenty to thirty percent reduction in security tool costs, improved operational efficiency, and increased efficiency around twenty-five to forty percent."
"Overall, it has strengthened our security posture and improved the business's operational efficiency significantly."
"Overall, it has improved productivity for both our IT team and end-users while strengthening our organization's security and network management capabilities."
"From a security monitoring perspective, there is a productivity improvement and fewer human errors."
"Everything from Microsoft is integrated. You receive regular reports on them all. You can push your reports, logs, and security alerts, which are all integrated. It is crucial that these solutions work natively together to deliver coordinated detection and response across our environment."
"The most valuable feature is its policy implementation."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is very comprehensive, providing a complete 360-degree view of applications within an organization."
"It gives our clients a sense of confidence that in case there are activities on some of their applications, they will get an alert and the issue will be mitigated, based on the action that has been set."
"I would rate it a ten because I have not experienced any stability issues so far with Defender for Cloud Apps."
"Defender for Cloud Apps has given us good visibility regarding what we've allowed in our environment until now. It helps us to know our inventory, understand what our customers are using, and steer them toward safer practices."
"The integration within the entire Defender suite is highly valuable because it allows for communication between different components and offers pretty decent correlations."
 

Cons

"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."
"The reporting feature needs improvement. It doesn't give you the expected results. It is quite difficult to get the specific reports needed, and it is not as intuitive as the rest of the platform."
"The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices; it is not able to give a successful agent for the Mac agents, and that is where in 2025 we had to migrate to the Palo Alto-based platform."
"Our iboss subscription access should be more secure with an OTP or VPN etc. It is easy to gain access if, for example, hackers obtain my username and password."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"Fold that in with the risk intelligence they're getting from all of the different subscriptions they are a part of. Now, these security companies subscribe to things like emerging threats, databases, etc. You can fold all this intelligence to decide what's happening on an endpoint. I would love to see them start moving into that space. That would compete directly with Microsoft. Maybe that's why they haven't. Having that ability native within the solution would be great. The other area in which I would love to see improvement is more detailed descriptions of why they block websites."
"The endpoint-type solution is an area that needs some improvement."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"Compared to leading SASE vendors, Barracuda SecureEdge is still evolving and lacks some advanced features and integration depth that may require evaluating for large and global enterprises."
"Nothing major comes to mind about improving Barracuda SecureEdge. If I had to suggest something, I would like to see more customizable reporting and a few additional troubleshooting tools."
"The main area for improvement for Barracuda SecureEdge would be more advanced reporting and analytics, additional documentation for complex deployments and further simplification for some advanced configuration workflows."
"However, the price of the solution could be better."
"An area of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps that needs to be improved or enhanced is the reporting function. In the beginning, there was a good reporting function which gave us a sort of monthly overview report. But that has gone away."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps' initial setup was quite technical but we were prepared. The time of the implementation depends on the job and how many users are being set up."
"There are certain areas where the product could improve, such as some functionalities that did not work as expected."
"We've had an issue where an in-session policy was not working."
"The insights could be improved, especially in reporting."
"The interface needs to be more user-friendly."
"A significant improvement I would like to see is the integration into a single pane of glass, which would allow me to view everything in one place rather than having to switch between different areas."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."
Information not available
"It has fair pricing. You pay for what you get. As far as I know, there are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fee."
"The pricing is fair."
"We have an educational licensing agreement. It's a customer agreement for multiple years."
"Its pricing is on the higher side. Its price is definitely very high for a small-scale company. As an enterprise client, we do get benefits from Microsoft. We get a discounted price because of the number of users we have in our company. We have a premier package, and with that, we do get a lot of discounts. There are no additional costs. It only comes in the top-tier packages. Generally, the top-tier license is the best license that you can get for your organization. If you want, you can buy it separately, but that's not a good idea."
"This product is not expensive."
"The pricing is a little bit high but right now, we are okay with it because of the compatibility with Office 365, Teams, and Azure AD."
"I'm not totally involved in the pricing part, but I think its pricing is quite aggressive, and its price is quite similar to Netskope. Netskope has separate licensing fees or additional charges if you want to monitor certain SaaS services, whereas, with MCAS, you get 5,000 applications with their Office 365. It is all bundled, and there's no cost for using that. You only have the operational costs. In the country I am in, it is a bit difficult to get people with the required skill sets."
"We utilize the Microsoft E5 licensing, which encompasses the entire Microsoft suite; however, it is costly."
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902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
16%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise19
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent ...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We used iBoss mainly for Internet Access by having an Agent on Windows laptops Primarily because when we try to use i...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
I am not involved in pricing, but as per the information I have, during that time, the Blue Coat proxies we were usin...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda SecureEdge?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is acceptable. I do not see any complications compared to other...
What needs improvement with Barracuda SecureEdge?
Compared to leading SASE vendors, Barracuda SecureEdge is still evolving and lacks some advanced features and integra...
What is your primary use case for Barracuda SecureEdge?
My main use case for Barracuda SecureEdge is a particular consolidation approach where different branch locations hav...
Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Microsoft Cloud App Security?
Cisco Umbrella is an integral component of the Cisco SASE architecture. It integrates security in a single, cloud-nat...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Cloud App Security?
At the time of implementation, when the size of our organization was small, it was a more affordable product. Since a...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Cloud App Security?
The fidelity of the signal in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps has been a challenge in some areas. There have been i...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Barracuda CloudGen Access
MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
Information Not Available
Customers for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include Accenture, St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and Nakilat.
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda SecureEdge vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.