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Abnormal Security vs Barracuda Email Security Gateway comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 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

Abnormal Security
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
3rd
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (4th)
Barracuda Email Security Ga...
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
DMARC Authentication Software (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Abnormal Security is 11.4%, up from 11.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Barracuda Email Security Gateway is 7.3%, up from 7.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Abnormal Security11.4%
Barracuda Email Security Gateway7.3%
Other81.3%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

William Schellhaas - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Director of IT at Crunch Fitness West Florida and Atlanta (CR Fitness)
Provides comprehensive email security management, effective in detecting a wide range of email threats
The ideal scenario would be for Abnormal Security to work in tandem with Microsoft to analyze incoming emails. This means Abnormal Security would assess emails before they reach my inbox, even if it happens slightly after Microsoft's initial scan. Currently, the process isn't seamless. Microsoft analyzes emails and delivers legitimate ones to my inbox. Abnormal Security then scans these delivered emails, and if flagged as malicious, they disappear. This creates a problem for our ticketing system mailbox, which is a third-party service. Emails sent to the ticketing system address are automatically forwarded by Microsoft. However, if these emails are malicious, Abnormal Security only cleans them from my Outlook mailbox after they've been forwarded. Since we primarily rely on the ticketing system and not the Outlook mailbox, these malicious emails still reach the ticketing system.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Their ability to take things out of the mailbox and catch things much faster than users is excellent."
"One of the things that I love about them is that the setup and installation are super easy. All you do is give them access to your Microsoft 365 tenant, and through APIs, they are able to do their work. They are doing all this through APIs, so you do not have to install the software and take a month to get it all set up to even see the value of the solution. You could be up and running in less than an hour."
"Abnormal Security's AI capabilities are what we like most, as they can categorize and classify the emails, and based on the context of the email, understand if it's a graymail, a bulk mail, or a phish."
"It protects us from being business email compromised, which is invaluable for maintaining our security."
"Initial auto-remediation allows us to auto-remediate before the email lands in the end user's inbox for a split second."
"I like Abnormal's threat protection with auto-remediation, but I also love its abuse mailbox feature, which automatically responds to the end user. That feature has a super-valuable security component and helps improve the user experience."
"I would recommend Abnormal Security."
"What I like about Abnormal Security is that it notifies me if any of my partners or suppliers are experiencing a security breach by analyzing their database and identifying potential cyber threats."
"Eliminating inbox clutter creates an opportunity to be more productive instead of wasting time manually sorting through spam."
"The most valuable feature of Barracuda Email Security Gateway is the complete capabilities it provides. Additionally, the phishing security and sandbox features are effective."
"Thanks to Barracuda Email Security Gateway, I have seen increases in productivity and functionality in terms of spam reduction and filtering against different threats, which is a benefit by default."
"It is very simple to whitelist addresses."
"Barracuda Email Security Gateway has positively impacted my organization by reducing security incidents and stopping attacks targeting us."
"Great at blocking spam."
"It is a very stable solution."
"Barracuda Email Security Gateway is very simple to use."
 

Cons

"When we're working on something as engineers, and we find an idea or a method of doing something that would be greatly improved by doing it another way, there should be an ability for me to click the ideas button, type in an idea that I have, and submit it to a product review team or developers to have them think through the process a little bit more."
"The ideal scenario would be for Abnormal Security to work in tandem with Microsoft to analyze incoming emails."
"Abnormal should add more automatic reports. I have an open request to our account team for more notification and report types that can be sent automatically. For example, they have an awesome report that gets sent weekly, and I also want them monthly, so I don't need to do so much adding up when my director wants numbers over time."
"The biggest pain point for us is the lack of support for on-premise email systems."
"I would like to have the ability to customize the auto-remediation feature."
"For Abnormal Security as a product, I would say probably somewhere around a seven, as there are some other areas where they can improve to achieve a higher rating."
"There could be more selectable options and more granular selections available."
"I, as such, do not have anything that I do not like or would like to add, but you could argue that because they are doing it API-based, there is a chance that something could slip through temporarily before they are able to pull it out. In theory, it could happen just because of the nature of the system. They are not in line with the delivery of the mail. They are kind of asynchronous, which is a pro as well as a con. If it is synchronous, then I know it would always stop them, but because it is asynchronous, things could get through temporarily or because of some system issues on the Microsoft side or their side. It is the nature of the beast, but it is a little bit of a con."
"There's a bit of configuration work that's needed with the DNS service provider, but other than that, everything else should be very smooth."
"The solution could improve by adding DomainKeys (DKIM) functionality. This is something that is essentially required nowadays for outbound security. They do not have it on their on-premise solution appliance but they have alternate arrangements for their cloud solution."
"The pricing needs improvement."
"We still have critical threats coming into our environment and delivered to our users. When we compare it with other solutions, these other solutions can already detect those threats."
"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."
"Spam is not always detected, and it should be more automated. We have seen that some emails are allowed by these emails, which are then stopped by Microsoft."
"Barracuda isn't catching everything. We're still getting quite a few phishing emails, so we're looking for something else."
"There is room for improvement in the speed of the interface, specifically the cloud interface, is a bit slow."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Overall, we'd certainly prefer lower pricing, but Abnormal Security doesn't seem unreasonable compared to similar offerings in the market."
"Abnormal Security, on the other hand, provides the same level of functionality for just over $60,000 – that's half the price!"
"The pricing appears fair, and they demonstrate a genuine willingness to work with us on it."
"The license is based on the user count, so the number of users that have an email address in the organization."
"We typically purchase a one or three-year license for Barracuda Email Security Gateway."
"The licensing fees are part of a bundled support package that we pay for."
"The pricing for the product is fine."
"Barracuda has the best price. Every year we need to renew our license, and every year I need to compare Barracuda to two or three other players in the market. Barracuda always has a price that is 30 to 40 percent less than the other players' prices."
"The regular pricing was initially very reasonable, but three years ago, Barracuda revised their price list and SKUs, resulting in a significant doubling of the standard prices."
"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."
"This is one of the major points for integrating this solution in any organization. Barracuda Email Security Gateway needs to make it a bit more tolerable for customers because it is increasing every year. They should create a plan for reducing the cost."
"It is an expensive solution and I would rate it 5 out of 10."
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881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise13
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Abnormal Security?
The features that appeal to me most are the combination of auto-remediation and Detection 360.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Abnormal Security?
I find the pricing to be favorable, but I did not disclose the exact cost.
What needs improvement with Abnormal Security?
Ease of use is important, and Abnormal Security's responsiveness and ability to deliver solutions when issues arise are crucial. However, there is always room for improvement, as achieving a perfec...
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.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Barracuda Spam and Virus Firewall, Barracuda Sentinel
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Foot Lcoker, Xerox, Liberty Mutual, Mattel, Boston Scientific
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Abnormal Security vs. Barracuda Email Security Gateway and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.