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Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials) vs HPE Zerto Software comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 22, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
9.0
Barracuda Email Gateway Defense boosts security, reduces costs, and decreases incidents by up to 60%, enhancing operational stability.
Sentiment score
6.9
HPE Zerto Software reduces downtime and costs with efficient cloud disaster recovery, offering significant resource savings and enhanced resilience.
If your staff can become aware and trained to have minimal incidents, that is a huge return on investment for any organization.
Account Executive at Hilton Worldwide
We have seen a return on investment evidenced by fewer breaching incidents and less workload for our security team.
Senior Software Engineer at Kroger
I have seen a return on investment with Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials) as it has protected our customers against targeted phishing emails, set up training campaigns easily, and trained the human firewall.
Marketing Director at Unisys
Before, it was a huge cost. It was several thousand dollars to do a DR test, whereas now, I click a button.
CTO at Erisa Administrative Services, Inc.
It saves us a lot of time and gives us the ability to perform other DR plans for other systems.
System Engineer at a wholesaler/distributor with 1,001-5,000 employees
It's not only in the cloud; it's DR as a service, which means that the recovery operations are performed by a dedicated team specializing in this area.
Founder & CEO at Itix Cyber Ltd
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.5
Barracuda Email Gateway Defense support is highly rated for its 24/7 proactive, efficient service, and effective issue resolution.
Sentiment score
7.5
HPE Zerto Software's customer service is praised for responsiveness, expertise, and effective issue resolution, especially post-HP acquisition.
The customer support for Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials) is very responsive and supportive 24/7.
Marketing Director at Unisys
The customer support for Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials) is very proactive and responsive.
Senior Software Engineer at Kroger
The customer support for Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials) is very proactive and supportive.
Account Executive at Hilton Worldwide
I have never had an issue that was not resolved, and I have never been in a situation where they did not respond.
Sr. Systems Engineer at a legal firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
I would give them a rating of ten because it represents the highest level of support based on the technical knowledge of the support team, response time, and effectiveness of the provided resolutions.
Disaster Recovery Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
When I open a ticket, I usually get a call within an hour or two.
Systems Engineering Manager at a legal firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
9.1
Barracuda Email Gateway Defense is scalable and reliable, ideal for medium businesses, handling growth and heavy email traffic efficiently.
Sentiment score
7.4
HPE Zerto Software offers scalable, seamless integration for diverse organizations, enabling easy expansion from small setups to extensive VM management.
Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials) is very scalable and grows with my organization's needs.
Account Executive at Hilton Worldwide
Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials) is very scalable, with no downtime noticed, and it is really fast.
Senior Software Engineer at GE
Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials) has been very scalable, adapting to my organization's needs effectively.
Senior Software Engineer at Procter & Gamble
I would rate it a ten out of ten for scalability.
Head of IT at TWM SOLICITORS LLP
Customers need to follow good engineering practices for optimal product use.
Tech Lead, Storage and Data Protection at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
By adding more hosts and installing VRAs on each, tasks can be efficiently managed.
Senior Systems Engineer at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
9.1
Barracuda Email Gateway Defense is highly rated for its stability, with users experiencing no performance or reliability issues.
Sentiment score
8.0
Zerto is highly reliable, with stable performance, minimal issues, smooth updates, and continuous application uptime, despite minor bugs.
Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials) is very stable; I have not experienced any downtime or reliability issues.
Senior Software Engineer at Procter & Gamble
I promptly delete the malfunctioning elements and set them up again to resume replication, ensuring stability.
Technical Architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
The ease of use was so good with Zerto that they were able to migrate things much quicker.
Inside Sales Representative at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
It is very reliable.
Systems Engineering Manager at a legal firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Barracuda Essentials requires UI improvements, enhanced customization, better documentation, and strengthened automation for improved usability and flexibility.
HPE Zerto Software users seek enhanced Hyper-V support, better backup, flexible licensing, improved cloud integration, and robust IT compatibility.
The cost could be more affordable, especially for smaller organizations working on a tight budget.
Senior Software Engineer at GE
The price increased about two years ago, which is a big concern, especially for small organizations working on a tight budget.
Senior Software Engineer at Kroger
The user interface could be a little easier to use, and the campaigns could be easier to create.
Account Executive at Hilton Worldwide
If I have 350 objects that I am protecting, I would like Zerto to be able to fire them up in one order, rather than having to manually bring them up in a sequence.
Enterprise data management supervisor at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees
If the host has a lot of VMs on it, there may not always be enough time to relocate all of the VMs from a protection group standpoint to other hosts before the replication appliance that Zerto uses to manage that powers itself down.
Systems Engineering Manager at a legal firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
If HPE Zerto Software has it built-in where we're going to vCenter and you click on it, it will build the VPG and indicate configuration requirements, that would be amazing.
Senior Converged Infrastructure Engineer at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Setup Cost

Barracuda Email Gateway Defense provides cost-effective pricing, though some small organizations find it challenging due to recent price increases.
HPE Zerto Software is competitively priced for disaster recovery, with scalable licensing but higher costs when scaling up.
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing is that this tool is very cost-effective, but the price was increased around two years ago.
Senior Software Engineer at Kroger
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that the cost is very effective and affordable.
Marketing Director at Unisys
I find the price to be cost-effective.
Senior Software Engineer at GE
If you want a good-quality tool that is robust and does a good job for you, you have to pay a higher price to get that, and Zerto is no different.
IT Manager at American Pioneer Federal Credit Union
However, it can become quite expensive when you start looking at the number of workloads you have in the environment and what you would like to do.
Cloud and Infrastructure Services Manager at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Zerto is easier to set up and use, and it's less expensive.
Professional Services Engineer at US Signal
 

Valuable Features

Barracuda Email Gateway Defense enhances threat protection, reduces phishing, and improves compliance with advanced features and customizable security solutions.
HPE Zerto Software provides efficient disaster recovery with near-zero RPO, supporting multi-cloud, seamless migration, and user-friendly interface.
The URL filtering is excellent, as it reviews every link sent in an email and rewrites it to open in a sandbox first if clicked on.
Senior Software Engineer at Kroger
I value their ability to protect against various online threats such as spam, phishing, ransomware, and malware.
Marketing Director at Unisys
It has been a very good tool, increasing email security by 70%, improving compliance and risk management, and providing adequate training, making our staff more aware and alert, as they check more often and report more spam emails.
Senior Software Engineer at GE
Zerto offers excellent technical support with responsive and helpful experts.
Assistant Manager-Networks at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
If we were attacked, I could revert to a backup from five seconds before the attack, and no one would know we were attacked.
Senior Systems Engineer at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
The replication time and the minor amount of time it takes to sync a new server outside of any of my huge 40-terabyte boxes is ridiculously quick.
Sr. Systems Engineer at a legal firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Barracuda Email Gateway Def...
Ranking in Cloud Backup
16th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE Zerto Software
Ranking in Cloud Backup
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
355
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (2nd), Cloud Migration (1st), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (1st), Autonomous Operational Resilience (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Cloud Backup category, the mindshare of Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials) is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Zerto Software is 2.7%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Backup Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE Zerto Software2.7%
Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials)0.5%
Other96.8%
Cloud Backup
 

Featured Reviews

Kelly  Perry - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at Procter & Gamble
Email defenses have reduced phishing risk and now protect our remote workforce every day
Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials) has had a very positive impact on our organization, especially since the pandemic with many remote workers. Our IT objective is 99.9% uptime with many redundant fail-safes in place. Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials) helps to meet that objective by protecting the vast amount of email we receive on a daily basis. I can share specific metrics or results: we've reduced risk by 60% and increased visibility by 70%. Now we have peace of mind in our organization since we know our email is protected. Email protection has dramatically reduced attacks via spam, phishing, and malware in all sectors, enhancing protection and encryption of input and output and preventing data from being leaked from the internal network.
reviewer2802231 - PeerSpot reviewer
Dev Ops Engineer at a media company with 201-500 employees
Near-zero downtime has protected critical workloads and now simplifies hybrid cloud recovery
The best features of HPE Zerto Software are mainly very sophisticated and relevant to the current market. The data protection CDP part has real-time replication, unlike other solutions that have snapshot backups. We can set it up hourly, making it ideal for use with workloads. Another attraction is the near-zero RTO, with automated failover within minutes and one-click failover and failback. Currently, we are using a hybrid cloud solution, and HPE Zerto Software supports multi-cloud environments, making it easy to migrate between on-premises and cloud. Regarding the impact of HPE Zerto Software on our RTOs, we have near-zero RTO, meaning the system must be back online within thirty minutes if we measure the time. It is very quick to recover services. With HPE Zerto Software's near-synchronous replication, we have some CDP protection, so we typically write interceptions along with some asynchronous replication. There is almost real-time replication available.
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Comparison Review

it_user159711 - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Nov 9, 2014
VMware SRM vs. Veeam vs. Zerto
Disaster recovery planning is something that seems challenging for all businesses. Virtualization in addition to its operational flexibility, and cost reduction benefits, has helped companies improve their DR posture. Virtualization has made it easier to move machines from production to…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Media Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business92
Midsize Enterprise94
Large Enterprise202
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials)?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing is that this tool is very cost-effective, but the price was increased around two years ago, which worries me for small organizations using Bar...
What needs improvement with Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials)?
Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials) can be improved since the DLP is a bit inflexible and cannot handle custom additions. It is either you turn on the group of regulations you wa...
What is your primary use case for Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials)?
My main use case for Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials) is for email protection company-wide for email filtering and email management. It is important for our organization becau...
What advice do you have for others considering Oracle Data Guard?
Ik fluister:VM Host Oracle en DataGuard hebben we per toeval vervangen door Zerto :-) tijdens de Zerto implementatie en VPG werden de Host Data in write-ack Block-Level gerepliceerd. Qua licentie 1...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zerto?
In terms of pricing, I'll not say HPE Zerto Software is very cheap, and I'll not say that whatever features it provides, it's very highly priced. However, there could be room for negotiation on the...
What needs improvement with Zerto?
The documentation is very good. The GUI is kind of an old one. More development on the GUI can be useful for the users.The areas that have room for improvement include the GUI. The other thing is t...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Zerto Virtual Replication
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
United Airlines, HCA, XPO Logistics, TaxSlayer, McKesson, Insight Global, American Airlines, Tencate, Aaron’s, Grey’s County, Kingston Technologies
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials) vs. HPE Zerto Software and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.