No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

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
9.1
Barracuda Email Gateway Defense improved security, reduced incidents, and increased efficiency, providing significant cost savings and operational stability.
Sentiment score
6.9
HPE Zerto Software offers rapid recovery, reduces downtime and costs, and simplifies disaster recovery with significant ROI and efficiency.
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
8.6
Barracuda Email Gateway Defense customer support is praised for responsive, proactive 24/7 assistance, achieving high ratings from users.
Sentiment score
7.5
HPE Zerto Software's support is highly rated for responsiveness, knowledge, though concerns exist post-HP acquisition about initial support levels.
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
9.0
Barracuda Email Gateway Defense offers high scalability and reliability, efficiently supporting medium to large businesses' email protection needs.
Sentiment score
7.5
HPE Zerto Software scales easily across environments, offering adaptability, simple licensing, and robust disaster recovery with minor performance considerations.
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) is scalable because I do not need to manage anything; it will be managed on their end.
Security Practitioner at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
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 stability, with most users experiencing no downtime, ensuring reliable operation.
Sentiment score
8.0
HPE Zerto Software is praised for strong stability, minimal issues, and reliability across various environments, including VMware and cloud platforms.
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 Email Gateway Defense needs UI, pricing flexibility, better documentation, improved integration, and enhanced phishing detection and support.
HPE Zerto Software requires better Hyper-V support, pricing, UI enhancements, integration, documentation, automation, and improved backup and alerting systems.
The cost could be more affordable, especially for smaller organizations working on a tight budget.
Senior Software Engineer at GE
We need to enhance detection capabilities for phishing emails.
Security Practitioner at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
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
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 is valued as budget-friendly for small organizations, despite being pricier than some alternatives.
HPE Zerto Software is seen as a worthwhile investment for enterprise needs despite higher costs than some competitors.
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 Essentials enhances email security with advanced threat protection, anti-phishing, and user-friendly monitoring for increased productivity.
HPE Zerto Software offers real-time disaster recovery, data protection, and seamless replication, enhancing resilience and reducing downtime significantly.
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
10
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
357
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (2nd), Cloud Migration (1st), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (1st), Autonomous Operational Resilience (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 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 2.6%, 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 Software2.6%
Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials)0.5%
Other96.9%
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.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Backup solutions are best for your needs.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
26%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business93
Midsize Enterprise93
Large Enterprise204
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials)?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is competitive compared to other solutions. They provide costs in a similar manner to their competitors.
What needs improvement with Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials)?
Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials) can be improved, as it offers advanced phishing features but still needs fine-tuning. While it is strong, some advanced and highly targeted ph...
What is your primary use case for Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials)?
Barracuda Email Gateway Defense (Barracuda Essentials) is an email filtering gateway for inbound and outbound that integrates with platforms like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. Barracuda Email...
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?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is good.
What needs improvement with Zerto?
I believe HPE Zerto Software can be improved by providing more clarity on roadmap features coming.
 

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: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.