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Barracuda Email Protection vs Darktrace 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.7
Barracuda Email Protection reduces costs, enhances security, and increases staff awareness, resulting in high user satisfaction and renewed licenses.
Sentiment score
6.3
Darktrace users experience substantial returns through threat prevention and reduced downtime, despite deployment challenges and difficulty measuring returns.
In an estimate, we were paying close to 300,000, but now we are sitting with Barracuda Email Protection at 100,000.
IT Officer at MVA Fund
The IT department has saved time and cost, as they do not have to run up and down fighting with malicious spam or malicious attacks.
Business Development Manager at Procter & Gamble
We see a return on investment from using Barracuda Email Protection because we are stopping attacks and running our business smoothly.
Cybersecurity Team Leader at EMAK For Computer Manufacturing (ECM)
Other NDR solutions provide virtual appliances that can be deployed on virtualization servers to get up and running quickly.
Technical Consultant - Unix Platform Services at BITS AND BYTE IT CONSULTING PVT LTD
Using this solution provides financial benefits by securing from server attacks, which offers indirect savings.
Systems Specialist/ Administrator at ALFA International Company Limited.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
Barracuda Email Protection's customer service is praised for responsiveness, professionalism, and proactiveness, with technical support rated highly.
Sentiment score
7.6
Darktrace's customer service is praised for responsiveness and efficiency, though some suggest improvements for complex issues.
This is particularly problematic for a financial institution and banking customer.
Director Of Technology at PT Exa Teknologi Indonesia
They went through the process and recommended a change in their platform to address the issue.
Director, Information Technology at St Albans High School For Girls
They are quick to find a solution, and they are available twenty-four seven, so overall, it is a great customer support team.
Business Development Manager at Procter & Gamble
The technical support from Darktrace is of high quality.
Network & Security Section Head/Digital Transformation at a government with 201-500 employees
Darktrace provides excellent technical support with a monthly meeting to review platform incidents, ensuring the system functions as expected.
Head of Technology Operations at Pobl Group
The challenge lies in waiting for a response after logging a ticket.
Group Cybersecurity Administrator at Tharisa
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
Barracuda Email Protection is highly scalable for businesses of all sizes, preferred for its effective performance and cloud options.
Sentiment score
7.6
Darktrace is praised for its scalability, supporting diverse user bases and integrating well with existing infrastructures.
Barracuda does not limit you based on how many mailboxes or users you have, which is one of the good things for Barracuda.
Director Of Technology at PT Exa Teknologi Indonesia
Barracuda Email Protection's scalability is very good because it handles all my clients' emails and all my organization emails.
Business Development Manager at Procter & Gamble
Scalability is expensive for Barracuda Email Protection.
IT Officer at MVA Fund
Darktrace has high scalability, and I would rate it a nine out of ten.
Network & Security Section Head/Digital Transformation at a government with 201-500 employees
Since it's cloud-based, it expands easily.
Head of Technology Operations at Pobl Group
There is still a gap in terms of storage, and we are trying to figure out how to increase that capacity for regulated environments, which require data retention for 5 to 6 years.
Technical Consultant - Unix Platform Services at BITS AND BYTE IT CONSULTING PVT LTD
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Barracuda Email Protection is rated highly for stability and reliability, with effective security and proactive support noted by users.
Sentiment score
8.5
Darktrace is highly rated for stability and reliability, with effective monitoring and an intuitive interface despite occasional traffic impacts.
Customers chose a different product after experiencing a problem when they upgraded the firmware, which caused the system to restart multiple times during working hours.
Director Of Technology at PT Exa Teknologi Indonesia
Barracuda Email Protection's stability is good, with no lagging, no crashes, and no errors.
Cybersecurity Team Leader at EMAK For Computer Manufacturing (ECM)
I think Barracuda Email Protection is stable and very reliable.
IT Officer at MVA Fund
The stability of Darktrace is excellent, rated ten out of ten.
Head of Technology Operations at Pobl Group
The appliance itself has never let me down.
Group Cybersecurity Administrator at Tharisa
For stability, I would rate Darktrace an eight out of ten.
Security Analyst at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

Barracuda Email Protection needs improved zero trust features, data retrieval, reporting, user interfaces, pricing, integration, and mobile performance.
Darktrace needs improved integration, automation, usability, pricing, support, and clarity, plus better endpoint protection and third-party tool integration.
The day we stop improving is the day we die.
Group ICT Manager at a mining and metals company with 501-1,000 employees
Users must go through an induction session where I guide them in configuring quarantine alerts rather than having default settings based on group membership.
Director, Information Technology at St Albans High School For Girls
Barracuda Email Protection could improve in the future to make it more competitive by addressing the fact that Barracuda started with anti-spam and email protection, but now they are moving more to cloud-based solutions rather than device-based or hardware-based solutions.
Director Of Technology at PT Exa Teknologi Indonesia
There is no dedicated salesperson in Egypt, and having one would help to improve focus on this market.
Solution Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
They say they can integrate with most firewalls, but when we did an integration with Meraki MX firewalls, that integration didn't work and still doesn't work to this day.
Security Analyst at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
We need Darktrace on each branch to get the data out, and I suggest having some kind of a centralized product that gets data from multiple sources to aggregate and provide the data.
Technical Consultant - Unix Platform Services at BITS AND BYTE IT CONSULTING PVT LTD
 

Setup Cost

Barracuda Email Protection offers competitive and affordable pricing, often comparable to Microsoft 365, with potential discounts during negotiations.
Darktrace is costly yet valued for advanced features, offering flexible module selection with negotiable discounts and yearly contracts.
I find that Barracuda Email Protection has a very good licensing model, providing capable features at a very good and affordable price.
Cybersecurity Team Leader at EMAK For Computer Manufacturing (ECM)
In my experience, the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Barracuda Email Protection are competitively priced, making it very affordable for any size of organization.
Business Development Manager at Procter & Gamble
I would say the price for Barracuda Email Protection is very nice; the solution is not expensive.
IT Officer at MVA Fund
The product is considered expensive compared to others.
Solution Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
The pricing is costly in USD, and they charge based on device counts.
Group Cybersecurity Administrator at Tharisa
The licensing cost is approximately eight dollars a year.
Security Information & Incident Analyst at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

Barracuda Email Protection offers comprehensive email security with threat protection, spam filtering, easy integration, and cost-effective incident response.
Darktrace offers AI-driven threat detection, real-time monitoring, and autonomous response with scalability and ease of integration for enhanced security.
Our security has also increased from forty percent to sixty-five percent, especially when dealing with all the threats that come through emails.
Business Development Manager at Procter & Gamble
We do use Barracuda Data Protection functions, and the advantage we have is that the backed-up data is protected from any possible attack that can come or any kind of hijack or data being misused.
Director at Dynamic Group
Barracuda Email Protection has positively impacted my client's organization by reducing almost 50 to 60 percent of phishing emails, making it more secure and allowing us to feel safe from phishing incidents.
Security Engineer at Payatu
It is capable of responding to lateral movement and ransomware deployment within environments where there is data exfiltration.
Group Cybersecurity Administrator at Tharisa
I do not need to manually process incidents as Darktrace provides an incident summary, potential detection paths, and other details, all exportable with just a click.
Security Information & Incident Analyst at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
If I am in a data center where I don't have layer two, it becomes an issue because the autonomous response is reliant on sending spoofed TCP resets to my core switch to block traffic, which is a major issue.
Security Analyst at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Barracuda Email Protection
Ranking in Email Security
8th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (3rd), Security Incident Response (8th), Office 365 Protection (4th)
Darktrace
Ranking in Email Security
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
84
Ranking in other categories
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (2nd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (1st), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (1st), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (6th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (11th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (10th), Attack Surface Management (ASM) (4th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (4th), AI Observability (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Barracuda Email Protection is 2.4%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Darktrace is 1.8%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Barracuda Email Protection2.4%
Darktrace1.8%
Other95.8%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

Xavie Simons - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Development Manager at Procter & Gamble
Improved email security has reduced spam, simplified encrypted mail, and strengthened user trust
The best features Barracuda Email Protection offers include good spam filtering and very good sandboxing of all links, as well as good encryption. It also has integrated logging for user management of their own spam. It has better filtering technology, so few are false positives as well, with excellent anti-spam engines and logging. It is extremely easy to install, configure, and set up, and there is excellent message tracking for folks that say they have not received an email they were expecting. Integrated logging and user management make my daily work easier because it is very easy to log in and to manage this tool, hence making it a very good tool for email protection. It also has excellent, easy-to-add designated users as site administrators, and it is competitively priced. It has a user-friendly portal, strong cloud-based features, and no additional maintenance cost, along with responsive support. Barracuda Email Protection has positively impacted my organization by handling encryption better than any other tool I have used before, which has increased our email protection significantly. Our security has also increased from forty percent to sixty-five percent, especially when dealing with all the threats that come through emails. It has been a great tool because we can handle email delays and delays on file scanning. When our partners are happy, we are very happy, and it has helped us have less time chasing bad emails. The fast implementation of encrypted mail keeps employees working with less interruption since they are happy, satisfied, and secure.
Pasan Jayarathna - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Security Engineer at Cyberwell Solution
Monitoring has improved data loss detection and now spots abnormal internal file transfers quickly
In my understanding, the best feature Darktrace offers is the identification of copying files, which acts as a DLP, and it is a main concern for companies because users sometimes copy data outside without knowing, especially those without a technical background. When I mention the DLP-like feature and file copying detection, the alerts have been very timely, as we get an alert within a couple of minutes, which is excellent. Even if some developers are working after hours and copying files, our SOC team detects this, and most of the time they call us so we can identify the users. The alerts are quite accurate and proactive.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise29
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Barracuda Email Protection?
Barracuda Email Protection is easy to deploy and maintain. It doesn't require a specialized resource to manage this tool.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda Email Protection?
I would say the price for Barracuda Email Protection is very nice; the solution is not expensive.
What needs improvement with Barracuda Email Protection?
Considering it integrates with Azure, I would like to be able to effectively set up policies where people are by default included in certain settings. For instance, for email quarantine, I can't se...
How does Crowdstrike Falcon compare with Darktrace?
Both of these products perform similarly and have many outstanding attributes. CrowdStrike Falcon offers an amazing user interface that makes setup easy and seamless. CrowdStrike Falcon offers a cl...
Which is better - SentinelOne or Darktrace?
Which solution is better depends on which is more suitable specifically for your company. Darktrace, for example, is meant for smaller to medium-sized businesses. It is also a good option for organ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Darktrace?
Concerning pricing for the product, I would say it is somewhat expensive.
 

Also Known As

Barracuda Essentials, Barracuda Forensics and Incident Response
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ACT Government, Acumen Group, AGIP, Delta Dental Plans Association, Desai/Nasr Consulting Engineers, Inc., Equinox Information Systems
Irwin Mitchell, Open Energi, Wellcome Trust, FirstGroup plc, Virgin Trains, Drax, QUI! Group, DNK, CreaCard, Macrosynergy, Sisley, William Hill plc, Toyota Canada, Royal British Legion, Vitol, Allianz, KKR, AIRBUS, dpd, Billabong, Mclaren Group.
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Protection vs. Darktrace and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.