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Barracuda Email Protection vs Darktrace comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 19, 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

Barracuda Email Protection
Ranking in Email Security
12th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (2nd), Security Incident Response (9th), Office 365 Protection (4th)
Darktrace
Ranking in Email Security
9th
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) (9th), Attack Surface Management (ASM) (4th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (4th), AI Observability (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Barracuda Email Protection is 3.7%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Darktrace is 2.2%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Darktrace2.2%
Barracuda Email Protection3.7%
Other94.1%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

Sherif Fouad - PeerSpot reviewer
Group ICT Manager at a mining and metals company with 501-1,000 employees
Have raised concerns about scanning engines and automation while continuing to rely on layered protection strategies
Incident response is something that requires more development from Barracuda's side. Regarding room for improvement for Barracuda Forensics and Incident Response, for the product, developing or improving the scanning engine is important, but it's a bit tricky. I know that they are working on it heavily. The difference between Barracuda and Sophos is Sophos focused heavily on cybersecurity while Barracuda tried to increase their product portfolio. Sometimes, in some cases, this might end up with their teams being unfocused or a bit thin and stretched and super busy. However, there is room for improvement. The product is great. The teams that are supporting are great. But there is always room for improvement. Even if you have a product that you would give a rating of 10 out of 10, there is always room for improvement. The day we stop improving is the day we die. Regarding the scanning engine, Barracuda Forensics and Incident Response has a very good feature where you can create automated flows for how to handle specific emails that are detected as incidents. This needs a bit of an improvement. That's the only component of Barracuda Forensics and Incident Response that I believe requires improvement.
AM
Technical Consultant - Unix Platform Services at BITS AND BYTE IT CONSULTING PVT LTD
Consistent threat hunting and anomaly detection deliver valuable insights for network security management
In terms of improvement for Darktrace, pricing is the main concern. Pricing bothers me and this is one of the major factors when choosing a solution. When we get feedback from customers, that's the only felt need. When we factor in Darktrace, we do it only limited. We put it on where the perimeters and connections are, but still, some gray areas are left out, especially if we have multiple branches. 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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable aspect includes attempts to spoof or compromise domains from external sources."
"I would rate the solution nine out of ten."
"At the moment, I am working with Sophos Cloud, Sophos Intercept X; when they introduced the XDR, we used it, and then when they introduced the Optix, we used it, and then we upgraded our subscription with them to MDR, so we are now utilizing Sophos Cloud Central MDR."
"The most valuable features of Barracuda Essentials are it's a trusted name and is rated very high on review sites. It blocks high percentages of spam and junk email and it's in the cloud. They have hardware appliances, but this is in the cloud. The solution is very effective at blocking malware and blocking spam and this is what we are looking for. There's not a whole lot of complexity, you want a solution that is very good at blocking out all of the unwanted emails."
"We now have a secondary backup of Office 365 that's much easier to retrieve compared to Microsoft. If someone deletes something in Office 365, we can get it back within Office 365, but it's difficult. Barracuda is much easier. There is a lot less management needed using Barracuda. The management becomes much easier for Office 365 and it's no longer on-prem, so there are fewer hours managing on-prem devices, servers, and things of that nature. We don't have network appliances anymore for the backup of our information."
"The most valuable features of Barracuda Email Protection are flexibility and customization."
"Barracuda email protection is stable. I would give it a nine because of its strong cybersecurity features."
"I'm quite satisfied with the graphical user interface for Barracuda products."
"The most beneficial feature in Darktrace is identifying phishing emails with the help of the AI engine and machine learning."
"The most valuable feature has been the behavioral analytics that allows us to monitor all the traffic."
"The platform has many modules, and each module examines a different situation in the behavior."
"The Dynamic Threat Dashboard is very nice, as it lists all of your threats and rates them, and then you can choose whether to investigate further."
"The active threat dashboard is the most valuable feature of this solution."
"The AI-based pattern is the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature is the solution's ability to trim out the false positives and point your attention to the real important stuff."
"I can rate Darktrace's technical support as one of the best products in the world."
 

Cons

"Sometimes it is somewhat laggy, especially on the Archiver side. It should have improved performance on their Message Archiver."
"The technology works on a supervised engine, but it would be better if it ran on an unsupervised engine."
"I would like to see some additional functionality in terms of employee monitoring, as part of a work-from-home security solution."
"Sometimes, in some cases, this might end up with their teams being unfocused or a bit thin and stretched and super busy."
"The product must enable bulk user management."
"I would like to see better integration with other products."
"There is room for improvement, particularly in reaching out to technical support during deployment."
"Barracuda Email Protection needs better reporting and more robust integration with security awareness training platforms and third-party solutions."
"It should be easier to access the Darktrace portal and its documentation. Only the customer can access their portal and support. It could be cheaper."
"The solution could be easier to use."
"The program is quite expensive."
"Darktrace could expand into EDR (endpoint detection and response) and combine it with its network detection."
"This is quite an expensive product so the pricing is something that can be improved."
"It takes time to go through the interface and pick up things. If it were a more straightforward interface, then it would free up time."
"As of now, I feel Darktrace can be improved to better detect end device activities, such as laptops or desktops, to bind it with our network."
"I'd love them to see maybe covering the cloud a bit more."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"The price is similar to that of Microsoft 365."
"Despite a list price possibly around $40 per user, their market price allows customers to easily buy the solution."
"The price of Barracuda Essentials is better than some of the competing products."
"Price-wise, this product is middle-of-the-road."
"We pay annually. They never charged us for anything else. And they were quite a bit under that $20,000 mark. It was $19,074. And they've been pretty good about not skyrocketing the price or anything like that. It has gone up. It's gone up to $24,000 in 2020."
"The product is expensive."
"Barracuda licensing model is good."
"Darktrace is expensive. You can pay for the license yearly."
"The pricing is expensive. It costs over $100,000 a year."
"It is expensive."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"It's an expensive solution."
"It is inexpensive considering what it can do and the competition."
"If you consider the features and the cost of market leaders, we are satisfied with the pricing."
"Prior to negotiating, Darktrace offered their appliance and service for $80,000 per year."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise19
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?
Their list price is too high, but in India, the selling price is affordable at around $10 per user per year. Despite a list price possibly around $40 per user, their market price allows customers t...
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 do you like most about Darktrace?
A very useful feature in Darktrace for real-time threat analysis is the packet inspection that analyzes the packet traffic in real time.
 

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: February 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.