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Barracuda Email Protection vs Fortinet FortiMail 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
13th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (2nd), Security Incident Response (7th), Office 365 Protection (4th)
Fortinet FortiMail
Ranking in Email Security
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Barracuda Email Protection is 3.3%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiMail is 3.5%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Fortinet FortiMail3.5%
Barracuda Email Protection3.3%
Other93.2%
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.
Abhimanyu Das - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Associate at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Targeted email filtering has reduced spam and phishing and now saves significant investigation time
The best features of Fortinet FortiMail include its techniques and tactics, which are highly effective compared to other solutions such as Microsoft 365. Although Fortinet FortiMail may not be as advanced in some aspects, it is well recognized for its strong performance in handling spam and phishing. It performs thorough mail scanning and also offers a sandboxing feature that enhances protection. Fortinet FortiMail has had a positive impact on my organization by significantly reducing unwanted email activities such as spam and phishing. It provides accurate detection and generates results that often exceed what can be achieved through manual analysis. Since deploying Fortinet FortiMail, I have observed a reduction in investigation time by at least 20 to 30 percent.

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 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."
"The product is easy to deploy and maintain."
"The most helpful aspect for me is the out-of-the-box configuration, which is fairly good."
"I would rate the solution nine out of ten."
"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 aspect includes attempts to spoof or compromise domains from external sources."
"The most valuable features of Barracuda Email Protection are flexibility and customization."
"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 spam filtering is great."
"The GUI isn't hard to use. When we do a demo and explain the features of Fortinet products to our customers, they understand very quickly. They can easily manage their systems without us."
"This excellent email gateway minimizes spam, inspects suspicious emails and isolates infected attachments with little administrative effort."
"It is a scalable solution."
"Its performance is very good and it is stable."
"Fortinet FortiMail is rated an eight for the protection and features it provides in the on-premises setup."
"The solution is very reliable and very stable."
"FortiMail is extremely flexible and very easy to learn. Compared to other email security products that we've tried, it is mainly the ease of configuration that makes FortiMail valuable to us."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"The platform's pricing needs improvement."
"The policies are set up in Barracuda by default; we don't have any control over them."
"The product must enable bulk user management."
"The solution's reporting mechanism is a little poor and could be improved."
"Barracuda Essentials can improve by continually adding more features."
"Fortinet FortiMail should allow more flexibility with the content rules."
"Issues with the current email search functionality."
"I would like the integration to be easier."
"The web console management interface could be improved."
"The biggest room for improvement would be the deployment. It will be hard for someone who doesn't understand the interface to deploy. If you understand it, you can find your way around the problems."
"Online support sometimes takes up to a week to get back to you."
"Fortinet FortiMail is considered overpriced by Indian rupee standards. My organization is not profit-making, and academic pricing is required, but it may not be available for security products like FortiGate."
"In my opinion, points for improvement for Fortinet FortiMail include sometimes the speed and fine-tuning the false positive problems, especially with the signed PDF attachments and the whitelist and blacklist."
 

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."
"Barracuda licensing model is good."
"We didn't have to pay a lot for the solution because we got it from a good vendor with a good user volume."
"The price is similar to that of Microsoft 365."
"The product is expensive."
"Price-wise, this product is middle-of-the-road."
"The price of Barracuda Essentials is better than some of the competing products."
"The solution's pricing is moderate, where it is neither cheap nor expensive."
"The pricing is good."
"The fees for Fortinet FortiMail can be complicated. However, overall the pricing is fair."
"Fortinet FortiMail is a little bit expensive."
"Pricing is straight-forward and renewable without complicated pricing structures."
"This is a good solution and value for the money."
"My company has a three-year license for Fortinet FortiMail, including the support, but I'm not so sure of how much the solution costs because I'm not part of the procurement team. What's more important to me is the functionality and stability of Fortinet FortiMail. In terms of Fortinet FortiMail licensing, the cost is calculated based on company requirements. For example, it's based on the features you need for your environment, on capacity, how many CPUs you have, etc."
"Fortinet FortiMail is inexpensive."
"You need to pay additional fees for premium support."
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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
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

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 Business32
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise15
 

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...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail?
In my opinion, points for improvement for Fortinet FortiMail include sometimes the speed and fine-tuning the false positive problems, especially with the signed PDF attachments and the whitelist an...
 

Also Known As

Barracuda Essentials, Barracuda Forensics and Incident Response
FortiMail
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ACT Government, Acumen Group, AGIP, Delta Dental Plans Association, Desai/Nasr Consulting Engineers, Inc., Equinox Information Systems
Magromer Cueros y Pieles S.A.
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Protection vs. Fortinet FortiMail and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.