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Barracuda Email Protection vs Fortinet FortiMail comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024

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
14th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (2nd), Office 365 Protection (5th)
Fortinet FortiMail
Ranking in Email Security
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Barracuda Email Protection is 3.1%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiMail is 4.4%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Fortinet FortiMail4.4%
Barracuda Email Protection3.1%
Other92.5%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

LeeMiles - PeerSpot reviewer
Very good threat protection, spam filtering, and cloud backups
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 set up a global setting. Users must go through an induction session where I guide them in configuring quarantine alerts rather than having default settings based on group membership. This seems like an oversight since they already use Active Directory details. They should assign policies based on group membership, which configures these settings by default.
MOHAN SUKUMAR - PeerSpot reviewer
Secure email management improves through advanced filtering and dynamic virus scanning
Fortinet FortiMail offers capabilities like settings for mail delivery, mail filtering, spam controls, and email bursting prevention. It also allows for email forwarding, dynamic filtering, and scanning based on virus signatures. I can set varying levels of security. The tool is flexible and provides essential features for mail security and management.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Barracuda email protection is stable. I would give it a nine because of its strong cybersecurity features."
"The most valuable features of Barracuda Email Protection are flexibility and customization."
"The most helpful aspect for me is the out-of-the-box configuration, which is fairly good."
"We check the reports sometimes to see that frequent attacks and malicious emails are being blocked by the solution."
"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 most valuable features are security and ease of use."
"The beauty of Barracuda Email Protection is that it is easy to manage and simple to deploy."
"The solution is straightforward to set up."
"This excellent email gateway minimizes spam, inspects suspicious emails and isolates infected attachments with little administrative effort."
"The solution can scale."
"Its threat detection capabilities have been beneficial."
"FortiMail possesses notable strengths, and one key feature is its store-and-forward concept."
"For me, Fortinet FortiMail is the best solution I have ever tried."
"Fortinet FortiMail is a complete product addressing mail security concerns. It helps to know spam subscriptions and create restriction policies."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the tool's ability to prevent phishing attacks."
"Fortinet FortiMail is rated an eight for the protection and features it provides in the on-premises setup."
 

Cons

"Sometimes it is somewhat laggy, especially on the Archiver side. It should have improved performance on their Message Archiver."
"The platform's pricing needs improvement."
"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."
"The policies are set up in Barracuda by default; we don't have any control over them."
"The solution's reporting mechanism is a little poor and could be improved."
"The technology works on a supervised engine, but it would be better if it ran on an unsupervised engine."
"The product must enable bulk user management."
"The solution's graphical user interface (GUI) could be improved visually."
"I need a stable update in the product that stays for a long time instead of having to deal with frequent updates."
"I think the security of the product could improve."
"The product's cybersecurity features could be better."
"They should add a lot of threat-intelligence feeds from different sources - not only from one source (FortiGuard)."
"I believe there is room for enhancement in content and web security features."
"Such kinds of things, raised from the point from the objective actually, we are using Fortinet FortiMail. We don't find any kinds of challenge or difficulties, but Fortinet FortiMail is more efficient and more effective for us. I don't know for other client, but for us, Fortinet FortiMail is very effective Like, for instance, if it is possible, let's say some kind of high threat is actually encountered if it could be possible to SMBs in our smartphone, or mobile apps, kinds of thing, if Fortinet FortiMail is available to monitor the thing using from our mobile phone from our smartphone. If such kinds of things are truly included, it will be more or good for us."
"The solution could improve by making the UI more user-friendly and increasing spam and threat detection capabilities."
"The tool needs to improve its pricing policy. Also, it needs to be more user-friendly. I would want it to improve email security as well."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Despite a list price possibly around $40 per user, their market price allows customers to easily buy the solution."
"The price is similar to that of Microsoft 365."
"The product is expensive."
"Price-wise, this product is middle-of-the-road."
"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 solution's pricing is moderate, where it is neither cheap nor expensive."
"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."
"Barracuda licensing model is good."
"The product's licensing part depends on the number of mailboxes and the hard disk needed by customers. The cost of the license depends on the number of mailboxes and the number of emails."
"Fortinet Fortimail has reasonable pricing."
"Pricing is straight-forward and renewable without complicated pricing structures."
"I find Fortinet FortiMail pricing reasonable. There's no additional cost apart from its standard licensing fees."
"The pricing is good."
"The solution is reasonably priced compared to one of its competitors."
"If you don't need the full bundle that includes everything, you have options for the small or medium enterprise environments."
"The tool is very expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise14
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiMail?
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...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail?
It can be somewhat difficult to prepare precise or very deep rules to improve security, though the product is very good.
 

Also Known As

Barracuda Essentials
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: July 2025.
866,088 professionals have used our research since 2012.