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Barracuda Email Protection vs Google Vault comparison

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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 Archiving
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (6th), Security Incident Response (6th), Office 365 Protection (3rd)
Google Vault
Ranking in Email Archiving
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
eDiscovery (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Email Archiving category, the mindshare of Barracuda Email Protection is 8.9%, down from 18.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Vault is 11.7%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Archiving Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Barracuda Email Protection8.9%
Google Vault11.7%
Other79.4%
Email Archiving
 

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.
Rahul Gill - PeerSpot reviewer
GWS/M365 Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Has supported data retention and export tasks while leaving room for greater automation and feature expansion
If we can have more APIs open for Google Vault, that would be great, and instead of doing it manually, it would be better to do it programmatically. I think there is an API available with Google Vault, though I'm not certain about it. I have never used Vault programmatically, but if APIs exist, then it's beneficial, and if there aren't any, we should have the capability for programmers to create some sort of scripting so they can fetch the data. I assess the export feature in Google Vault in terms of ease and efficiency as quite efficient because most of the data we want to see is available in MBOX and PST formats. If possible, I would want to see Google Vault support additional formats such as iCal, iCad, or CardDAV, which are for iPhone users.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best feature of Barracuda Email Protection is that it provides protection for Microsoft 365."
"We now have a secondary backup of Office 365 that's much easier to retrieve compared to Microsoft."
"When we got the service, it included the email archiver with unlimited storage."
"I would rate the solution nine out of ten."
"The solution is straightforward to set up."
"The most valuable feature is the gateway."
"The most valuable aspect includes attempts to spoof or compromise domains from external sources."
"Barracuda email protection is stable. I would give it a nine because of its strong cybersecurity features."
"The most valuable feature of Google Vault is its reliability."
"The most valuable features are automatic document and email retention."
"What I appreciate about Google Vault is that one of the best features is the ability to use retention policies; it covers mail, chat groups, calendars, sites, Drive, and Google Voice, and the data will remain in Google Vault even if it gets deleted by the user accidentally or intentionally."
"One of the noteworthy aspects is that nothing ever gets deleted, which is convenient."
"In my opinion, the search functionality is the best feature."
"Google Vault acts as a great method for retrieving files from Google Drive and Gmail."
"In my opinion, the search functionality is the best feature. With Google Vault, we can quickly search for any email within Gmail accounts. And then we can get further information, such as if you want the full header or want to know any extra details about the emails."
"Google Vault retains all deleted data from the previous four years, acting as backup security so this vital information can be made available to anyone who needs it."
 

Cons

"The platform's pricing needs improvement."
"The solution's graphical user interface (GUI) could be improved visually."
"Regarding the threat protection feature in Barracuda Email Protection, it does not help to manage threats or sophisticated threats."
"The licensing and pricing need to be improved."
"They could simplify the licensing and the pricing."
"The email encryption could be improved."
"There is room for improvement, particularly in reaching out to technical support during deployment."
"Two to three months back, we got fraudulent emails in which someone in the organization was being blamed."
"EDiscovery could be improved. It's used for searching, holding, and exporting data for Vault and I believe it should be updated."
"So, when doing a search, perhaps in some instances when you use terms, the information is not very precise in the sense that I'm not getting what I'm looking for. And in some instances, the information, not all the time, but in some instances, it might not be accurate. For example, when doing a search, if you use too many terms, it might not return any results."
"eDiscovery could be improved with additional information and an easier way to retain it."
"One thing I've noticed is that it splits the data files into multiple parts, like the PFT files. For example, when there is a large data size of any account, the backup process splits it into many files. This can be confusing and not very efficient when trying to manage the backups."
"My personal opinion is that Google Vault could improve if they could have a similar version to Microsoft 365 where you can have an eDiscovery manager account. With this, you can separate a regular person from an organization and just transfer the specific files."
"The knowledge base is not as in-depth as it should be."
"It would be nice if Google would let us download the data in different formats."
"For us, customer service has been a bit lacking, probably with a rating of a five out of ten."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Barracuda Essentials is better than some of the competing products."
"We didn't have to pay a lot for the solution because we got it from a good vendor with a good user volume."
"Price-wise, this product is middle-of-the-road."
"The price is similar to that of Microsoft 365."
"Barracuda licensing model is good."
"The product is expensive."
"Despite a list price possibly around $40 per user, their market price allows customers to easily buy the solution."
"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."
"Last year, the price was randomly increased and our customers were really facing a challenge around this. Google launched new pricing under different plans, where formerly there were only three plans, and now there are four, each with their own separate usage allowances. I think it's good, though. The basic plan is now the Business Starter plan, and many customers find this plan very convenient and minimal in price. Overall, the pricing for all the plans is good."
"Google Vault comes as part of a package deal for us."
"Google Vault is a cheaply priced product. Monthly payments are to be made towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. There are no extra costs apart from the licensing costs attached to the solution."
"If you have Google Enterprise, then Google Vault is free to use."
"The pricing is fairly cheap."
"The solution is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise3
 

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?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Barracuda Email Protection is that it is a bit high. However, when I look at the service and the features, I am satisfied with it.
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 Google Vault?
There is no setup cost; it's only the pricing which one needs to pay upon subscribing to Google Vault services.
What needs improvement with Google Vault?
If we can have more APIs open for Google Vault, that would be great, and instead of doing it manually, it would be better to do it programmatically. I think there is an API available with Google Va...
What is your primary use case for Google Vault?
A few use cases for Google Vault involve using it for custodian purposes where we have to store their mails, calendars, and mostly the mails, which we have done as a custodian process in order to s...
 

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
Broadcom, Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital, Globeflight, Maven Wave, McClatchy, NII Holdings, Safetec, Sheboygan County
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Protection vs. Google Vault and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.