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Barracuda Email Protection vs KerioConnect 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 Archiving
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (9th), Security Incident Response (9th), Office 365 Protection (4th)
KerioConnect
Ranking in Email Archiving
7th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Email Applications (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Email Archiving category, the mindshare of Barracuda Email Protection is 9.9%, down from 21.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of KerioConnect is 3.3%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Archiving Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Barracuda Email Protection9.9%
KerioConnect3.3%
Other86.8%
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.
MM
Senior Systems Tech/Admin at Samco Software Inc.
A seamless setup ensures smooth communication with comprehensive support
We remain a partner with Sophos and use XG S Firewalls without AWS implementation. We only use Sophos endpoint and Sophos Central. We host some clients on-premise while others we host remotely. The VPN connection is easy and proprietary, so it's not open to any other VPN clients. Communication with other mail servers is seamless. It can communicate with Gmail and Outlook without issues, provided the DNS settings are correct. We monitor our servers and security logs, implementing GeoIP blocking. We frequently block China and India IPs due to brute force attacks on our servers. We have extensive experience with KerioConnect. Backing up and maintaining it is straightforward compared to Microsoft Exchange, making it administrator-friendly. On a scale of 1-10, this solution rates an 8.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The beauty of Barracuda Email Protection is that it is easy to manage and simple to deploy."
"The best feature of Barracuda Email Protection is that it provides protection for Microsoft 365."
"I would rate the solution nine out of ten."
"The most valuable features of Barracuda Email Protection are flexibility and customization."
"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 aspect includes attempts to spoof or compromise domains from external sources."
"I don't see any other email security solution that stacks up against them."
"The product is easy to deploy and maintain."
"The user interface is good."
"This solution is our SMB alternative to Exchange, installed for more than forty SMB customers in a Linux environment with all of the collaboration features."
"KerioConnect has integration with 365. We can use Outlook, which has its client and can be used with Apple devices. It integrates with the App Store and Microsoft Office. It has a smart router. The spam filtering and antivirus are good."
"Kerio Connect is secure, flexible, and easy to control from the user interface. It has many security features able to be controlled from one place, such as anti-spam. I have found it very convenient. Additionally, you can analyze log files and share folders which is helpful."
"Kerio Connect is secure, flexible, and easy to control from the user interface."
"The most valuable features are security and privacy because you installed it on your server, within your company premises, not in the cloud."
"Backing up and maintaining it is straightforward compared to Microsoft Exchange, making it administrator-friendly."
"The solution is easy to maintain, unlike Exchange. It's easy to create multiple domains and back up and restore if needed. It also has good security features like anti-spam and antivirus."
 

Cons

"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."
"Barracuda Essentials can improve by continually adding more features."
"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."
"I wish the interface of Barracuda Email Protection could have worked in a more responsive way, as sometimes I feel it is slow or laggy when I try to interact with it."
"They could simplify the licensing and the pricing."
"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."
"Barracuda Email Protection can be improved by enhancing the reporting feature."
"KerioConnect continues to improve with regular updates throughout the year. They must be added to the roadmap, which requires approval."
"This is just a cost, it's not something that's driving our business forward; it's just foundational."
"Most of our clients use Outlook and Kerio Connect. Occasionally, Kerio can be a bit slow."
"I don't particularly like this solution. I would not recommend this solution to others."
"Most of our clients use Outlook and Kerio Connect. Occasionally, Kerio can be a bit slow. They could make it faster to get onto the web interface without so much load time. It's just slow with Outlook, however, for some reason."
"We are considering switching to Microsoft Exchange. One reason is that it doesn't improve our workflow and doesn't integrate well with Microsoft 365 applications."
"You cannot integrate with other services like Google Docs, Google Assistant, Google Calendar, etc."
"The search and archiving documentation capabilities need to be stronger."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is 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."
"The solution's pricing is moderate, where it is neither cheap nor expensive."
"The price is similar to that of Microsoft 365."
"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."
"Barracuda licensing model is good."
"The price of Barracuda Essentials is better than some of the competing products."
"The price of Kerio Connect is better when comparing it to others solutions."
"KerioConnect has a first-time cost and yearly subscription. It is not expensive."
"The pricing is about $3 per mailbox per month."
"The solution's pricing depends on how long you plan to keep it because you pay on a per-year basis. You might have a one-time setup cost for something like Microsoft Exchange or a Linux mail server. I'd say this solution is expensive on a per-year basis, almost 2000-3000 dollars annually. It doesn't seem to pay off yet, so we're considering switching to another product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
9%
Retailer
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 Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for KerioConnect?
The pricing is very easy to understand. As a partner, we have a monitoring system that informs us when subscriptions expire, allowing us to handle renewals. The pricing is very competitive.
What needs improvement with KerioConnect?
Since KerioConnect is a setup and go solution, everything works on its own. The only administrative tasks required are keeping it up to date, monitoring security logs, and ensuring protection from ...
What is your primary use case for KerioConnect?
Small medium-sized businesses are our primary focus, particularly in warehouse distribution and retail sectors. We are a reseller and purchase directly from Sophos.
 

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
Southern Tier Brewing Company, Innotta, Baustoff + Metall, Hamifleurs, Chanson TV, Ryman Stationery
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Protection vs. KerioConnect and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.