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Barracuda Email Protection vs Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 29, 2025

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
2nd
Ranking in Email Security
14th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Office 365 Protection (5th)
Microsoft Defender for Offi...
Ranking in Email Archiving
1st
Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (10th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (1st)
 

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 Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 12.1%, down from 16.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Office 36512.1%
Barracuda Email Protection3.1%
Other84.8%
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.
Tolu Omolaja - PeerSpot reviewer
Great URL scanning and attachment scanning, but I would like more proactive threat analysis
The two main features that prove most beneficial for us are URL scanning and attachment scanning. URL scanning involves an automatic scan of links and emails. When a user clicks on a link within an email, the system promptly checks the link's safety. If the link is deemed safe, access is granted automatically. However, if it is flagged as unsafe, we receive feedback and notification to caution us about the potentially harmful link. At this point, we are presented with the option to proceed or return. I have personally witnessed the system identify a few unsafe links, making this the primary advantage of using the solution. The second crucial aspect is the scanning of attachments. When an email containing an attachment arrives, we receive a notification of the new email, along with information that the attachment is being scanned for threats. This additional layer of security provides peace of mind for our organization. While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 offers numerous features, these two stand out as particularly impressive and valuable to us.

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."
"The archiving and search features are very good."
"The most valuable features of Barracuda Email Protection are flexibility and customization."
"The beauty of Barracuda Email Protection is that it is easy to manage and simple to deploy."
"The product is easy to deploy and maintain."
"I'm quite satisfied with the graphical user interface for Barracuda products."
"The most valuable aspect includes attempts to spoof or compromise domains from external sources."
"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."
"My experience deploying Microsoft Defender for Office 365 was seamless."
"The basic features are okay and I'm satisfied with the Defender."
"The most valuable feature is the integration. It's a single console, so we don't have to switch around between multiple products. Another valuable feature is the ease of operations and maintenance."
"The initial setup is straightforward. You just add the license, click it, and then you can set up the rules. It is quite simple."
"It also gives me good visibility because, with Defender, I'm using a Microsoft product to defend Microsoft products. The integration was really seamless and I have wide visibility because it picks up almost everything. Literally, I can see almost every activity that happens, from the e-mail to the workstation itself."
"The ability to respond to threats if very important."
"Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of various email campaigns, pinpointing where they emanate from, and identifying the individuals within our organization who are affected."
"The benefit that stands out to me is the ability for multiple individuals to collaborate simultaneously within the same document. Additionally, there is the option to save the document directly in the integrated OneDrive or SharePoint."
 

Cons

"They could simplify the licensing and the pricing."
"I would like to see better integration with other products."
"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."
"The solution's graphical user interface (GUI) could be improved visually."
"The product must enable bulk user management."
"Barracuda Email Protection needs better reporting and more robust integration with security awareness training platforms and third-party solutions."
"The customer service and support could be improved if the support were available directly in Europe. Currently, the support is often managed from India, so we sometimes need to wait due to the time zone difference. It would be quicker and better if the support were provided by European staff."
"We still see many false positives from time to time with Microsoft Defender for Office 365, so it would be good if we can reduce those false positives and provide better workflows for our end users, as sometimes they may not know what to do when they encounter a false positive."
"There is room for improvement in terms of reporting."
"The visibility for the weaknesses in the system and unauthorized access can be improved."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 should improve the troubleshooting tools. It's unclear whether the device is blocked at the firewall level or at the device itself. The granularity needed for troubleshooting is currently lacking. From my perspective, Microsoft should address this issue to benefit many users who likely share the same sentiment."
"Microsoft wants its well-paying customers to finish testing some of its half-baked products, find bugs, and report bugs back to Microsoft's team, which is a little frustrating for those who have to manage it and roll it up to thousands of people across the organization."
"The custom alerts have to improve a lot."
"I am generally satisfied with how it currently is. If I could improve anything, I would reduce the cost."
"The pre-sales cost calculations could be more transparent."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing is moderate, where it is neither cheap nor expensive."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Barracuda licensing model is good."
"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."
"Defender is a little bit more expensive as compared to others. We are in the manufacturing environment. So, we don't have a high budget for all of our endpoint devices. Its cost is a major concern for us."
"For large enterprise organizations, they can definitely afford it, but for small and medium organizations, they might struggle to cover the expenses."
"The product is very expensive."
"The pricing is normal. Considering its popularity, it's not overpriced."
"The pricing has become expensive."
"I know that the product is incredibly expensive."
"From the pricing point of view, like any other product in the market, there is scope for negotiation."
"While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 necessitates pricier E3 or E5 subscriptions, the extensive functionality offered by these licenses across various Microsoft products justifies the investment."
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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
16%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

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 Business23
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise27
 

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 do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of various email campaigns, pinpointing where they emanate from, and identifying the indi...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Microsoft is quite affordable with a lot of features available for any size organization.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
I think that Microsoft Defender for Office 365 could be improved if it could use VirusTotal to compare the programs or anything that I download. VirusTotal helps to identify viruses, malware, troja...
 

Also Known As

Barracuda Essentials
MS Defender for Office 365
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ACT Government, Acumen Group, AGIP, Delta Dental Plans Association, Desai/Nasr Consulting Engineers, Inc., Equinox Information Systems
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Protection vs. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
866,088 professionals have used our research since 2012.