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Barracuda Email Protection vs Microsoft Defender for Office 365 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
2nd
Ranking in Email Security
12th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Security Incident Response (9th), Office 365 Protection (4th)
Microsoft Defender for Offi...
Ranking in Email Archiving
1st
Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (10th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Barracuda Email Protection is 3.7%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 9.1%, down from 13.7% 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 3659.1%
Barracuda Email Protection3.7%
Other87.2%
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.
Emeka Ndulu - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Improves threat visibility and response while reducing manual tasks and training users against phishing
I appreciate the attack simulation feature whereby I get to train users and educate them on how to identify phishing emails and spam emails, as well as the anti-spam protection. It gives me visibility into my threat environment and threat landscape to ensure that I am one step ahead of any likelihood of threats within my environment. I get to detect it and respond, so the threat intelligence is very effective. Microsoft security solutions save my time. It saves money because once I protect my environment, I don't lose money. It has decreased my detection time and my time to respond.

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."
"I would rate the solution nine out of ten."
"The most helpful aspect for me is the out-of-the-box configuration, which is fairly good."
"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 archiving and search features are very good."
"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."
"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 stability of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is fantastic."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is data backups that we can provide through ticket requests."
"Scalability-wise, I do not think there are any issues so far."
"There are several features that I consider valuable."
"Defender for 365 is a comprehensive cloud-based solution. The value of the cloud is that you aren't alone. Threat intelligence and analytics are shared in the cloud. We don't have to find the solution alone. If you face an unknown threat with traditional solutions like Trend Micro and Symantec, you need to open a case and send your information to them to analyze forensically and identify the source of the attack."
"Defender helps us prioritize threats across our organization."
"The insights provided with Microsoft Defender for Office 365 are helpful because it comes with the E5 license, and by default, we can use a lot of capabilities."
"The insights provided with Microsoft Defender for Office 365 are helpful because it comes with the E5 license, and by default, we can use a lot of capabilities."
 

Cons

"Sometimes, in some cases, this might end up with their teams being unfocused or a bit thin and stretched and super busy."
"Sometimes it is somewhat laggy, especially on the Archiver side. It should have improved performance on their Message Archiver."
"Barracuda Essentials can improve by continually adding more features."
"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."
"The policies are set up in Barracuda by default; we don't have any control over them."
"I would like to see better integration with other products."
"There is room for improvement, particularly in reaching out to technical support during deployment."
"In the areas of improvement for Microsoft Defender for Office 365, the console is the biggest challenge for me."
"Configuration at the mid-level could be improved for the support team."
"Configuration requires going to a lot of places rather than just accessing one tab."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is not up to the mark in comparison with Wiz or Palo Alto."
"We need to be able to whitelist data at the backend."
"We noticed that from time to time, Microsoft's stability does have problems. Sometimes the service goes up and down. Sometimes they change without prior notice."
"The inbuilt analysis of false positives can be faster. It's not slow, but it can be faster."
"The certification training for Defender for 365 needs to be deeper and incorporate Sentinel. I took all the security courses except one, and Sentinel isn't included."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 product is expensive."
"Price-wise, this product is middle-of-the-road."
"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."
"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 price of Barracuda Essentials is better than some of the competing products."
"Microsoft Defender is expensive. I typically recommend it only if clients have the budget. Otherwise, I would suggest an alternative."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."
"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."
"It's a user-base subscription."
"Defender for 365 comes in various plans and licenses, along with other Microsoft security solutions. Purchasing this kind of package or security bundle gives good value for money, and that's what I recommend."
"From the pricing point of view, like any other product in the market, there is scope for negotiation."
"The pricing is normal. Considering its popularity, it's not overpriced."
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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
13%
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 Enterprise6
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise31
 

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 Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
The inbuilt analysis of false positives can be faster. It's not slow, but it can be faster.
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
My use case for Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is for email protection, safe links, protection of links, documents, protecting my documents, and protecting attachments. I also use it to conduct ...
 

Also Known As

Barracuda Essentials, Barracuda Forensics and Incident Response
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: February 2026.
881,665 professionals have used our research since 2012.