Barracuda Email Protection vs Perception Point Advanced Email Security comparison

Barracuda Networks and Perception Point are both solutions in the Email Security category. Barracuda Networks is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.8, while Perception Point is ranked #14 with an average rating of 9.0. Barracuda Networks holds a 2.7% mindshare in Email Security, compared to Perception Point’s 2.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Barracuda Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Perception Point users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024

Barracuda Email Protection and Perception Point Advanced Email Security compete in email protection. Perception Point has the upper hand with advanced threat protection features, making it a strong choice for those prioritizing security.

Features: Barracuda Email Protection includes comprehensive threat protection, spam filtering, and data protection. Perception Point offers zero-day attack identification, adaptive threat analysis, and advanced threat defense. These features set Perception Point apart in dealing with emerging threats.

Room for Improvement: Barracuda could enhance its reporting capabilities and integration with third-party tools. It may also improve its security awareness training platform. Perception Point could expand its feature set beyond the basics, refine its UX/UI for more customization options, and improve incident response times further.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Barracuda Email Protection is easy to deploy, integrating seamlessly with existing infrastructures and offering strong customer support. Perception Point is also easy to set up with a cloud-native platform that provides scalability and flexibility, and it offers excellent customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Barracuda's competitive pricing provides good ROI for comprehensive security solutions without high expenditure. Perception Point, with premium setup costs, justifies the higher expense through superior threat detection capabilities, offering significant value for enterprises needing advanced security.

To learn more, read our detailed Barracuda Email Protection vs. Perception Point Advanced Email Security Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Barracuda Email Protection vs. Perception Point Advanced Email Security

April 2025

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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

Microsoft Defender for Offi...

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 12.9%, down from 18.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Barracuda Email Protection is 2.7%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Perception Point Advanced Email Security is 2.3%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Email Security

Featured Reviews

Tolu Omolaja

Head of Department of Network Communications at Eko electricity

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.

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LeeMiles

Director, Information Technology at St Albans High School For Girls

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.

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Jijin Joseph

Technical Director at Channelnext

Gives in-depth analysis reports to end users for any malicious content found in emails

Our users would like the solution to scan outgoing emails. So, if my system is compromised, and I have malicious content in my system, then there is a possibility that I send malicious email to my colleague. There is a dependency on AWS cloud.This means if the cloud service is down, which may impact the perception point's email delivery.So it would be great if there is any HA for the solution. I would like a user-friendly configuration, like APIs. This solution is API-friendly configuration by following the steps provided. It would be great if it could be automate it, like the Avanan.Also, it would be good if Perception Point Advanced Email Security could have an MSP model. During the early stages of working with this solution, there were some constraints and issues.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would say that 90% of the spam and phishing attack emails get blocked right off the bat."

"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 has improved my organization's security. It makes it easier to manage the infrastructure without the help of third-party applications."

"One of the best features of the tool is its capability to aggregate insights from different workloads, basically from the Office 365 and endpoints part."

"The basic features are okay and I'm satisfied with the Defender."

"Our customers are satisfied with Defender for 365 because Microsoft products are easy to use and customize to meet the client's needs. Everything is in one place, so we can adjust policies as needed for phishing, DLP, ATP, or any other security features that our clients want to apply."

"The DLP feature of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is valuable, and we also use the DLP feature for email real-time detection."

"Defender for Office 365 has helped eliminate having to look at multiple dashboards and that is the aspect I like most about it. It is simpler, effective, and convenient. The users like the process efficiency."

"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's most valuable features are safe attachments and safe links."

More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 pros

"The solution is straightforward to set up."

"When we got the service, it included the email archiver with unlimited storage."

"The most valuable aspect includes attempts to spoof or compromise domains from external sources."

"The solution's most valuable feature is impersonation detection."

"Barracuda email protection is stable. I would give it a nine because of its strong cybersecurity features."

"The archiving and search features are very good."

"The most valuable features are security and ease of use."

"I'm quite satisfied with the graphical user interface for Barracuda products."

More Barracuda Email Protection pros

"The most valuable feature is the technical support services."

"The Perception Point Incident Response team acts as an extension of our SOC team. This is very important for us. This is a benefit provided for their main product of scanning our emails. If Perception Point can give me IR, this is really good versus other products that do not provide this kind of service. Perception Point's service is great. They are very professional. That reduces the time that my internal SOC has to deal with my internal IT person. They just send an email to the IR team at Perception Point, who continues the investigation and blocks any emails, if necessary. This is very good because it can reduce a lot of time and effort from my team. It is like an extension of my SOC, but external."

"The most valuable feature I have found is the speed of scanning emails."

"Their security engines are very effective at stopping malware and potential attacks before they reach a user's mailbox. They have the best detection engine."

"After integration, the tool is very easy to use. I had a problem with scripts for one customer, but my team did the integration for other customers without issues. So, I think I made a mistake in my integration. Both inline and API work fine."

"I see from time to time that Perception Point is being proactive. They approach us, and say, "Can you check this, and this?" So, it does seem that they are an extension of my incident response."

"It has modules to detect malware and that is a strong point. It has a very nice way of showing you, directly in the product, a lot of details about certain pieces of malware. It goes very deep and even shows you the assembly code. It also does detonations on files and shows you the results in different operating systems. That is very useful."

"One of the most valuable features is the service provided by the incident response team. There have been cases where we have suspected that emails were fraudulent or something was suspicious. In those cases, we immediately contacted the incident response team through the platform, and we had a response in less than a minute."

More Perception Point Advanced Email Security pros

Cons

"We need to be able to whitelist data at the backend."

"The visibility for the weaknesses in the system and unauthorized access can be improved."

"I am generally satisfied with how it currently is. If I could improve anything, I would reduce the cost."

"This product's effectiveness could be improved, in terms of detecting unwanted spam or even malware between the emails, compared to other products."

"The product must provide better malware detection."

"There is a different console for different things; I just want one consolidated console."

"Microsoft sometimes has downtime, and we'll get several incidents coming in back to back. We have a huge backlog of notifications, many of which may be false positives. However, there might be serious alerts, so we can't risk dismissing all of them at once."

"They can improve their security in a way where a customer can know if all their attachments are safe or not to open through a report. The solution does its job perfectly, but it never reports to the customer whether those attachments have been stopped before or not."

More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 cons

"The solution's reporting mechanism is a little poor and could be improved."

"I would like to see some additional functionality in terms of employee monitoring, as part of a work-from-home security solution."

"Two to three months back, we got fraudulent emails in which someone in the organization was being blamed."

"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 solution's graphical user interface (GUI) could be improved visually."

"The technology works on a supervised engine, but it would be better if it ran on an unsupervised engine."

"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 Essentials can improve by continually adding more features."

More Barracuda Email Protection cons

"To improve the solution, maybe a portal for end users to consult their emails would be helpful. The end user could access the portal and see their emails or events. They could also refresh the names."

"This is an option to preview an email in their console, and that could be improved. If you open the preview, then it auto scrolls. Therefore, it is hard to look at the email when it is going to the next page or scrolling. It should not have the auto-scroll."

"I think the interface could be improved in the next release."

"Coming from products in the Microsoft stack, Perception Point doesn't really give you, as an admin, a lot of options to make changes yourself. It's more on their side to make changes in the back end. That's something they could improve on in the future."

"They can do better on the spam. Today, Perception Point is not our only solution. We have two solutions, and they are the second in line because the spam filtering is not yet the best."

"Our users would like the solution to scan outgoing emails. So, if my system is compromised, and I have malicious content in my system, then there is a possibility that I am sending a colleague that malicious content."

"It would be helpful for Perception Point Advanced Email Security to have more integration with other solutions."

"They could provide additional data loss prevention features as we encounter different kinds of attacks in today's scenario."

More Perception Point Advanced Email Security cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For licensing, it's usually a yearly package for customers who are subscribed to Office 365, but they can also pay on a monthly basis."

"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."

"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."

"It's a user-base subscription."

"The solution could be better by simplifying the business model of their licensing. It was hard to figure out how to get the licensing done for the environment, initially."

"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."

"Compared to other brands, Microsoft Defender for Office 365's pricing is competitive."

"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comes with Microsoft Windows. It is free with the operating system."

More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 pricing and cost advice

"Despite a list price possibly around $40 per user, their market price allows customers to easily buy the solution."

"Price-wise, this product is middle-of-the-road."

"The price of Barracuda Essentials is better than some of the competing products."

"The product is expensive."

"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."

"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."

More Barracuda Email Protection pricing and cost advice

"If a user only wants protection for email, then the price of the product is okay, but if they opt for the collaboration options offered by the product, then it becomes a little expensive."

"The pricing is not cheap, but I can see the value. In security, if you are trying to save by giving up quality, that's a very bad decision."

"It has very reasonable pricing. Normally, the end user is paying. Perception Point is already in the Amazon marketplace, so we cannot sell it as a distribution partner. For example, we cannot take more than that margin of what they offer in the marketplace. Whatever the end user is paying, it is definitely worth it and it is not that high."

"In Brazil, the dollar price affects the cost. Perception Point Advanced Email Security is about 50 percent less expensive."

"Pricing is lower in comparison to Proofpoint."

"The price of the solution is high."

"There is room for improvement for them with an MSP partner. The pricing is good and fair. Our customers don't complain. The only thing is that it's a little bit old school. They don't have a system that automatically checks the number of users that our customers have so we can just update the licenses ourselves through a website. It is still done manually. They have a person who checks invoicing monthly to determine if there have been any changes. A nice improvement would be if they could get automated licensing counts."

"The pricing and licensing are very fair compared to competing companies in the same field."

More Perception Point Advanced Email Security pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

18%

Construction Company

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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 variou...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?

Microsoft could improve by offering recommendations for domain spoofing attacks, especially scenarios where DNS recor...

See all answers

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 t...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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 defa...

See all answers

What do you like most about Perception Point Advanced Email Security?

The most valuable feature is the technical support services.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Perception Point Advanced Email Security?

In Brazil, the dollar price affects the cost. Perception Point Advanced Email Security is about 50 percent less expen...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Perception Point Advanced Email Security?

There are always places for improvement, but this needs deeper thought and planning. Integration and end-user interac...

See all answers

Comparisons

Proofpoint Email Protection vs Microsoft Defender for Office 365

Compared 13% of the time

Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration vs Microsoft Defender for Office 365

Compared 7% of the time

Mimecast Email Security vs Microsoft Defender for Office 365

Compared 5% of the time

Abnormal Security vs Microsoft Defender for Office 365

Compared 5% of the time

Hornetsecurity 365 Total Protection vs Microsoft Defender for Office 365

Compared 4% of the time

More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Competitors

Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration vs Barracuda Email Protection

Compared 21% of the time

Abnormal Security vs Barracuda Email Protection

Compared 8% of the time

Avanan vs Barracuda Email Protection

Compared 6% of the time

Mimecast Email Security vs Barracuda Email Protection

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) vs Barracuda Email Protection

Compared 5% of the time

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Avanan vs Perception Point Advanced Email Security

Compared 15% of the time

Fortinet FortiMail Cloud vs Perception Point Advanced Email Security

Compared 12% of the time

Proofpoint Email Protection vs Perception Point Advanced Email Security

Compared 12% of the time

Fortinet FortiMail vs Perception Point Advanced Email Security

Compared 11% of the time

IRONSCALES vs Perception Point Advanced Email Security

Compared 9% of the time

More Perception Point Advanced Email Security Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Office 365

May 2025

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 report

Download Microsoft Defender for Office 365 product report

Buyer's Guide

Barracuda Email Protection

May 2025

Download Barracuda Email Protection product report

Buyer's Guide

Perception Point Advanced Email Security

May 2025

Perception Point Advanced Email Security report

Download Perception Point Advanced Email Security product report

Also Known As

MS Defender for Office 365

Barracuda Essentials

No data available

Overview

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is a comprehensive security solution designed to protect organizations against advanced threats in their email, collaboration, and productivity environments. It combines the power of Microsoft's threat intelligence, machine learning, and behavioral analytics to provide real-time protection against phishing, malware, ransomware, and other malicious attacks.

With Microsoft Defender for Office 365, organizations can safeguard their email communication by detecting and blocking malicious links, attachments, and unsafe email content. It employs advanced anti-phishing capabilities to identify and prevent sophisticated phishing attacks that attempt to steal sensitive information or compromise user credentials.

This solution also offers robust protection against malware and ransomware. It leverages machine learning algorithms to analyze email attachments and URLs in real-time, identifying and blocking malicious content before it reaches users' inboxes. Additionally, it provides advanced threat-hunting capabilities, allowing security teams to proactively investigate and respond to potential threats.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 goes beyond email protection and extends its security features to other collaboration tools like SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams. It scans files and documents stored in these platforms, ensuring that they are free from malware and other malicious content. It also provides visibility into user activities, helping organizations detect and mitigate insider threats.

Furthermore, this solution offers rich reporting and analytics capabilities, providing organizations with insights into their security posture and threat landscape. It enables security administrators to monitor and manage security incidents, track trends, and take proactive measures to enhance their overall security posture.

Microsoft

The popularity of Microsoft 365 means criminals test and design their attacks to bypass its native security features. And that means you need additional layers of defense. With Advanced Threat Protection enabled, Barracuda uses multiple layers of detection, including signature, static, and behavioral analysis, along with CPU-emulation sandboxing to accurately detect and block zero-hour targeted attacks and ransomware.

Traditional email gateways use static rules and policies—reputation analysis, block lists, and malicious payloads—to determine if an email is malicious.

Barracuda protects your Microsoft 365 inbox against evasive threats with a powerful AI engine that learns the unique communication patterns within your organization through access to internal and historical emails. Once it understands what legitimate emails looks like for each user, it can detect anomalies that signal malicious intent. This context-based detection is more effective at blocking targeted attacks, which are designed to bypass traditional rule-based email security.

Barracuda Networks

Perception Point Advanced Email Security is a comprehensive solution designed to protect organizations from advanced email threats. Leveraging cutting-edge technology, it offers multi-layered defense mechanisms to detect and block sophisticated attacks such as phishing, malware, and ransomware.

With its advanced threat intelligence capabilities, it can identify and neutralize zero-day threats in real-time. The solution also provides robust data loss prevention features, ensuring sensitive information remains secure. Its user-friendly interface allows for easy management and monitoring of email security, while its seamless integration with existing email platforms ensures a hassle-free deployment process.

Perception Point Advanced Email Security is a reliable and efficient solution that safeguards organizations against the ever-evolving landscape of email-based threats.

Perception Point

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.

ACT Government, Acumen Group, AGIP, Delta Dental Plans Association, Desai/Nasr Consulting Engineers, Inc., Equinox Information Systems

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Barracuda Email Protection vs. Perception Point Advanced Email Security

April 2025

Free Report: Barracuda Email Protection vs. Perception Point Advanced Email Security

Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Protection vs. Perception Point Advanced Email Security and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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