Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Barracuda Email Protection vs Proofpoint Email Protection 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 Security
12th
Ranking in Office 365 Protection
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (2nd), Security Incident Response (9th)
Proofpoint Email Protection
Ranking in Email Security
2nd
Ranking in Office 365 Protection
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (4th), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (2nd)
 

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 Proofpoint Email Protection is 8.1%, down from 8.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection8.1%
Barracuda Email Protection3.7%
Other88.2%
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.
IS
Threat Hunter at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Email protection has reduced phishing workload and keeps unwanted messages out of inboxes
A few things about how Proofpoint Email Protection can be improved include implementing artificial intelligence within their platform to start really understanding the organization that is using their product, what sort of emails they are expecting and if the emails that are being expected should be let in and if the emails that are not being expected should not be let in. I'll give you a further example for this. If someone just tries to send an email from a Gmail address, which is a free public service email service provider, then because anyone in the world can create a Gmail account, I think it is nice and good for Proofpoint Email Protection to actually first check and do a reality check if we have received an email from this address and look at the intent of the email to really see what the email is trying to do and then classify based on that. I still see there is a lack. Hence why I started this conversation with AI and hoping that Proofpoint Email Protection will bring AI in and to really start analyzing these emails, the intent, and whether they really fit the customer organization. We are a manufacturing company, so whether it really fits that profile. I would say if we can get a better user experience from Proofpoint Email Protection products, that would be good. For example, other service providers that provide secure email gateway have the functionality where you can split promotional and bulk email and have them sent to a separate folder. I think if we can have that sort of feature, that would be great where Proofpoint Email Protection just keeps the important emails in the inbox folder and move everything else that is not really business related into a promotional, spam, bulk folder. This is an improvement that I would really like to see. I give it an eight because I am expecting a lot more from Proofpoint Email Protection, more automations, more understanding of who their customer is, what sort of business they do, and what sort of email they are supposed to be receiving and letting through. I think the day when I really have only 1% of work to do and 99% is automated by whatever automation services Proofpoint Email Protection uses would be ideal. I think I have covered any other improvements needed for Proofpoint Email Protection pretty well right from AI to splitting emails based on priorities. I think I have given some pretty broad and good examples.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 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 beauty of Barracuda Email Protection is that it is easy to manage and simple to deploy."
"The most helpful aspect for me is the out-of-the-box configuration, which is fairly good."
"The solution is straightforward to set up."
"The archiving and search features are very good."
"The most valuable features are security and ease of use."
"The most valuable features of Proofpoint Email Protection are ease of use, data loss prevention, antivirus, and spam protection."
"When those bad emails are kept out of the gate, and the user can just focus on the email that matters most to them, I think that is how much Proofpoint Email Protection is impacting the entire organization."
"URL scanning and online relay service are the most valuable features of Proofpoint Email Protection."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is the best solution from the perspective of email security."
"Proofpoint Email Protection's initial installation is straightforward. It took us less than a day to complete the implementation."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is stable enough and does its job of virus, malware, and email scam detection. Setting it up is not too complicated."
"The solution's technical support is good. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"Compared to other products, Proofpoint's real-time threat intelligence makes it less noisy; they collect and share threat information effectively, which benefits all customers."
 

Cons

"Two to three months back, we got fraudulent emails in which someone in the organization was being blamed."
"The solution's graphical user interface (GUI) could be improved visually."
"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."
"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."
"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 technology works on a supervised engine, but it would be better if it ran on an unsupervised engine."
"There is room for improvement, particularly in reaching out to technical support during deployment."
"Phishing detection could improve further to match some of the capabilities offered by competitors."
"The solution could be improved with the addition of PLP and email encryption features."
"Sometimes it detects false positives."
"Proofpoint Email Protection could improve by allowing more customization of the reports, such as exceptions and black-and-white lists."
"The high cost of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The false positives are an issue."
"It's scalable, but the devil's in the details — you have to know your email volumes."
"They do not have an on-demand scan for the internal viruses and internal users, and they don't have a scan for the exchange server against viruses and spam as Symantec does."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The price of Barracuda Essentials is better than some of the competing products."
"Price-wise, this product is middle-of-the-road."
"The product is expensive."
"Despite a list price possibly around $40 per user, their market price allows customers to easily buy the solution."
"The solution's pricing is moderate, where it is neither cheap nor expensive."
"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."
"It is on a yearly basis. Their floor for SMB doesn't matter. The user count is 100 users and below at $2,500 a year. Its cost is higher than other solutions. It is probably about 20% to 30% higher than what you would get with Microsoft. There are no additional costs. All costs are factored in. It can be improved pricing-wise so that it is affordable for the SMB market."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is a reasonably priced product, which means that it is neither too low nor too high in terms of price."
"The price is reasonable."
"We sell annual licenses for this solution."
"The tool's pricing depends on the customer's preference, offering options for an annual license or a monthly subscription. The cost varies based on factors such as the number of users and specific requirements. Overall, the pricing is competitive."
"The licensing cost of Proofpoint Email Protection is a lot higher than other solutions, such as Barracuda."
"I rate the product price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"Annually, it costs us about $92,000. This is pretty much what it costs us. There is no additional cost."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Email Security solutions are best for your needs.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
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 Business22
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise21
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Proofpoint Email Protection?
In terms of pricing, it is okay compared to others. I would say it is normal. Additional costs do come in, but it enhances security.
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
I have not seen specific outcomes or metrics since implementing Proofpoint Email Protection, such as a reduction in phishing incidents or improved response time. Proofpoint Email Protection can imp...
 

Also Known As

Barracuda Essentials, Barracuda Forensics and Incident Response
Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Proofpoint Digital Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ACT Government, Acumen Group, AGIP, Delta Dental Plans Association, Desai/Nasr Consulting Engineers, Inc., Equinox Information Systems
Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Protection vs. Proofpoint Email Protection and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.