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Barracuda Email Protection vs Proofpoint Email Protection comparison

Barracuda Networks and Proofpoint are both solutions in the Email Security category. Barracuda Networks is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.8, while Proofpoint is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.5. Barracuda Networks holds a 3.0% mindshare in Email Security, compared to Proofpoint’s 8.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Barracuda Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Proofpoint users who would recommend it.
Barracuda Email Protection
Read 18 Barracuda Email Protection reviews
  • 2,130 Views
  • 1,832 Comparison Views
100% willing to recommend
Proofpoint Email Protection
Read 53 Proofpoint Email Protection reviews
  • 8,829 Views
  • 6,975 Comparison Views
95% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024

Proofpoint Email Protection and Barracuda Email Protection are robust solutions in email security. Proofpoint is favored for its advanced threat detection and integration capabilities, whereas Barracuda stands out for affordability and ease of use.

Features: Proofpoint Email Protection features advanced spam filtering and anti-phishing capabilities, along with a user-friendly dashboard that integrates seamlessly with Office 365. Its detection and response capabilities are among the best. Barracuda Email Protection is notable for its simplicity, robust spam and malware blocking, and AI integration for flexible scalability with Microsoft 365.

Room for Improvement: Proofpoint has high costs, potential interface improvements, and local support limitations. Its search capabilities and integration with complex environments could be enhanced. Barracuda could improve via expanded compatibility beyond Microsoft 365, better reporting, and anti-fraud detection, with simpler pricing strategies.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Proofpoint offers flexible deployment in public, hybrid, and private clouds with reliable support, although occasional delays are noted. Barracuda is primarily deployed in public clouds with some on-premises options, and its support varies by response time and expertise.

Pricing and ROI: Proofpoint is considered expensive but offers significant ROI by preventing breaches and reducing spam. Barracuda is more affordable with competitive pricing, often resulting in lower costs while maintaining similar protection levels, providing excellent value for businesses on a budget.

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To learn more, read our detailed Barracuda Email Protection vs. Proofpoint Email Protection Report (Updated: September 2025).
Buyer's Guide
Barracuda Email Protection vs. Proofpoint Email Protection
September 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

Barracuda Email Protection
Ranking in Email Security
12th
Ranking in Office 365 Protection
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (2nd)
Proofpoint Email Protection
Ranking in Email Security
3rd
Ranking in Office 365 Protection
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
Security Awareness Training (2nd), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Barracuda Email Protection is 3.0%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 8.2%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection8.2%
Barracuda Email Protection3.0%
Other88.8%
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.
Read full review
AhmedRamadan - PeerSpot reviewer
Optimize email security with effective sandboxing and auto Pull for quarantine
Proofpoint is used as an email security gateway for big enterprises, primarily for their on-premises servers. Many customers also use it alongside Office 365 Proofpoint offers a complete solution for email security with features like DLP, email archiving, and encryption. The most valuable…
Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is straightforward to set up."
"The archiving and search features are very good."
"The solution's most valuable feature is impersonation detection."
"I'm quite satisfied with the graphical user interface for Barracuda products."
"When we got the service, it included the email archiver with unlimited storage."
"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."
"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."
More Barracuda Email Protection pros
"Proofpoint Email Protection's initial installation is straightforward. It took us less than a day to complete the implementation."
"I like all the features with Proofpoint, such as how it filters the spam and marketing mail, lost reality mail, blocks phishing attacks, blocks malicious attachments, and stops phishing links. Also it can defend against the business email compromise impersonation technique. It is a complete solution for all email attacks. It filters for the bad, malicious attachments. If there is any executable file, it can be deleted. It is a good, complete solution."
"Provides better control over emails, especially those sent via Office 365 on the cloud."
"Its anti-phishing functionality is the most valuable. Certainly, the biggest problem I have is phishing."
"The solution offers very good flexibility. You can blacklist or whitelist with ease."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"It was easy to set up."
"They have customized security rules, mature rules, anti-virus protection, as well as email authentication similar to SPF, DKIM, and DMARC."
More Proofpoint Email Protection pros
 

Cons

"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 reporting mechanism is a little poor and could be improved."
"The platform's pricing needs improvement."
"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."
"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."
"I would like to see better integration with other products."
"They could simplify the licensing and the pricing."
More Barracuda Email Protection cons
"The support team was a bit slow."
"We'd like to have the ability to create more customized reports."
"Proofpoint has a lot of false alarms."
"Unfortunately, the whole product is going downhill right now, ever since they were sold to Thoma Bravo. We're constantly having problems with stability and the product in general."
"The flexibility of the solution can be improved."
"Pricing for the platform could still be cheaper."
"The largest complaint that we hear from our customers is that there is no local support."
"Phishing detection could improve further to match some of the capabilities offered by competitors."
More Proofpoint Email Protection cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Barracuda Essentials is better than some of the competing products."
"The solution's pricing is moderate, where it is neither cheap nor expensive."
"Despite a list price possibly around $40 per user, their market price allows customers to easily buy the solution."
"We didn't have to pay a lot for the solution because we got it from a good vendor with a good user volume."
"The price is similar to that of Microsoft 365."
"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."
More Barracuda Email Protection pricing and cost advice
"Proofpoint Email Protection has comparable pricing."
"Customers pay around $90,000 yearly for a 1,000-user organization, with the subscription license being the main expense, apart from implementation fees."
"The solution is expensive."
"I rate the product price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"It is multiple times more expensive, which made it very much less attractive."
"Proofpoint is fairly expensive."
"They are competitively priced, but I have been forced to get quotes for other solutions now because they haven't been responding to requests to do the work that we would like them to do."
"The licensing is basically $8/user."
More Proofpoint Email Protection pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
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 Business21
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise17
 

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.
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 a list price possibly around $40 per user, their market price allows customers t...
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 default included in certain settings. For instance, for email quarantine, I can't se...
See all answers
What do you like most about Proofpoint Email Protection?
It is a very scalable solution.
See all answers
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.
See all answers
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
I believe they still need to improve by consolidating some portals, as currently, you have to log in separately to a few of them.
See all answers
 

Comparisons

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Compared 15% of the time
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Abnormal Security vs Barracuda Email Protection
Compared 8% of the time
Mimecast Email Security vs Barracuda Email Protection Logo
Mimecast Email Security vs Barracuda Email Protection
Compared 7% of the time
Fortinet FortiMail vs Barracuda Email Protection Logo
Fortinet FortiMail vs Barracuda Email Protection
Compared 2% of the time
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Microsoft Defender for Office 365 vs Proofpoint Email Protection Logo
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 vs Proofpoint Email Protection
Compared 20% of the time
Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) vs Proofpoint Email Protection Logo
Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) vs Proofpoint Email Protection
Compared 8% of the time
Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration vs Proofpoint Email Protection Logo
Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration vs Proofpoint Email Protection
Compared 5% of the time
Abnormal Security vs Proofpoint Email Protection Logo
Abnormal Security vs Proofpoint Email Protection
Compared 5% of the time
Palo Alto Networks WildFire vs Proofpoint Email Protection Logo
Palo Alto Networks WildFire vs Proofpoint Email Protection
Compared 5% of the time
More Proofpoint Email Protection Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Barracuda Email Protection
October 2025
Barracuda Email Protection reportDownload Barracuda Email Protection product report
Buyer's Guide
Proofpoint Email Protection
September 2025
Proofpoint Email Protection reportDownload Proofpoint Email Protection product report
 

Also Known As

Barracuda Essentials
Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Cofense PhishMe, Proofpoint Digital Protection
 

Overview

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

Proofpoint Email Protection provides powerful filtering against spam, phishing, and malware, leveraging effective threat detection and blocking capabilities. This solution integrates smoothly with platforms like Office 365, offering a user-friendly dashboard for seamless operations.

Proofpoint Email Protection focuses on email security, ensuring protection against phishing, malware, and spam. It includes features like URL scanning, anti-phishing, anti-virus protection, and sandboxing for comprehensive threat analysis. Its advanced analytics through TAP and TRAP, along with strong integration abilities, make it appealing for handling email threats. While scalability and ease of deployment are advantages, challenges such as integration in complex environments, the cost, and limited local support require attention. Enhancements in search functionality, email encryption, and improved phishing detection are also needed.

What are the key features of Proofpoint Email Protection?
  • Effective Filtering: Blocks spam, phishing, and malware with high accuracy.
  • URL Scanning: Protects against malicious links.
  • Advanced Analytics: Provides insights through TAP and TRAP.
  • Seamless Integration: Compatible with platforms like Office 365.
  • User-friendly Dashboard: Simplifies email management and monitoring.
What benefits and ROI should users look for in reviews?
  • Scalability: Adaptable to organizational growth without losing performance.
  • Strong Threat Protection: Comprehensive defense against email threats.
  • Easy Deployment: Streamlined setup process for smooth integration.
  • Advanced Threat Analysis: Identifies and neutralizes threats efficiently.

Industries adopting Proofpoint Email Protection include finance, healthcare, and education sectors, which benefit from its robust email security measures. Educational institutions prioritize safe communication for staff and students, while healthcare organizations focus on protecting sensitive patient data. Financial services benefit from preventing data breaches and fraud through advanced threats management.

Proofpoint
 

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
Buyer's Guide
Barracuda Email Protection vs. Proofpoint Email Protection
September 2025
Free Report: Barracuda Email Protection vs. Proofpoint Email Protection
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Protection vs. Proofpoint Email Protection and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
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See our Barracuda Email Protection vs. Proofpoint Email Protection report.
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We monitor all Email Security reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.