Barracuda Email Protection vs SonicWall Email Security comparison

Barracuda Networks and SonicWall are both solutions in the Email Security category. Barracuda Networks is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.8, while SonicWall is ranked #31 with an average rating of 7.7. Barracuda Networks holds a 3.0% mindshare in Email Security, compared to SonicWall’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Barracuda Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of SonicWall 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

SonicWall Email Security

Read 14 SonicWall Email Security reviews

595 Views
530 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

Barracuda Email Protection

SonicWall Email Security

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024

SonicWall Email Security and Barracuda Email Protection are contenders in the email security market. Barracuda Email Protection is generally preferred due to its extensive feature set, despite SonicWall's cost-effective model and solid customer support.

Features: SonicWall Email Security offers strong spam protection, advanced threat protection, and email continuity. Meanwhile, Barracuda Email Protection provides advanced threat detection, ransomware protection, and data loss prevention. Barracuda's AI-driven threat detection offers a more comprehensive feature set.

Room for Improvement: SonicWall could enhance its user interface simplicity and expand its threat detection portfolio. Its deployment process might benefit from more streamlined configurations. Barracuda could improve its reporting capabilities and better integrate its security awareness training. Superior policy flexibility would also benefit users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Barracuda Email Protection is known for its easy deployment process and responsive customer service, offering a smooth setup experience. Although SonicWall requires more initial configuration, it provides reliable ongoing support.

Pricing and ROI: SonicWall Email Security is often highlighted for its affordability, providing a good return on investment through effective security solutions. Barracuda Email Protection entails a higher initial cost but ensures significant ROI with its comprehensive security features, appealing to those prioritizing robust protection over cost.

To learn more, read our detailed Barracuda Email Protection vs. SonicWall Email Security Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Barracuda Email Protection vs. SonicWall Email Security

September 2025

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Helped 868,787 peers since 2012

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

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Email Archiving (2nd), Office 365 Protection (5th)

SonicWall Email Security

Ranking in Email Security

31st

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

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 SonicWall Email Security is 0.5%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Email Security Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Barracuda Email Protection	3.0%
SonicWall Email Security	0.5%
Other	96.5%

Email Security

Featured Reviews

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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Swapnil Kulkarni

System Administrator at Ador Powertron Ltd.

Has consistently supported security needs for mid-sized teams with affordable deployment

I do not work with Cloud Secure Edge, CSE, or SMA apart from SonicWall NSA. I am not satisfied with phishing protection, as it falls completely under the email domain security. The customizable policy configuration does not help to tailor email security overall because our systems are not integrated with SonicWall Email Security. We are not using reporting and analytics because it requires completely different software. While all required features are available in SonicWall Email Security for SMBs and startups, we lack analytics features. They provide an option to purchase a complete separate product for analytics, but despite initially having purchased the paper license, due to technical limitations or changes, we cannot use that product. Now they require additional fees to access the analytics feature.

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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

"The archiving and search features are very good."

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

"We check the reports sometimes to see that frequent attacks and malicious emails are being blocked by the solution."

"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."

"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."

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

More Barracuda Email Protection pros

"The anti-spam aspect of the solution is its most valuable feature."

"According to our customers, the product's most valuable feature is the ability to detect spam and reduce phishing emails."

"The most valuable feature of SonicWall Email Security is the blocking of emails using keywords. If there are any particular keywords in the subject, that we want to block from receiving from a particular person we can do it. Additionally, the blocking of emails is easy. we can release that one and we can block some of the keywords also like that."

"SonicWall Email Security uses multi-layer cloud security."

"There are no wasted extras and the interface is really simple."

"We always get ROI from the product we are using; it is completely flexible and acceptable according to our security requirements over the last four years and currently."

"Setup was easy. It took about 30 minutes."

"The most valuable features are the anti-spam, anti-phishing, anti-virus, and anti-spoofing."

More SonicWall Email Security pros

Cons

"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."

"The platform's pricing needs improvement."

"Barracuda Email Protection needs better reporting and more robust integration with security awareness training platforms and third-party solutions."

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

"Sometimes it is somewhat laggy, especially on the Archiver side. It should have improved performance on their Message Archiver."

"I would like to see better integration with other products."

"The policies are set up in Barracuda by default; we don't have any control over them."

More Barracuda Email Protection cons

"A lot of spoofed emails are still coming to the end-user, so the configuration for this option needs to be improved."

"The technical support from the company is not always very good at solving issues, but they offer access to a good community of users where problems are easily solved."

"There could be definition updates included in the subscription."

"The reporting needs improvement."

"The pricing could be improved."

"Updates could be released more frequently."

"SonicWall Email Security could improve by making the file blocking and the release feature easier to use"

More SonicWall Email Security cons

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."

"The product is expensive."

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

"Barracuda licensing model is good."

"The price is similar to that of Microsoft 365."

"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."

More Barracuda Email Protection pricing and cost advice

"The cost is cheaper than Sophos. I would rate it as five out of ten."

"The platform offers a yearly license."

"Our customers purchase the solution's yearly license."

"The overall price of SonicWall Email Security should be reduced and there should be an option to purchase one or two licenses more instead of their current policy of bulk increases only. There should be more flexibility in the licensing model. Each license cost approximately $33 annually."

"We have a two-year license subscription and the price is very high."

"I rate the application’s pricing a five out of ten."

"When compared with Cisco, it is very well priced. Cisco is very expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Construction Company

11%

Educational Organization

11%

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	12
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	3

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	3

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?

See all answers

What do you like most about SonicWall Email Security?

According to our customers, the product's most valuable feature is the ability to detect spam and reduce phishing emails.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SonicWall Email Security?

The solution is affordable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SonicWall Email Security?

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 vs Barracuda Email Protection

Compared 34% of the time

Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration vs Barracuda Email Protection

Compared 16% of the time

Abnormal Security vs Barracuda Email Protection

Compared 8% of the time

Mimecast Email Security vs Barracuda Email Protection

Compared 7% of the time

Avanan vs Barracuda Email Protection

Compared 6% of the time

More Barracuda Email Protection Competitors

Fortinet FortiMail vs SonicWall Email Security

Compared 30% of the time

Avanan vs SonicWall Email Security

Compared 28% of the time

Cisco Secure Email vs SonicWall Email Security

Compared 21% of the time

Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration vs SonicWall Email Security

Compared 21% of the time

More SonicWall Email Security Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Barracuda Email Protection

October 2025

Download Barracuda Email Protection product report

Buyer's Guide

SonicWall Email Security

September 2025

Download SonicWall Email Security product report

Also Known As

Barracuda Essentials

Dell SonicWALL Email Security Platform, SonicWall Hosted Email Security

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

SonicWALL Email Security Platform offers powerful protection to keep email threats out. And sensitive data in. With innovative protection techniques for both inbound and outbound email plus unique management tools, the Email Security platform delivers superior email protection today while standing ready to stop the new attacks of tomorrow.

SonicWall

Sample Customers

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

Star Kay White, Locala Community Partnerships

Buyer's Guide

Barracuda Email Protection vs. SonicWall Email Security

September 2025

Free Report: Barracuda Email Protection vs. SonicWall Email Security

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