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

Barracuda Email Security Gateway vs Darktrace comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

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 Security Ga...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
DMARC Authentication Software (4th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (5th)
Darktrace
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (9th), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (1st), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (1st), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (6th), AI-Powered Chatbots (3rd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (15th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (11th), Attack Surface Management (ASM) (4th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Messaging and Collaboration solutions, they serve different purposes. Barracuda Email Security Gateway is designed for Secure Email Gateway (SEG) and holds a mindshare of 6.2%, down 8.6% compared to last year.
Darktrace, on the other hand, focuses on Extended Detection and Response (XDR), holds 8.8% mindshare, down 9.3% since last year.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
 

Featured Reviews

RobertSmith15 - PeerSpot reviewer
Email security offers superior protection with good personalization
I have experienced the Barracuda team as very cooperative, and they are readily available for calls with technical support via email. I have had no issues with ongoing support throughout the product's lifecycle. Assistance was provided to me when transferring archived information from a legacy email service. They also recommended an additional service to streamline the process, making it as easy as possible.
Malebo Lethoba Group - PeerSpot reviewer
Have found the AI analyst and detection functions highly valuable for network operations while managing complexity in initial setup
The functions I find most valuable in Darktrace ( /products/darktrace-reviews ) are the AI analyst as well as the detection.The autonomous response capabilities of Darktrace are not crucial for me because it doesn't work in a network where there are no core switches. In a modern network, the autonomous response doesn't work, especially when sitting in a shared data center.If I'm running a traditional network where I am not in a shared data center with a layer two dedicated for my resources, then it can work for me. However, if I am in a data center where I don't have layer two, it becomes an issue because the autonomous response is reliant on sending spoofed TCP resets to my core switch to block traffic, which is a major issue.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is very simple to whitelist addresses."
"The intuitive management interface feature makes email security policies very easy to implement as it's all about features that need to be enabled or disabled."
"It not only tackles spam effectively but also incorporates advanced features like ATP and active features which ensures a comprehensive and adaptable email security solution tailored to their heterogeneous environment."
"The feature that sets Barracuda apart from other solutions is the Office 365 cloud-to-cloud backup."
"The protection from Barracuda Email Security Gateway is essentially a sandboxing solution."
"Its backups are valuable."
"The most valuable feature of Barracuda Email Security Gateway is that it blocks almost 99 percent of threats from users' email inboxes."
"It is a very stable solution."
"The most valuable feature is the alerts. The alerts are meaningful. The event rolls up into meaningful and actionable alerts rather than just being noise."
"I am impressed with the product's ability to give insights into network traffic."
"One thing I appreciate is Antigena Email, which is for email protection."
"Artificial intelligence and machine learning functionalities are valuable."
"I can rate Darktrace's technical support as one of the best products in the world."
"The ability to detect activity on the network is very useful to us. Even if it's not necessarily an illegal activity, if it is abnormal activity, it is able to detect it and notify us."
"The most valuable feature of Darktrace is its ability to detect and counter threats before they occur."
"It is a very simple product to use."
 

Cons

"Barracuda should add an option where it can add multiple domains, such as abc.com, bbc.com, and cbc.com. Therefore, this domains' emails will be allowed and other domains' emails will not be relayed through Barracuda Email Security Gateway. Whereas, if you allow the IP address, then any of the domain's emails will be relayed through Barracuda Email Security Gateway. That is the drawback that I have observed. So, Barracuda should work on this."
"Its integration with other solutions can be improved. There should be integration for telemetry information, system information, and other types of information with other solutions. Barracuda currently doesn't have that. Barracuda has its own platform. Its integration with firewalls is quite good, and it communicates really well with firewalls, but I have not seen any other integration. Based on what I know, it does have an API at the backend, but I have not used it."
"The UI could be a little cleaner and require less clicking around in different modules. They give the illusion of a single pane of glass, but as you click around to different products, you're actually being transferred into a different system."
"There is room for improvement in the speed of the interface, specifically the cloud interface, is a bit slow."
"There is room for further integration with the wider platform."
"Few customers require an on-premises fabric ATP box for attack detection and response."
"The scalability needs improvement, it's the only feature that is required."
"We had an incident where we didn't want to receive any emails or spam from a certain site and email address. We selected the mail ID, and we send it to Barracuda for analysis to see if it's spam or something like that. As of now, we haven't gotten any update or notification as to what happened with it."
"I would like to see a feature where the tool ingests information from an anti-malware product that is present at the endpoint."
"The level of tracking within the network from the transmission level up to the machine level can use improvement."
"The pricing model is a little too high and could be more flexible."
"It could build in integrations for some complementary products, but it has an assistant plugin so this is not really a big deal."
"There is a high ratio of false positive information."
"One thing that I would like to look at going forward is to have a fully automated network infrastructure that is monitored automatically real-time, and that gives me this kind of capability where I would be able to look at my network at any given time and see the state of my network. With Darktrace, at the moment, I have to almost put in a date and tell them that want you to give me data from this date to this date. I don't want that. I want a fast solution in which it doesn't matter when I log into the application. Whenever I log in, I must be able to see my network and run a report. In other words, if I go in now and I say, "Give me a full report of what happened today, it must be able to give me that. It mustn't just be limited to a seven-day period, for argument's sake. It must be able to give me real-time and day-to-day tracking of what has happened within my network."
"The solution would benefit from automation. Currently, you have to know what you are searching for."
"Its documentation is not up to the mark. At times, I have a lot of trouble finding a solution. Even when I posted questions on the community chats, it took a lot of time for me to get answers. That's something that can be improved. Darktrace can focus on creating a more interactive community. If there are more people from Darktrace to focus on community chats, it would be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is an annual license required for this solution."
"The price of this solution is very high, but it's working fine."
"The licensing fees are part of a bundled support package that we pay for."
"As far as advanced email security systems, this product is mid-range on the pricing scale."
"For overall value and cost, Barracuda came in as most appropriate, price as well as services provided. In terms of price, it's average . It's not the most expensive, it's not the least expensive but it works well."
"The pricing for the product is fine."
"The price of Barracuda Email Security Gateway is approximately $17 per user annually."
"We find the solution's pricing okay."
"Our customers feel that the price of Darktrace is quite high compared to other solutions."
"We've budgeted about 50,000 Kuwaiti dinars for the solution. That is a yearly operating cost."
"The cost is moderate."
"The solution is about $6,000 per quarter."
"I'm unfamiliar with the exact cost, but we have a yearly license and had to pay for Darktrace's services before the deployment. The product is very expensive, so some organizations can't afford to pay the total amount directly, meaning they often seek a partner or pay in installments, which increases the price more."
"The pricing is quite high, estimated at around $350,000 per year."
"The product is expensive."
"In the ballpark, we're talking about $30K, $50K, and up. It can even be as much as $50K or $100K."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Secure Email Gateway (SEG) solutions are best for your needs.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
29%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Barracuda Email Security Gateway?
Barracuda Email Security Gateway is very simple to use.
What needs improvement with Barracuda Email Security Gateway?
Barracuda Email Security Gateway should include ATP in the next release.
How does Crowdstrike Falcon compare with Darktrace?
Both of these products perform similarly and have many outstanding attributes. CrowdStrike Falcon offers an amazing user interface that makes setup easy and seamless. CrowdStrike Falcon offers a cl...
Which is better - SentinelOne or Darktrace?
Which solution is better depends on which is more suitable specifically for your company. Darktrace, for example, is meant for smaller to medium-sized businesses. It is also a good option for organ...
What do you like most about Darktrace?
A very useful feature in Darktrace for real-time threat analysis is the packet inspection that analyzes the packet traffic in real time.
 

Also Known As

Barracuda Spam and Virus Firewall, Barracuda Sentinel
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Evolution Recruitment Solutions, Evans Delivery Company, Osoyoos Credit Union, Synovis Life Technologies, Camden County Technical Schools, DEK, Evans Delivery Company, Colgate Rochester Crozer, Hemmera, South Carolina Heart Center, Ferma Corporation, Major League Baseball (MLB), Healy Brothers Automotive Group
Irwin Mitchell, Open Energi, Wellcome Trust, FirstGroup plc, Virgin Trains, Drax, QUI! Group, DNK, CreaCard, Macrosynergy, Sisley, William Hill plc, Toyota Canada, Royal British Legion, Vitol, Allianz, KKR, AIRBUS, dpd, Billabong, Mclaren Group.
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Security Gateway vs. Darktrace and other solutions. Updated: January 2024.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.