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Barracuda Email Security Gateway vs Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
7.0
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
DMARC Authentication Software (4th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (7th)
Fortra's Clearswift Secure ...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
0
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (39th)
 

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 7.3%, up 7.1% compared to last year.
Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway, on the other hand, focuses on Email Security, holds 1.0% mindshare, up 0.7% since last year.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Barracuda Email Security Gateway7.3%
Microsoft Defender for Office 36524.2%
Proofpoint Email Protection20.3%
Other48.2%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway1.0%
Microsoft Defender for Office 3659.6%
Proofpoint Email Protection7.9%
Other81.5%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

MM
Graduate Student at ain shams
Secures email by identifying threats and managing email policies effectively
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. Our investigation in any incident or mail is very useful as it provides all details about incoming mails, enabling thorough review and detection. The real-time threat intelligence feature is particularly useful as it detects all kinds of threats identified by incoming mails. The Impersonation license utilizes AI tools. Sometimes some phishing mails are reported as phishing, but they are not actually phishing mails. They are detected due to certain words and languages that appear suspicious but were generated by AI tools. Everyone or an advisor may use it for their own purpose or learning, even though it indicates that the mail detected is phishing when it's not.
PC
Systems Administrator at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Stable, but malware needs improvement and customer support is poor
They need to improve the malware in the product. I am not satisfied with Clearswift because of the lack of customer support. The support is poor, the supplier takes a lot of time and it's expensive. We have some issues here when I contact the supplier, it takes a lot of time for them to get back to us but there's no solution. I am now looking at Symantec as a possible alternative.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It catches a lot of things and has the ability to add domains as well as add senders and update their things."
"Before this solution, we didn't have any separate feature for protecting our emails. We used to only have a firewall but now we have email security. It has a graphical interface and we can see the log every time. We can see that the performance is fine."
"One advantage is its immediate deployment capability. So the fast speed to deploy is a big plus point."
"There are plenty of features, such as sandboxing capabilities with zero threat protection. It has all the leading email security appliances compared to other solutions."
"Thanks to Barracuda Email Security Gateway, I have seen increases in productivity and functionality in terms of spam reduction and filtering against different threats, which is a benefit by default."
"With the cloud service, one of the nice things about Barracuda is the quarantine service. It gives the ability for our users to go in and check what has been quarantined, and then connect with our IT staff to release anything that should be fine so that we can test it before we release."
"The performance is good."
"I like Barracuda's cloud sandbox feature."
"Ability to create your own content-filtering policies with relative ease."
"A stable solution."
 

Cons

"I would like to have better integration with third-party archival vendors to facilitate moving data in and out."
"Barracuda could improve its log and export options like PDF and HDML. It can also bring in more detailing in their console so that it could be better. Some new features should be expanded and made accessible for better protection."
"There is room for improvement in the speed of the interface, specifically the cloud interface, is a bit slow."
"The scalability needs improvement, it's the only feature that is required."
"Barracuda Email Security Gateway should add auto-remediation to improve the solution. Additionally, there are times when we have false positives and our general emails get locked, we have mentioned this to Barracuda."
"We are using the tool’s 400 model which does not offer accurate spam detection. We have also had performance issues with the tool."
"I have noticed that it takes a little time to get familiar with after deploying and some tweaks need to be done as things come up."
"Barracuda Email Security Gateway should include ATP in the next release."
"FTP server and TRUST Manager functionality."
"Malware needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a cost-effective and relatively cheap solution as compared to others. Our customers have a yearly subscription. We do have a few customers with monthly subscriptions, but they have cloud-based Email protection, which is a different type of solution. Both solutions are very good."
"There is an annual license required for this solution."
"The solution requires a license and we pay annually."
"The licensing cost is competitive, it's not too high and not too low."
"The price of Barracuda Email Security Gateway is approximately $17 per user annually."
"The solution is priced low. We have received a good price discount here in Sri Lanka. There are additional licenses we have to purchase a license for the ATP."
"It is an expensive solution and I would rate it 5 out of 10."
"We pay between $8 and $10 USD per user per month."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
5%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Educational Organization
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise13
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda Sentinel?
I would suggest that pricing for Barracuda Email Security Gateway rates around seven. It is not too expensive, but it is a considerable cost. Compared with others, Barracuda Email Security Gateway ...
What needs improvement with Barracuda Sentinel?
Regarding real-time intelligent features of the Barracuda Email Security Gateway, some spam emails are still being released by the ESG to the end users, so the functionality is not working appropri...
What is your primary use case for Barracuda Sentinel?
My use case for the Barracuda Email Security Gateway is to protect our emails from phishing and spam emails to get them blocked by the ESG.
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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
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Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Proofpoint, Abnormal AI and others in Secure Email Gateway (SEG). Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.