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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
55
Ranking in other categories
DMARC Authentication Software (2nd), 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 (29th)
 

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 9.2%, up 6.4% compared to last year.
Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway, on the other hand, focuses on Email Security, holds 1.1% mindshare, up 0.8% since last year.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Barracuda Email Security Gateway9.2%
Proofpoint Email Protection19.5%
Microsoft Defender for Office 36517.0%
Other54.3%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway1.1%
Proofpoint Email Protection7.2%
Microsoft Defender for Office 3656.9%
Other84.8%
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

"If you have raw spam, this solution is going to catch it."
"By choosing Barracuda as our solution for filtering, year by year we have seen a big improvement in our environment with a significant reduction in the number of threats."
"The most valuable feature of the Barracuda Email Security Gateway is the ATP."
"It catches a lot of things and has the ability to add domains as well as add senders and update their things."
"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."
"The solution is largely stable, it can scale, and overall it has been working fine without issue, while the message tracking and messaging logs have proven to be quite useful."
"The security protection is the best and it's GUI is user-friendly."
"Barracuda is robust and I would say it is pretty stable."
"A stable solution."
"Go for it! I think it's an excellent product with great technical support."
"We use a few features for web proxy, and another feature is the email content filter and malware for our internal policy in the email content."
"Ability to create your own content-filtering policies with relative ease."
 

Cons

"Spam is not always detected, and it should be more automated. We have seen that some emails are allowed by these emails, which are then stopped by Microsoft."
"The DMARC security is somewhat weak and could be strengthened."
"We still have critical threats coming into our environment and delivered to our users. When we compare it with other solutions, these other solutions can already detect those threats."
"The solution should include an improvised anti-phishing feature, since it blocks certain genuine emails."
"I would like to have better integration with third-party archival vendors to facilitate moving data in and out."
"Few customers require an on-premises fabric ATP box for attack detection and response."
"The pricing is a little bit high, and it is causing the company to rethink renewal. If they could lower the pricing, that would be ideal."
"Solution requires regular checking to ensure it's 'keeping up' with spam."
"I am not satisfied with Clearswift because of the lack of customer support."
"FTP server and TRUST Manager functionality."
"FTP server and TRUST Manager functionality."
"Malware needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution should be reduced. The price in the USA is less than where we are. Our local distributor of the solution is manipulating the market."
"Barracuda Email Security Gateway is a cost-effective solution."
"The price of this solution is very high, but it's working fine."
"We paid for an annual license."
"Barracuda Email Security Gateway is an affordable solution that caters to small, midsize, and high-end businesses with great revenue."
"We find the solution's pricing okay."
"It is an expensive solution and I would rate it 5 out of 10."
"The licensing cost is competitive, it's not too high and not too low."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Construction Company
9%
Retailer
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business35
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise13
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda Sentinel?
Compared to the features and stability, Barracuda Email Security Gateway is affordable in terms of pricing, setup cost, and licensing.
What needs improvement with Barracuda Sentinel?
On technical aspects, I think Barracuda needs to provide a fast response to any vulnerability on the system and enhance Barracuda support. Customer support for Barracuda Email Security Gateway need...
What is your primary use case for Barracuda Sentinel?
My main use case for Barracuda Email Security Gateway is to protect our email and our email users, protecting our business from most of the sophisticated attacks like phishing attacks and spam. We ...
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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, Mimecast and others in Secure Email Gateway (SEG). Updated: May 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.