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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) (6th)
Fortra's Clearswift Secure ...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
0
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (30th)
 

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 9.6%, up 6.2% compared to last year.
Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway, on the other hand, focuses on Email Security, holds 1.2% mindshare, up 0.8% since last year.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Barracuda Email Security Gateway9.6%
Proofpoint Email Protection18.3%
Microsoft Defender for Office 36514.8%
Other57.3%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway1.2%
Proofpoint Email Protection6.3%
Microsoft Defender for Office 3655.7%
Other86.8%
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

"The most valuable feature of Barracuda Email Security Gateway is the complete capabilities it provides. Additionally, the phishing security and sandbox features are effective."
"Barracuda Email Security Gateway has features like identify the spam source, rules to avoid some specific spams and then reschedule. And there are some other features like the email continuity, the email server and gateway site, which can relay the mail kit. The solution is user-friendly.These kind of features are the most valuable."
"The interface of the Barracuda Email Security Gateway is pretty user-friendly, and you can easily navigate through it."
"The performance is good."
"Barracuda has one of the best email security solutions for SMB and big enterprises."
"The most valuable feature of the Barracuda Email Security Gateway is the cloud ATP functionality not available on the on-premise version. Most of the zero-day attacks can be mitigated with ATP. Additionally, the reporting functionality is good."
"The most valuable feature of the Barracuda Email Security Gateway is the ATP."
"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."
"Go for it! I think it's an excellent product with great technical support."
"A stable solution."
"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

"We detect some failures in some mails; not all mails pass through consistently. Some mails pass while others are dropped without any apparent logic, despite having the policy set for specific recipients or senders."
"Barracuda should have a sandbox feature in the appliances."
"We are using the tool’s 400 model which does not offer accurate spam detection. We have also had performance issues with the tool."
"The deep scanning feature needs to be improved."
"Barracuda's spam database isn't on par with its competitors. Users complain about the spam email they're receiving, and we report the issue. Barracuda said they are going to update their system to block the malicious email we received, but we're still getting the same spam. The signatures are not in their database. They need to update their spam signatures because spam is bypassing Barracuda."
"The service best suited for small to medium-sized enterprises, not large enterprise companies."
"Barracuda Email Security Gateway can improve email detection. We have some emails that are bypassing the threat scanning and there are some impersonation emails passing through."
"There is room for further integration with the wider platform."
"FTP server and TRUST Manager functionality."
"Malware needs improvement."
"I am not satisfied with Clearswift because of the lack of customer support."
 

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."
"Barracuda Email Security Gateway is an affordable solution that caters to small, midsize, and high-end businesses with great revenue."
"The solution requires a license and we pay annually."
"The regular pricing was initially very reasonable, but three years ago, Barracuda revised their price list and SKUs, resulting in a significant doubling of the standard prices."
"I rate the price of Barracuda Email Security Gateway a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"There is an annual license required for this solution."
"We pay between $8 and $10 USD per user per month."
"The price of this solution is very high, but it's working fine."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Retailer
9%
Educational Organization
8%
 

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 Proofpoint, Microsoft, Mimecast and others in Secure Email Gateway (SEG). Updated: July 2026.
908,877 professionals have used our research since 2012.