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Barracuda Email Security Gateway vs Symantec Messaging Gateway comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

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...
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
DMARC Authentication Software (2nd)
Symantec Messaging Gateway
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Barracuda Email Security Gateway is 8.7%, up from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Messaging Gateway is 2.3%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Barracuda Email Security Gateway8.7%
Symantec Messaging Gateway2.3%
Other89.0%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

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.
Girish Vijay - PeerSpot reviewer
Deputy Manager IT at Carl Bechem Lubricants India Pvt. Ltd.
A stable and reasonably priced solution that performs well and has a very good malware database
Since Symantec merged with Broadcom, they might have lost some good technical engineers. Maybe that’s the reason why the product is performing poorly. When we have a good marketing and sales team, even though our product cannot perform, we will sell it at a high price because of the buzzwords. However, at the end of the day, the product should perform. Most of the products might not perform. Symantec is a very good product, but the services are basic. I rate the technical features of the product a nine out of ten. However, I would rate the services provided by the solution a six out of ten. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is lightweight, and we can filter all of our inbound and outbound emails. We have controls for rate control, quarantine, and tagging. We can see whether an email is a spam email or a phishing email."
"Barracuda Email Security Gateway has a good feature of email spooling, which acts as a first line of security."
"The protection from Barracuda Email Security Gateway is essentially a sandboxing solution."
"It is a really good product with a lot of features. It is responsive, updated, and modern. It is easy to use and has an easy interface for non-IT users. Its dashboard is also quite fine. It is also quite flexible and has an API at the backend."
"It is a very stable solution."
"This product is powerful and quite simple to use."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the Antispam services, which are the basic services of spam device"
"Messaging Gateway is stable."
"The cloud-based interface is very user-friendly."
"What I like most about Symantec Messaging Gateway is its usability. I also find its interface very friendly. The solution has a very good interface."
"The feature that I like the best is the fingerprinting concept."
"I like that it's simple and easy to configure, deploy, and manage. The reporting function has all the features we're looking for, and we are fine with that."
"The most valuable features of Symantec Messaging Gateway are advanced content filtering, malware, and antivirus defense."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway has a huge knowledge base about phishing, spamming, spoofing, etc."
"Symantec is a secure product."
 

Cons

"I am not aware of the licensing costs."
"Barracuda Email Security Gateway can improve email detection. We have some emails that are bypassing the threat scanning. There are some impersonation emails passing through."
"The scalability needs improvement, it's the only feature that is required."
"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."
"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."
"The dashboard's UI could be improved to make changes to the blocklist."
"Two improvements that are needed include an enhancement in the proxy feature, as well as the ability to more fully automate patches and updates."
"The deep scanning feature needs to be improved."
"What needs to be improved in Symantec Messaging Gateway is its local partner support, as it's not as technical. The support my company gets from the partner isn't good. Vendor support is good, but local partner support isn't. I'm happy with Symantec Messaging Gateway as a solution, but the problem is with its partner support. To me, Symantec Messaging Gateway is a complete solution, but it can be very difficult to search the web for resolutions to issues or problems you experience from it. If this could be improved or resolved in the next release of Symantec Messaging Gateway, then that would be good."
"The product must improve the user dashboards."
"Messaging Gateway's advanced malware detection could be improved."
"The documentation could have more detailed examples of how to use the product in various situations. As more companies shift to the cloud, they could better integrate the on-prem and cloud versions through an on-prem client."
"The biggest problem is it's an on-prem product and we're trying to get out of having equipment in data centers."
"It could be more scalable."
"They really need to create a good package that competes with Microsoft."
"This product would benefit from better integration with Symantec Endpoint Protection."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared to other products, this solution is quite affordable."
"This is one of the major points for integrating this solution in any organization. Barracuda Email Security Gateway needs to make it a bit more tolerable for customers because it is increasing every year. They should create a plan for reducing the cost."
"The price of this solution is very high, but it's working fine."
"We typically purchase a one or three-year license for Barracuda Email Security Gateway."
"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."
"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."
"Our licensing fees are approximately $4,000 per year, and this includes updates for the antivirus and spam signatures."
"We pay between $8 and $10 USD per user per month."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"It's a bit expensive compared to its competitor Barracuda Email Security Gateway but cheaper than Sophos Email."
"The cost of Symantec Messaging Gateway is too expensive in general. However, the appliance also includes the price of the license in the same bundle."
"They're a little costly compared to Microsoft."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Outsourcing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
 

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
Symantec.cloud, Symantec Email Security.cloud
 

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
Doric, Joblink Plus, Our Lady of Mercy College, Parramatta, PPB Advisory, Slater & Gordon Lawyers, Sydney Adventist Hospital Ltd.
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Security Gateway vs. Symantec Messaging Gateway and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.