Likelihood to Recommend I would say a small business with a basic firewall and security needs would be a perfect fit for the Barracuda CloudGen firewall. I know that they soon end up leaving the NG models and are moving forward with the F series firewall. I think the F series is a much more difficult to manage device and doesn’t offer simplistic configuration or use and lacks cloud control so I don’t understand the move on Barracuda’s part to nix a great easy to manage the firewall. I do think that the NG line is maybe too simple for bigger businesses and would lack some main features that they would require.
Read full review Malwarebytes is definitely one of the top contenders in its field. As with any corporate software, there are headaches all along the way -- from implementation to daily use and support. And cost is also a factor. Although not inexpensive, Malwarebytes is comparable to its close competitors. Overall, the quality of the product shines through, and it does what it's intended to do...protect!
Read full review Pros The management software is excellent. It make it much easier to manage the firewalls than some of the other vendors. Watching real-time traffic is easy to do when trying to troubleshoot a users issues getting to a particular service. Support from Barracuda has been excellent. We rate their phone and online remote support as being the best in the business. We like the QoS and Traffic shaping of the NG Firewalls. They help is manage our limited bandwidth, so that business critical resources are available over lesser critical resources. Integration with Active Directory makes it easy to identify users activities in logs. Read full review Low system resources, it does not slow down the whole computer when scanning or when real-time protection is enabled Quick and frequent updates, usually people hate updating, but for malware/viruses, you want to be updated as possible. It takes less than 15 seconds and usually does it automatically. They usually send a few updates a day as they find more. Protection features actually work when visiting known bad websites. The page will be blocked and nothing will be downloaded. It may not be what the user wants, but it's what the user needs (as the user can't know every bad website) Read full review Cons Very complex and steep learning curve to get up to speed. Multiple ways to configure for the same service or feature. Takes time to determine "your" customized build. Interface can sometimes be clunky when trying to determine how it's organized or arranged. Again, steep learning curve. Read full review One of the main things that malwarebytes is missing as a company, is phone support for its clients. All support questions has to go thru email only. This is not acceptable for issues that needs to be resolved quickly. There is an issue when installing the client on a machine, it has a set amount of time where the software can register with the management server. The issue with this is, with machines that are over a wide area network, slow connection speeds can cause the software not to register. When that happens, it never re attempts to register in the future. Read full review Likelihood to Renew The last time we renewed Malwarebytes, we renewed for a 3 year renewal. That should describe the confidence we have in the product. Plus the cost savings impact year after year.
Read full review Usability Easy enough to use and configure using the management UI. Reporting from the web filter is a little clunky, and not very user friendly. To be perfectly honest, once it's set up and running, there isn't a lot to do from the day-to-day side of things, which is not a bad thing.
Read full review When you have a product that does the job that it describes or advertises, you have to love it. While the malware posture is always changing, we depend on products that we pay for year after year to protect us from threats, both known and unknown. I give this rating because Malwarebytes just works and you don't have to worry whether it is going to beat up other programs on your systems.
Read full review Support Rating I could go on and on about how good Barracuda's support really is. I have yet to have a problem they didn't help me fix and I always learn something when talking with them. The story that best describes my overall experience with Barracuda's support is this: When I first put in the xSeries they had a problem with a policy route. There was a bug in the code and in the one situation I was it, it just would not work. I went up the levels of support and they couldn't fix it. Well, next thing I know I am on the phone with 2 of the guys that programmed the thing and they work out the solution in no time and get me going. That is support. That is what I have come to expect from Barracuda. If the tech on the phone doesn't know the answer, they do not stop until they find it. Grant it, I also have to admit I do not call support with every problem, I try to work it out on my own first as that is how I learn best, so when I do call support it is going to be complicated.
Read full review I honestly haven't needed support for Malwarebytes because I haven't had any problems with it, whatsoever. I am giving it a 9 rating because I haven't actually had an encounter or experience with customer service or support, so it's hard to rate the actual support team since I've never had the privilege of coming into contact with them.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Our Cisco firewall was always difficult to make any changes against. It had no user-friendly GUI interface. We were calling technical support most of the time whenever we needed to make any changes. The Barracuda CloudGen Firewall has a GUI interface which we are looking forward to getting better acquainted with as we move off of our old Cisco. Of course, Barracuda's technical support is always there and is top notch!
Read full review Avast and Norton's products were part of the testing for us but the cost was very high for them and the products were not light on the machine. They took up a lot of memory and slowed the computers down. Malwarebytes although may lack some feature, is a very light software.
Read full review Return on Investment We saved multiple thousands of dollars the first year out with the firewall in maintenance fees. We paid for the firewall and 3 years of service and still saved money. The ease of management allows me to do my job more efficiently. I save a lot of time when doing my day to day job because I can get to my firewall virtually anywhere. I feel a lot safer and my business more secure knowing that I have configured things the way they need to be and it was simple and not overly complicated. Read full review All of our donor and clients' information is now online and we can now show that we are really trying to keep their information safe. We are now more comfortable entering donations through our website. Donors are now comfortable entering their charge card information on our website. Read full review ScreenShots Barracuda CloudGen Firewall Screenshots