Barracuda CloudGen Firewall vs. RMail

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.

Incentivized

RMail is great for sending emails with information that is sensitive but that the recipient is not going to put a lot of work into retrieving. I do psychological evaluations for criminal courts and I use it to send reports to courts and attorneys. I need to use something compatible with HIPAA privacy rules, which courts and attorneys are typically not as concerned about. If they had to use a password or go to an outside web address to retrieve the email, they wouldn't do it. It's also common for an attorney to say they didn't get an email, but I always know if they did or not, and I have clear documentation of it, which is important in legal cases.

• 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.

Incentivized

• Read receipts tell you the time a message was actually opened
• The electronic signature feature is nice, and usually not included with these types of services
• Many times, a recipient doesn't need a password to open their email. RMail leverages TLS technology in most cases
• Recipients do have the option of creating an account, but generally they don't need to
• Outlook integration is very easy to set up
• Gmail integration within Chrome is pretty amazing

• 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.

• Program plug-in crashes on occasion.
• Issues can arise if your computer's clock is not synced to RMail's time servers.
• Setup was initially tedious (but has gotten much better since 2019).

Incentivized

I don't think RPost has any competition, at least none that I can use. I think that once registered email becomes widely accepted (someday soon?), it will be indispensable for anyone in business, and RPost is the leading vendor (maybe the only vendor).

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.

It is as simple as downloading a plug-in or installing a chrome extension, then you click a button to use it. The interface is straightforward.

Works well routinely without problems.

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.

Incentivized

Support is easy to access via email or phone. They also reach out to you periodically with new features, but they aren't intrusive about it. I usually appreciate it when I get an email from RMail, which is not very often.

Works great.

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!

RMail is really useful when wanting to send important encrypted information, and have control of what happens on the other end. It also comes with a complete set of features that help in any other way you can imagine. I've been through other products, and nothing compares to it.

• 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.

Incentivized

• There's not much ROI, because we don't get it much cheaper than the list price.
• However, being able to offer this service strengthens our service offerings.