Barracuda Email Protection vs. Microsoft Defender XDR

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Barracuda Email Protection
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Barracuda Email Protection is an email security solution that uses machine learning to provide protection against threats. It combines email gateway defenses and API-based inbox defense to prevent attacks, respond to threats in real time, and secure Microsoft 365 data.N/A
Microsoft Defender XDR
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft 365 Defender combines SIEM and XDR capabilities for Microsoft 365 environments, encompassing threat detection, post-breach detection, automated investigation, and response for endpoints. Additionally, it protects cloud apps, emails and documents, and employee identities.N/A
Pricing
Barracuda Email ProtectionMicrosoft Defender XDR
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Barracuda Email ProtectionMicrosoft Defender XDR
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Barracuda Email ProtectionMicrosoft Defender XDR
Features
Barracuda Email ProtectionMicrosoft Defender XDR
Secure Email Gateway
Comparison of Secure Email Gateway features of Product A and Product B
Barracuda Email Protection
8.5
19 Ratings
2% above category average
Microsoft Defender XDR
-
Ratings
Anti-malware9.019 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizability7.218 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Loss Protection7.915 Ratings00 Ratings
Threat Detection8.719 Ratings00 Ratings
Sandboxing9.014 Ratings00 Ratings
End-to-End Encryption10.014 Ratings00 Ratings
Management Tools7.819 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Barracuda Email ProtectionMicrosoft Defender XDR
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Score 8.9 out of 10
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CrowdStrike Falcon
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Score 9.8 out of 10
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User Ratings
Barracuda Email ProtectionMicrosoft Defender XDR
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(59 ratings)
8.7
(83 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.3
(3 ratings)
7.7
(4 ratings)
Usability
8.7
(12 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
7.4
(12 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.1
(1 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Barracuda Email ProtectionMicrosoft Defender XDR
Likelihood to Recommend
Barracuda Networks, Inc.
I would definitely recommend it due to the decent pricing. I wish the MS built-in M365 tools were better, but Barracuda does a good job of taking their place. For industries that need DLP on their email, like healthcare, banking, and education, Barracuda provides a reliable product for a good cost. The additional services you get, malware/AV filtering, URL filtering, spam protection, business continuity, those are all icing on the cake. The only issues we've ever really had with them is that it will sometimes take a back/forth string of emails and decide randomly to encrypt it, so what was a flowing benign conversation is now locked behind a wall for recipients. As the sender, you have no idea when it's going to decide to do this and have to remember to tag emails with a decrypt tag long before it happens or face the consequences
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Microsoft
Microsoft Defender XDR is well suited for organizations already invested in the Microsoft Ecosystem - including Microsoft 365, Azure Ad and INTune. For example, in scenarios where you need to correlament the fishing attacks with the closing point behavior and identity agreement, Microsoft Defender XDR does a big task of sewing the timeline of a full attack simultaneously and even automatically removing.
This hybrid function is also ideal for the environment, where safety visibility in distance tools, cloud apps and email is important. Microsoft Defender XDR provides centralized insight and response in all these domains without the requirement of many devices.
However, it is less suitable in the atmosphere with diverse or non-microsoft infrastructure, such as an organization running a mixture of Linux server, Google work area or third-party EDR tools. Cross-platform support is still developing, and integration of the microsoft ecosystem often requires additional configurations or third-party connectors. For companies of that situation, Microsoft Defender XDR cannot give its full value from the XDR box.
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Pros
Barracuda Networks, Inc.
  • Barracuda Essentials Spam Filtering works and it is very easy to add or remove senders from the Spam filter lists.
  • Barracuda Essentials provides excellent protection from Phishing and other Malware.
  • Barracuda Essentials email encryption is so easy to use and easy to setup. Our users love it.
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Microsoft
  • The software uses advanced AI and machine learning algorithms to monitor activities and detect any anomalies immediately, protecting our financial data.
  • Automated responses to known threats reduce the impact of possible incidents and improve our security posture.
  • Microsoft 365 Defender easily combines with other Microsoft 365 services and external security solutions, providing a complete and unified security solution.
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Cons
Barracuda Networks, Inc.
  • The product is pretty solid so I am not sure how it can be improved. One thing I noticed recently, I am not getting the emails back from Sentinel when I send in a "miss". Used to be I got an email back saying "sorry we missed this, we are improving." That does happen anymore, so I am assuming that when I send a miss, the AI is getting better.
  • I would expand this to cover all kinds of email fraud like ransomware and spam rather than creating another product.
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Microsoft
  • Enhanced False Positive Mitigation:
  • Improved algorithms to minimize false positives in threat detection, reducing the impact on security teams and preventing unnecessary investigations into non-threatening incidents.
  • Advanced User-Friendly Interface:
  • Streamlined and intuitive user interface for the centralized dashboard, making it more accessible for security professionals with varying levels of expertise.
  • Greater Third-Party Integration:
  • Increased compatibility and integration capabilities with a broader range of third-party security tools
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Likelihood to Renew
Barracuda Networks, Inc.
Although cost competitive, we still feel like we are not digging deep enough to train our staff. We have little to no way other than digging through reports that have not proven to be adequately documented (hey you, Barracuda campaign reports) to identify and require users to take more training who have not passed their requirements.
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Microsoft
We are pleased with the product and have no plans to look for alternatives. We are deeply invested in Microsoft ecosystem and Defender XDR provides seamless integration to other Microsoft products. For academic institution pricing is also quite affordable. In the contrary, we hope to extend the scope of the product for our entire environment.
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Usability
Barracuda Networks, Inc.
Regarding usability, we like it to be an easy solution to implement and configure on the server. Routine backups are made frequently and reports are issued for control and analysis by information security teams. It has great integration with the cloud and encryption.
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Microsoft
Overall the UI is modern and OK to use. Attack story is quite nice visual of incident. Advanced hunting supports autocomplete so that helps doing KQL-queries efficiently. The product is quite comprehensive and one can get lost in the vast UI. Learning curve is quite high and navigation is complex. As product also continues to evolve the UI might change somewhat.
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Reliability and Availability
Barracuda Networks, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
In our experience there has been very little downtime for Microsot Defender XDR. For us there hasn’t been any single incident where we needed the product and it was not available.
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Performance
Barracuda Networks, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Most of the time the product is as responsive as you might expect from cloud product. Occasionly the product is little slugish, this has been at most a slight irritation. Reports generate quickly ennough for our needs. We also not have found that Defender XDR slows down systems that it is integrated with
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Support Rating
Barracuda Networks, Inc.
I have not had to use customer support yet which goes to show the effectiveness of the program. It also shows how easy the program is to use for the average person with no experience using this type of program. Our IT department also does a great job at teaching us to detect emails with malware that in combination with this software issues rarely arise even though we have over 500 employees.
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Microsoft
Their support throughout our onboarding of the product was fabulous. They not only took the time to carefully explain to teams not as well equipped with the lingo but explained to the tech team how to teach the other teams to be successful. They never once seemed impatient or annoyed with basic questions and didn’t pretend to know something when they needed to research an answer
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In-Person Training
Barracuda Networks, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Good and hard to find someonme who can explain everything for you beside Microsoft they provide you everything you need.
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Online Training
Barracuda Networks, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Microsoft Provides a good training for the Microsoft 365 Defender and has a good learning paths to learn and take the exams and get your Certifications.
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Implementation Rating
Barracuda Networks, Inc.
It was "stupid easy" from the technical side.
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Microsoft
seemless and almost transparent. can be deployed by script if needed so every endpoint on our system get's it. if you have intune it gets dumped on the the endpoint by policy so nothing escapes it
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Alternatives Considered
Barracuda Networks, Inc.
We have used several email solutions over the years, some were bought and killed off by larger companies. Barracuda Email Protection offers a very complete solution and has all the tools that we were looking for, and our MSP offered it.
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Microsoft
Our product in that area, for instance as a security platform and for us it is for the moment really bad point. We started to move in that direction that there is that disconnect from the client management. So if there is some action that needs to be executed detected by security team, there is not an easy way to make that available to the team that is responsible for managing the identities as users, as the devices
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Scalability
Barracuda Networks, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Azure cloud provides techical power to scale the product for whole organization. From organizational point of view scaling Defender XDR for various IT teams needs good collaboration and clear norms that all teams must agree to and follow.
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Return on Investment
Barracuda Networks, Inc.
  • This tool was supplied free with out Email Security, so its come at no cost
  • This tool has helped us meet requirements by our insurance to train users on the risks of phishing
  • However, the dated interface slows down what should be seamless adoption
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Microsoft
  • Security incident cannot be measured, once you down you down, hence the security applications like this is just a must have
  • The subscription model will be cheaper and can be a good point if you want to free resources within the IT Team
  • The SaaS model, if measured correctly can and will reduce long term cost in Infrastructure and Man Power
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ScreenShots

Microsoft Defender XDR Screenshots

Screenshot of AH Advanced ModeScreenshot of AH Guided modeScreenshot of CD exampleScreenshot of CD Supported actions