Barracuda Essentials vs. AppRiver from OpenText

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Barracuda Essentials
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
Barracuda Essentials is an email security platform designed to protect users and businesses from volumetric threats like malware and spam, as well advanced threats like targeted spear phishing and ransomware, and provides email archiving and data protection from corruption and deletion with cloud backup and recovery of emails and files, data leak prevention and encryption.N/A
AppRiver from OpenText
Score 7.6 out of 10
N/A
AppRiver from OpenText (formerly from Zix from 2019, which was acquired by OpenText), is a hosted messaging gateway and security platform featuring anti-spam and email encryption / data loss capability.N/A
Pricing
Barracuda EssentialsAppRiver from OpenText
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Barracuda EssentialsAppRiver from OpenText
Free Trial
YesNo
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 EssentialsAppRiver from OpenText
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Barracuda EssentialsAppRiver from OpenText
Secure Email Gateway
Comparison of Secure Email Gateway features of Product A and Product B
Barracuda Essentials
6.6
16 Ratings
24% below category average
AppRiver from OpenText
8.6
7 Ratings
2% above category average
Anti-malware10.016 Ratings9.86 Ratings
Customizability5.015 Ratings8.86 Ratings
Data Loss Protection2.113 Ratings7.24 Ratings
Threat Detection9.016 Ratings9.87 Ratings
Sandboxing3.012 Ratings6.95 Ratings
End-to-End Encryption8.013 Ratings9.07 Ratings
Management Tools9.016 Ratings8.77 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Barracuda EssentialsAppRiver from OpenText
Small Businesses
Webroot Email Security Powered by Zix
Webroot Email Security Powered by Zix
Score 8.9 out of 10
Barracuda Essentials
Barracuda Essentials
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Webroot Email Security Powered by Zix
Webroot Email Security Powered by Zix
Score 8.9 out of 10
Barracuda Essentials
Barracuda Essentials
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
Cisco Cloud Email Security
Cisco Cloud Email Security
Score 7.8 out of 10
Cisco Cloud Email Security
Cisco Cloud Email Security
Score 7.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Barracuda EssentialsAppRiver from OpenText
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(16 ratings)
9.0
(31 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.9
(8 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.2
(9 ratings)
8.4
(25 ratings)
User Testimonials
Barracuda EssentialsAppRiver from OpenText
Likelihood to Recommend
Barracuda Networks, Inc.
The Barracuda Essentials solution is definitely a great alternative to network security and especially corporate email to prevent employees from clicking on malicious links, spam, phishing, trojans and ransonware. The solution today is implemented in almost all sectors of the company and we have control of everything and good protection guaranteeing principles of compliance and security.
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OpenText
AppRiver is great for both small and large organizations. Small businesses are unlikely to have much if any technical support staff available to them, for which AppRiver would be a great help. Likewise for large companies, having AppRiver can save your tech support team from dealing with basic, common, and repetitive application support, and allowing them to better focus on more important tasks at hand.
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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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OpenText
  • Very useful daily quarantine list emailed to users.
  • Suspicious emails can be viewed online in their sandbox to check validity before releasing from quarantine.
  • Multiple ways to filter emails (domain, email address, text, etc)
  • Link protection is one of the newest options available and we absolutely love it!!
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Cons
Barracuda Networks, Inc.
  • Encryption is always on. There's NO way to turn it off so false encryption leads to real issues. Many banks and other companies cannot read/accept encrypted email. There should be a "Do Not Encrypt" type of keyword to prevent encryption (competing products have this).
  • There's no indication an email was encrypted (like with Proofpoint or ZIX mail).
  • MSP management interface needs work. You have to request licenses by email and wait. Pretty archaic today. Most competing product sites let MSP's increase/decrease licensing as needed, immediately.
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OpenText
  • They do not support DMARC and DKIM at this time and I don't know when or if they ever will.
  • Their SPF record is not great and can possibly cause issues, at least that is what my support company has told me.
  • Scanning of links in emails seems super limited and or non-existent. THings get through with completely bad malicious all the time and I assume they are not scanning them or they don't have a proper AV on their end.
  • Once a domain is whitelisted any bad emails that may be spoofing that email domain are let through and no other filters apply to the emails. It's frustrating to have to white list 20+ individual email addresses from a company and not be able to white list just the domain and not feel secure doing that.
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Likelihood to Renew
Barracuda Networks, Inc.
Its the best email security gateway product I have used.
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OpenText
No answers on this topic
Usability
Barracuda Networks, Inc.
Barracuda Essentials is simple to use. It has a user dashboard that is simple to navigate even for those who have few computer skills. One can barely realize that the program is even running in the background heading off those emails that can cause damage to my computer or our overall system.
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OpenText
AppRiver is very easy to use. A new employee can begin using it on their first day.
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Support Rating
Barracuda Networks, Inc.
This is the best tool in the industry. It provides the best support on top of the product. If one has any trouble configuring things or troubleshooting things, Barracuda's support is renowned for resolving bugs and issues as well as assisting troubleshooting and fixing issues. I would highly recommend it as it covers all email security bases.
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OpenText
AppRiver's live support is above what I expected, and I use it exclusively. I always get a professional, courteous, and knowledgeable tech that is easy to understand within a few minutes of placing a call. If you do have to leave a message they have always promptly returned my call.
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Alternatives Considered
Barracuda Networks, Inc.
Barracuda Essentials has a far easier admin pannel than is provided by mimecast along with far more filtering options such as dkim. Much easier to do the initial setup along with much better support provided. Barracuda Essentials has Advanced threat protection that uses AI to spot patterns and gives you the option to remove a suspect email from all inboxs
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OpenText
AppRiver requires the least amount of management time, the pricing is better and the minimums are such that almost all SMB's won't be buying shelfware. If you are an MSP, become a partner and you will see spam problems become a thing of the past.
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Return on Investment
Barracuda Networks, Inc.
  • Barracuda Essentials has had a very positive impact especially since the Pandemic with many remote workers. Our IT objective is 99.9% uptime with many redundancy fail safes in place. Barracuda Essentials helps meet that objective by protecting the vast amount of email we receive daily.
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OpenText
  • Efficiency, teams adapt quickly to changes or new business needs.
  • Support gives us alternatives on how to establish new timings for new business lines on email.
  • An increase in profit owing to a reduction in the amount of assistance our in-house IT staff is required to provide.
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