Item: Barracuda Essentials
Rating: 7
Author: Bill Artemik

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are using all the features of BE. Email SPAM filtering, email encryption and email archiving. We also support these features for our clients as part of our network security services package.

Pros and Cons

SPAM filtering is good.
Sandboxing all links is very good
Encryption is good

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.

Return on Investment

Minor. This is NOT a highly profitable product but it's a good product.

Alternatives Considered

Proofpoint Email Encryption, Proofpoint Email Protection and Zix

Barracuda handles encryption better than Proofpoint. There are pre-defined rules for encryption that ProofPoint does not have (you have to define encryption rules for each client and from the ground up very tedious and time consuming). SPAM filtering is about the same. Sandboxing and internet threats are handled better by Barracuda (IMHO). Zix is the industry standard but they're three times more expensive. They do offer advanced features like allowing encrypted email to be displayed in Outlook of recipients that ALSO use the Zix service (an ENORMOUS convenience for banking and medical clients). Zix also has a "Do Not Encrypt" option in the subject line that lets users send potentially encrypted email unencrypted (avoiding false positives). This, too, is a huge plus.

Proofpoint does have a nice option of notifying the sender if an email was encrypted when sent. EVERY test user loved this feature.

Key Insights

Do you think Barracuda Essentials delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Barracuda Essentials's feature set?

Yes

Did Barracuda Essentials live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Barracuda Essentials go as expected?

Would you buy Barracuda Essentials again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Proofpoint Advanced Threat Protection, Sophos Secure Email Gateways, Zix

Likelihood to Recommend

We recommend it to all of our clients. It's simple to use, requires little day-to-day management and you can configure the quarantine reports to be multiple times a day (so users aren't wondering where a delayed email is).

Encryption is getting to be a daily necessity for many businesses but that doesn't mean ALL email must be encrypted. This feature needs some work (as noted already).

A good product that needs real useful tweaks to be a great product.

Overall Satisfaction with Barracuda Essentials