9 Best Alternatives to Barracuda Email Protection

While emails have become the most important mode of communication for businesses, they're also the weakest link for cybercriminals to target an organization. However, a secure email gateway or software for email protection makes a barrier between a business and the people sending them emails. It protects all your devices from malicious emails by collecting them, testing them for security, and forwarding them to you only when found secure.

Barracuda: Enhanced Email Protection

Barracuda Email Protection is a solution to provide businesses with enhanced email security and detect and block spam, viruses, and malware received through emails. Thanks to Barracuda's integrated security features, such as virus scanning, spam scoring, real-time intent analysis, and more, it scans all your emails to ensure maximum email protection.

Furthermore, the solution uses multiple sets of security layers to protect your organization from threats delivered through email messages. Also, it enables advanced protection against email-borne viruses and malware.

Its multi-infrastructure availability provides comprehensive email protection for most on-prem mail servers, including Microsoft Exchange and the cloud. Moreover, the email protection solution enables end-to-end encryption to secure your emails.

While Barracuda is a great solution for email protection against spam, many businesses may find it a bit pricey compared to other cost-effective counterparts. Also, it requires additional costs for encryption and anti-malware capabilities that other software offer without the need to pay extra.

  • Type: Cloud-based/on-premise
  • Support: Support is available via live chat and phone.
  • Price: Different tiers of pricing plans are available with a free trial.

Features to Consider

Today, email protection has become more than ever before. It is equally important for businesses and individuals. However, due to the availability of various solutions, it becomes challenging to find the right one well-tailored to your business needs. While the choice of the solution depends on your preferences, there are a few features to consider before you go for spam filter/email protection software.

Here is a list of some functional and non-functional features to consider.

Functional Features

Functional features include the following.

  • Security/Encryption: What is the purpose of email protection if it isn't secure? Go through the security features and ensure the solution offers maximum security.
  • Privacy: User privacy is essential. Ensure the solution you're selecting for your company offers user privacy and appropriate security controls.
  • Integration with ongoing infrastructure: Since businesses today rely on different infrastructures, including cloud, hybrid, and on-prem, it is necessary that the solution gets integrated with your ongoing infrastructure.

Non-Functional Features

Non-functional features include the following.

  • Cost: Of course, you don't have to spend more than half of your resources on an email protection solution. Consider different pricing plans of the software and whether or not it has to offer any free version.
  • Support: Identity what kind of support is provided to the customers, such as support via email, phone, live chat, ticketing system, or any other source.
  • Development: Explore whether or not the software is being actively developed. How often do developers contribute to its development?

Best Barracuda Alternatives

Here are the nine best alternatives to Barracuda email security.

1. Xeams

Xeams is an extended email and messaging server available both as on-prem and cloud solutions. Its multi-OS support makes it available for Windows, Linux, Solaris, MacOSX, and other flavors of UNIX. The software can either be used as an email firewall for another server, for instance, MS Exchange, or as a full service requiring no other software.

Its extensive reporting capabilities enable the server to provide several reports accurately reporting usage and load trends on your server. Moreover, the software allows you to enable encryption for emails containing sensitive information.

Thanks to Xeams email message archiving, the software archives every message going through inbound and outbound, enabling administrators and other members to search and retrieve messages whenever they want.

Furthermore, Xeams enables both inbound and outbound filtering eliminating up to 99% of your junk email. However, you may think Xeams is only a spam filter; it's not. Xeams is not only a spam filter but a completely extended email server requiring no other software to process emails. By default, Xeams only allows messages less than 20MB and the number of recipients to 100 for emails per SMTP connection. However, this is done by design to dictionary attacks on your server but is configurable. Also, there is no limit to the emails sent or received.

  • Type: Cloud and on-premise.
  • Support: Support is available via public forums, email, and phone.
  • Price: Pricing starts from $1.6667/per user/month for 1-9 users. Free version available.

2. Mimecast

Mimecast is a cloud-based solution that offers email security for businesses to protect against email attacks, such as business email compromise and payment fraud. The software enables fast and easy integration with other security tools, such as SIEMS, SOARS, etc., to enhance detection capabilities. It inspects almost 1.3B emails daily and blocks email-based attacks.

While Mimecast is a great solution for email security, its pricing details are not transparent, and businesses can get customized quotes based on their preferences to add advanced features and the number of users. However, a 30-day free trial version is available for users to experience its enhanced capabilities.

  • Type: Cloud-based.
  • Support: Support is available via the ticketing system and phone.
  • Price: Pricing is customized on request. Free trial available.

3. SpamTitan

SpamTitan is a cloud-based email security solution that prevents businesses from phishing attacks, spam, malware, and ransomware attacks. The solution is available with a 14-day free trial to let you experience its advanced features. It is easy to manage and deploy and provides anti-virus protection to enable spam blocking and phishing protection.

Furthermore, SpamTitan prevents your IP from being blacklisted by providing outbound scanning. Also, the software enables email content filtering to protect you against spam messages and infected attachments.


4. Cisco Secure Email

Cisco Secure Email is a cloud-based solution that provides advanced protection against email attacks. It uses outbreak filters to detect and quarantine suspected threats until found safe. Also, its anti-virus and malware protection acts as the first layer of defense for your system to defend against viruses and advanced malware threats. Moreover, users can encrypt their outbound emails for better security.

  • Type: Cloud-based.
  • Support: Support is available via phone and community.
  • Price: Not Available. Contact Sales for further information.

5. Mail Assure

Mail Assure is a cloud-based solution providing email protection to businesses to help them secure and scale. It helps safeguard against phishing, spam, malware, ransomware, and other email-borne threats. The software secures both inbound and outbound emails with SPF/DKIM/DMARC support.

Furthermore, Mail Assure enables email continuity and encryption with added email archiving and unlimited storage. Also, the software can integrate with Microsoft 365.

  • Type: Cloud-based
  • Support: Support is provided through forums, live chat, and phone.
  • Price: Free trial is available. Contact sales for further information.

6. GFI MailEssentials

GFI MailEssentials is a cloud-based software that provides anti-spam filters, antivirus engines, and malware scanning to businesses to protect against spam, viruses, and malware attacks. MailEssentials powerful anti-virus protection with added Avira and BitDefender Antivirus engines enables strong email protection with minimal system disruption. It also allows you to add Sophos and Cyren antivirus engines for maximum email protection and security.

Furthermore, it uses various anti-spam technologies, such as SPF to block spoofed emails, Greylisting to block emails from non-compliant requests for comments techniques, and much more.

  • Type: Cloud-based.
  • Support: Support is available via live chat, manual and guides, and support requests.
  • Price: Starts from $28/per mailbox/per year for the small-sized enterprise.

7. Proofpoint

Proofpoint offers advanced email protection for cloud-based as well as on-premise infrastructures. It detects both known and unknown threats and classifies various types of emails as secure and insecure. It instantly blocks any email identified to have a malicious payload, such as an imposter email, also known as a business email compromise. Moreover, the software can automatically tag emails as suspicious if not found safe, and users can report them directly from the tag.

  • Type: Cloud and on-premise.
  • Support: Support is available via live chat, support ticket, and phone.
  • Price: Free trial available.

8. Roaring Penguin

Roaring Penguin is a cloud-based solution that provides protection against spam emails and viruses. It enables automatic updates on spam software as well as inbound and outbound email scanning. The software is easy to use and provides simple administration. Designed for businesses of all sizes, Roaring Penguin allows companies to manage and customize their own settings and set precautions based on their preferences.

  • Type: Cloud-based.
  • Support: Support is available via phone and email.
  • Price: Contact support for details.

9. ORF by Vamsoft

ORF by Vamsoft is an on-premises, easy-to-use spam filter that provides multi-layered protection to ensure maximum spam detection rates. Also, the software is highly customizable and can be customized according to your needs and email requirements with added low administration costs. Moreover, ORF by Vamsoft is a cost-effective solution for spam protection and enables hassle-free licensing with unlimited, free technical support.


Conclusion

Cybercriminals use emails and different techniques to target organizations. It has become critical to defend against attacks executed via emails. Spam filters and email protection solutions can help in this regard. However, the choice of software depends on your preferences and business requirements. We have mentioned some email protection solutions to enable you to make better decisions based on different features and aspects.