Barracuda Review 2025

Barracuda Networks has established itself as one of the most recognizable names in cybersecurity, protecting over 200,000 organizations worldwide with its comprehensive suite of security solutions. From its origins as an anti-spam appliance vendor to becoming a full-spectrum security platform following its acquisition by KKR in 2022, Barracuda offers an impressive breadth of capabilities spanning email protection, network security, data backup, and application defense.

However, as organizations evaluate Barracuda's platform, many discover significant challenges that impact their operations. Users consistently report dealing with complex configurations, massive yearly price increases, and deteriorating support quality. The recent end-of-life strategy has forced many customers into expensive bundles that include features they neither want nor need, while the heavy setup and management requirements strain IT resources.

For managed service providers (MSPs) and their small to medium business (SMB) clients, these issues raise a critical question: Is this broad, complex platform approach the right fit, or would a more focused, MSP-centric solution better serve their specific needs?

This Barracuda review examines the platform's strengths and limitations, particularly for organizations seeking streamlined security management tailored to the MSP channel. We'll also explore CyberSentriq, a cybersecurity company created from the merger of TitanHQ and Redstor, which offers an MSP-first alternative explicitly designed for the unique requirements of MSPs serving the SMB market.

With nearly 30 years of pedigree in email security, CyberSentriq delivers an easier-to-use platform that provides all the familiar features you expect, plus more. It includes innovative capabilities like Entra ID Backup that Barracuda lacks, all while enabling deployment in under 30 minutes.

For MSPs tired of dealing with appliance management complexity and seeking to move to a streamlined, bundled cloud approach with a single MSP-first vendor, understanding these different approaches is crucial.

If you're looking for a security solution built from the ground up for the MSP channel with transparent pricing starting at just $3.74 per user per month, learn more about CyberSentriq here.

What is Barracuda Networks?

Barracuda Networks was founded in 2003 by Dean Drako, Michael Perone, and Zach Levow to address the growing challenge of email-borne threats.

Their inaugural product, the Barracuda Spam and Virus Firewall, was a plug-in appliance that offered affordable and effective protection for email servers.

The company has undergone significant evolution since those early days. After going public on the NYSE in 2013, Barracuda was acquired by private equity firm Thoma Bravo in 2017 for $1.6 billion, then sold to KKR in 2022 for approximately $4 billion, according to industry reports. 

This backing has enabled Barracuda to expand through both organic development and strategic acquisitions, building out a comprehensive security portfolio.

Today, Barracuda positions itself as a cloud-first cybersecurity provider offering enterprise-grade solutions that are supposedly "easy to buy, deploy, and use" – though many customers report a completely different experience with complexity and management overhead. 

Their product suite encompasses email protection, network firewalls, web application firewalls, backup solutions, and the recently launched BarracudaONE platform that aims to unify these features under a single interface.

The company serves businesses of all sizes, though their enterprise focus and pricing often make them less suitable for SMBs. While maintaining a channel approach working with MSPs, many partners struggle with Barracuda's packaging complexity and the fact that awareness training and other essential features require expensive add-ons and upsells.

Barracuda Pros & Cons

Barracuda Review: How it Works & Key Features

BarracudaONE Platform

The centerpiece of Barracuda's current strategy is BarracudaONE, an AI-powered cybersecurity platform that merges multiple security functions into a single interface. 

Source: Barracuda Networks

This platform provides centralized visibility across email, network, application, and data security, with unified threat intelligence and streamlined management.

The platform includes consolidated alerts from all Barracuda products, AI-powered threat detection capabilities, automated incident response workflows, and integration capabilities. While BarracudaONE represents Barracuda's answer to platform consolidation trends, implementation still requires deploying and managing multiple underlying Barracuda products, adding to the overall complexity that many customers already struggle with.

Email Protection Suite

Barracuda's email protection encompasses gateway security, API-based inbox defense, incident response, and compliance capabilities. 

The solution blocks 13 types of email threats, including spam, malware, phishing, and business email compromise.

Key components include the Email Security Gateway for inbound and outbound filtering, advanced threat protection with sandboxing for zero-day threats, AI-powered impersonation protection, and data loss prevention with encryption. The platform integrates with Microsoft 365 via APIs for additional protection layers.

Source: Barracuda Networks

While Barracuda has a strong SEG with decent catch rates, the solution requires a heavier setup and management compared to more modern alternatives. Many customers still use the legacy SEG product, and awareness training, a critical component of email security, requires additional purchases through add-ons and upsells rather than being included in the base offering.

CloudGen Firewall

The CloudGen Firewall combines next-generation firewall capabilities with integrated SD-WAN functionality.

Available as hardware, virtual, or cloud-based deployments, it provides Layer 7 application control, intrusion prevention, web filtering, and advanced threat protection.

Source: Barracuda Networks

Notable features include the proprietary TINA VPN protocol for enhanced connectivity, multi-WAN support with automatic failover, zero-touch deployment for remote sites, and centralized management through the Firewall Control Center. The firewall is designed for distributed enterprises with multiple locations requiring consistent security policies.

Barracuda Backup

The backup solution provides local and cloud-based data protection for physical servers, virtual machines, and Microsoft 365 environments.

Source: Barracuda Networks

It includes inline deduplication to minimize storage requirements, cloud-to-cloud backup for SaaS applications, LiveBoot for rapid VM recovery, and replication to Barracuda Cloud or customer-chosen locations.

The platform runs on hardened Linux to resist ransomware attacks and includes features for compliance with regulations like HIPAA and GDPR. However, Barracuda notably lacks Entra ID Backup capability, a significant gap for organizations protecting their Microsoft identity infrastructure. Pricing follows a subscription model based on data volume.

Web Application Firewall

Barracuda's WAF protects web applications from OWASP Top 10 threats, zero-day exploits, and DDoS attacks. 

Source: Barracuda Networks

Available as a physical appliance, virtual machine, or WAF-as-a-Service, it includes advanced bot protection using machine learning, API security for REST and GraphQL, automatic SSL certificate management, and built-in load balancing capabilities.

The solution provides comprehensive reporting and integration with SIEM platforms.

Where Barracuda Falls Short

While Barracuda offers bundles with multiple services, significant limitations become apparent for MSPs and smaller organizations, particularly around complexity, cost escalation, and support quality.

The platform is complex and difficult to use, with heavy setup and management requirements that drain IT resources. User reviews consistently highlight frustration with the complicated product configuration and the time required to maintain the system effectively. For MSPs managing multiple clients, this complexity multiplies exponentially, making efficient service delivery challenging.

Perhaps most concerning are the massive year-over-year price increases that catch customers off guard. 

Combined with high export fees that make it difficult to leave, many organizations feel trapped in an increasingly expensive relationship. The recent end-of-life strategy has exacerbated this issue, forcing customers into three main bundles where they pay for features they don't want or might never use, a packaging approach that's particularly problematic for MSPs trying to maintain healthy margins.

Support quality has become a significant pain point, with many customers reporting poor experiences and long response times despite Barracuda's advertised 24/7 support. This deterioration in support quality leaves MSPs and their clients struggling when issues arise.

Critical security components like awareness training require expensive add-ons and upsells rather than being included, increasing the total cost of ownership significantly. Additionally, the lack of Entra ID Backup capability creates a security gap that requires additional vendor relationships to address.

For the MSP channel specifically, Barracuda's packaging is more complex than purpose-built MSP alternatives. 
The platform wasn't originally designed for MSP operations, and this shows in everything from multi-tenant management challenges to margin optimization difficulties. MSPs often find themselves managing appliances and dealing with configuration complexity when they need streamlined, cloud-based solutions that enable efficient service delivery.

These limitations highlight why many MSPs are actively seeking alternatives that offer comparable protection without the complexity, cost escalation, and operational overhead that have become synonymous with the Barracuda experience.

Top Barracuda Alternative for MSPs: CyberSentriq

CyberSentriq represents a different approach to cybersecurity platforms, born from the June merger of TitanHQ and Redstor. 

This combination brings together nearly 30 years of pedigree in email security and data protection expertise, currently serving over 3,000 MSP partners and approximately 150,000 SMBs globally with an unwavering MSP-first focus.

Purpose-Built MSP-First Model

Unlike Barracuda's complex platform that requires heavy setup and management, CyberSentriq operates with a true MSP-first model, one contract, one support path, one roadmap, and one Account Manager. 

Source: CyberSentriq.com

The platform was architected from the ground up with MSPs in mind, making it much easier for them to work with compared to alternatives.

The unified platform provides multi-tenant management, allowing MSPs to efficiently oversee all clients from a single dashboard, white-label capabilities that let MSPs position their brand front and center, and automated reporting that proves value at QBRs while reducing operational overhead. With deployment possible in under 30 minutes, MSPs achieve faster time to value and can onboard clients rapidly.

Critically, CyberSentriq offers tiered pricing models (Silver, Gold, Platinum, Top Tier) that enable MSPs to increase their margins as they grow, a stark contrast to Barracuda's escalating costs. The Secure Bundle starts at just $3.74 per user per month when paid annually, with all bundles being highly customizable without forcing unwanted features.

Defense-in-Depth Email Security Excellence

CyberSentriq provides a two-layer email defense that provides comparable protection at the gateway, plus native M365 detection and user training in one MSP-first bundle. 

The MX flagship email security gateway solution sits outside the inbox/M365 environment, providing a 99.99% spam catch rate with a 0.003% false positive rate.

The platform combines email gateway security (at MX level) with Integrated Cloud Email Security (ICES, for M365) and Security Awareness Training in the CyberSentriq suite. This includes dual anti-virus engines from Bitdefender and ClamAV, AI-powered sandboxing for zero-day threat detection, LLM-driven phishing analysis for BEC and C-Level impersonation, and outbound scanning with data loss prevention.

Unlike Barracuda's approach, where awareness training requires expensive add-ons, CyberSentriq includes behavior-driven security awareness training with auto-generated phishing simulations and reactive training as part of the integrated bundle.

Advanced Web Filtering & DNS Protection

The platform's DNS Filtering technology provides DNS-based web filtering processing over 6 billion web pages daily. 

Source: CyberSentriq

Key capabilities include AI-driven malicious site detection, 53 predefined content categories in 200 languages, granular policy controls by user and group, and off-network protection through the OTG roaming agent.

For education customers, the solution meets CIPA compliance requirements and remains straightforward for resource-constrained IT teams to manage, offering a refreshing change from Barracuda's complexity.
 

Comprehensive Data Protection with Entra ID Backup

A key differentiator from Barracuda, CyberSentriq includes Entra ID Backup capabilities that protect Microsoft identity infrastructure, something Barracuda notably lacks. 

The backup and recovery component brings InstantData technology that significantly improves backup and recovery operations, streaming data on demand for immediate file access while background restoration continues.

The unified backup platform protects on-premises servers and endpoints, cloud workloads including Azure VMs, Microsoft 365, and Google Workspace, with AI-powered malware detection ensuring clean recoveries. The cloud-native architecture eliminates hardware requirements and appliance management complexity while providing immutable backups resistant to ransomware.

Exceptional Flexibility and Support

Perhaps most importantly, CyberSentriq makes it really easy for MSPs to work with them through exceptional flexibility in products and support. 

Unlike Barracuda's deteriorating support quality, CyberSentriq provides excellent customer service where someone always picks up the phone, a personal relationship that customers don't get with many vendors of a similar size.

The CyberSentriq Partnership Model includes a dedicated Account Manager as a single point of contact for all strategy, pricing, and commercial conversations. Partners receive onboarding and migration assistance, including Sales Engineering Support, co-selling, and enablement through joint discovery calls and demo support, as well as quarterly account reviews with data-driven insights and early roadmap access.

Barracuda or CyberSentriq: Comparison Summary

Final Verdict

The choice between Barracuda and CyberSentriq reflects a decision between complexity and simplicity, between escalating costs and predictable pricing, between deteriorating support and personal relationships.

Choose Barracuda only if your organization absolutely requires their specific firewall or web application security capabilities and has the resources to manage the platform's notorious complexity. 

Be prepared for massive year-over-year price increases, the challenge of their EOL strategy forcing you into expensive bundles, and support experiences that many customers describe as frustrating. Organizations with large, dedicated security teams capable of handling heavy setup and management requirements might find value, but they should budget for significant cost escalation and consider the high export fees that make leaving difficult.

Get started with Barracuda here.

Choose CyberSentriq when you want a security platform that's actually easy to work with,  one that provides all the familiar features you expect from Barracuda, plus innovative capabilities like M365 and Entra ID Backup and InstantData recovery. 

For MSPs, the choice is even clearer: CyberSentriqs MSP-first model with one contract, one support path, and one Account Manager eliminates the complexity that makes Barracuda challenging for multi-tenant environments. With deployment in under 30 minutes, transparent pricing starting at $3.74 per user per month, and someone who always picks up the phone when you call, CyberSentriq delivers enterprise-grade protection without enterprise-grade technical overhead and pricing.

Get started with CyberSentriq here.

The message is clear: you can achieve comparable protection at the gateway, along with native M365 detection and user training, all in one MSP-first bundle. This transition moves from appliance management to a streamlined, bundled cloud approach with a single vendor that truly understands and supports the MSP business model. 

With nearly 30 years of pedigree in email security, serving over 3,000 MSPs and 150,000 SMBs globally, CyberSentriq offers the defense-in-depth security and commercial simplicity that modern MSPs need to thrive.