Barracuda Email Protection vs Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Barracuda Email Protection and Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Email Security solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Barracuda Email Protection vs. Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration Report (Updated: March 2024).
768,857 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The deployment capability is a great feature.""Some of the valuable features on the email side are anti-phishing, anti-malware, and Safe Links.""The technical support is good and quick to resolve issues.""Microsoft Defender for Office 365's most valuable features are safe attachments and safe links.""The risk level notifications are most valuable. We get to know what kind of intrusion or attack is there, and we can fix a problem on time.""There are several features that I consider valuable.""The initial setup was easy.""The good part is that you don't have to configure it, which is very convenient."

More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Pros →

"Barracuda email protection is stable. I would give it a nine because of its strong cybersecurity features.""The most valuable features are security and ease of use.""The product is easy to deploy and maintain.""The best feature of Barracuda Email Protection is that it provides protection for Microsoft 365.""I'm quite satisfied with the graphical user interface for Barracuda products.""The most valuable features of Barracuda Email Protection are flexibility and customization.""The most valuable aspect includes attempts to spoof or compromise domains from external sources.""When we got the service, it included the email archiver with unlimited storage."

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"We need the phishing detection and email quarantine. Once an email is considered malicious, it stays in the quarantine where we can interrogate it. We can check out why it was quarantined and see if it should be delivered to the individual.""Its total protection has been the greatest aspect since it completely protects all the mail from the cloud.""It is very intuitive. It is a point and click type of deal.""I like the fact that having granular information about the potential threats is received in email.""Check Point adds value with east-west protection in the data center.""Its analysis or emulation in the review of each file using the cloud and Check Point helps make each interaction via email more secure.""Its characteristics are adapted to the most modern threats.""Machine Learning and AI for email security have helped all the organization's members to guard their information against insecure exposure."

More Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration Pros →

Cons
"The pre-sales cost calculations could be more transparent.""One area for improvement is integration. For example, when it comes to external SaaS platforms, we were not able to get a lot of information on integrations with such apps for security and authentication.""We need to be able to whitelist data at the backend.""Too many false positives and lacks an accurate capability to detect malicious SharePoint sites.""The XDR dashboard has room for improvement.""Microsoft Defender for Office 365 could improve by giving customers information on techniques to prevent threats. For example, information about best practices on how to protect their own devices against hackers and scammers, such as educational information or training. This would help others have a better understanding of cyber security. Additionally, there can be more security features added.""Microsoft security solutions work as expected. They are constantly updating the solutions to make them better. At the same time, the changes can impact a customer's environment, and we need to adjust settings. Sometimes we aren't aware of the changes, and nothing is pushed from the backend automatically.""They have moved features from one console to another. Things have been moved around in the interface and it takes me time to find where certain features are."

More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Cons →

"They could simplify the licensing and the pricing.""Sometimes it is somewhat laggy, especially on the Archiver side. It should have improved performance on their Message Archiver.""The solution's graphical user interface (GUI) could be improved visually.""There is room for improvement, particularly in reaching out to technical support during deployment.""I would like to see some additional functionality in terms of employee monitoring, as part of a work-from-home security solution.""The platform's pricing needs improvement.""Barracuda Essentials can improve by continually adding more features.""The policies are set up in Barracuda by default; we don't have any control over them."

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"Its guides are not great.""Support can be a bit quicker in helping the customer.""They must provide security to more email service providers.""Other vendor support teams go after fixing the issue the moment that they join the remote session. The problem that I have faced with Check Point support is that they share the case number with me, then it takes at least two days for them to join a remote session with us, even though we have asked for this timeframe to change. Even though we have already explained the problems that we are facing or the business pain points in our network on the call or email, we have to repeat the problem statements again in the console. It can take four or five days to resolve the issue from the moment they understand the problem. This includes the time to teach their R&D or internal team whatever the issue is. I have faced timeframes as long as seven to 10 days for fixing some issues.""At this time, the two-factor authentication does not work for Active Directory.""Check Point's technical support is very much of a low level, especially with respect to other vendors and OEMs.""It would be good to have the option to export the respective record data from dashboards or logs to .csv or other files.""if a phishing email were to get through and bypass the product — which very few do — it would be nice if, when a user clicked on that phishing email, they got a second-chance opportunity, a chance to double-check that they really wanted to proceed to that website."

More Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "It's a user-base subscription."
  • "From the pricing point of view, like any other product in the market, there is scope for negotiation."
  • "Defender is a little bit more expensive as compared to others. We are in the manufacturing environment. So, we don't have a high budget for all of our endpoint devices. Its cost is a major concern for us."
  • "For licensing, it's usually a yearly package for customers who are subscribed to Office 365, but they can also pay on a monthly basis."
  • "Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."
  • "Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comes with Microsoft Windows. It is free with the operating system."
  • "The solution saves money so we have seen a return on investment."
  • "Defender for 365 comes in various plans and licenses, along with other Microsoft security solutions. Purchasing this kind of package or security bundle gives good value for money, and that's what I recommend."
  • More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The price of Barracuda Essentials is better than some of the competing products."
  • "We pay annually. They never charged us for anything else. And they were quite a bit under that $20,000 mark. It was $19,074. And they've been pretty good about not skyrocketing the price or anything like that. It has gone up. It's gone up to $24,000 in 2020."
  • "Price-wise, this product is middle-of-the-road."
  • "On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
  • "The product is expensive."
  • "Barracuda licensing model is good."
  • More Barracuda Email Protection Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Having information stolen by a hacker would be more expensive than purchasing a license."
  • "Being able to keep the phishing campaigns out of my company has been ROI for me."
  • "Do a full feature evaluation (interactive) with a support person. That is what I did."
  • "The price is very good, based on what they deliver."
  • "One of the nice features is that the licensing model is elastic, so if you go over your license count, you can add users during your billing cycle and true-up later."
  • "There are absolutely no additional costs to the standard licensing fees. One of the wonderful pieces is that CloudGuard SaaS is all-inclusive in its licensing. There's no a-la-carte functionality. You're getting 100 percent of the product for the licensing that you're paying."
  • "The difference between [Check Point and its competitors] boiled down to money. Price-wise, Check Point was very good, it was very competitive."
  • "The pricing and licensing are always negotiable."
  • More Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of various… more »
    Top Answer:The product must provide better malware detection. The detection algorithms don't perform the way I hope they would.
    Top Answer:I don't even have details of the product's single license purchased by my company.
    Top Answer:I use the solution in my company to secure the users' environment so that there are no phishing attacks. The tool… more »
    Top Answer:The product offers good and easy integration capabilities with other products.
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    MS Defender for Office 365
    Barracuda Essentials
    Check Point CloudGuard, Check Point CloudGuard SaaS , Check Point Harmony Email & Office
    Learn More
    Overview

    Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is a comprehensive security solution designed to protect organizations against advanced threats in their email, collaboration, and productivity environments. It combines the power of Microsoft's threat intelligence, machine learning, and behavioral analytics to provide real-time protection against phishing, malware, ransomware, and other malicious attacks.

    With Microsoft Defender for Office 365, organizations can safeguard their email communication by detecting and blocking malicious links, attachments, and unsafe email content. It employs advanced anti-phishing capabilities to identify and prevent sophisticated phishing attacks that attempt to steal sensitive information or compromise user credentials.

    This solution also offers robust protection against malware and ransomware. It leverages machine learning algorithms to analyze email attachments and URLs in real-time, identifying and blocking malicious content before it reaches users' inboxes. Additionally, it provides advanced threat-hunting capabilities, allowing security teams to proactively investigate and respond to potential threats.

    Microsoft Defender for Office 365 goes beyond email protection and extends its security features to other collaboration tools like SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams. It scans files and documents stored in these platforms, ensuring that they are free from malware and other malicious content. It also provides visibility into user activities, helping organizations detect and mitigate insider threats.

    Furthermore, this solution offers rich reporting and analytics capabilities, providing organizations with insights into their security posture and threat landscape. It enables security administrators to monitor and manage security incidents, track trends, and take proactive measures to enhance their overall security posture.

    The popularity of Microsoft 365 means criminals test and design their attacks to bypass its native security features. And that means you need additional layers of defense. With Advanced Threat Protection enabled, Barracuda uses multiple layers of detection, including signature, static, and behavioral analysis, along with CPU-emulation sandboxing to accurately detect and block zero-hour targeted attacks and ransomware.

    Traditional email gateways use static rules and policies—reputation analysis, block lists, and malicious payloads—to determine if an email is malicious.

    Barracuda protects your Microsoft 365 inbox against evasive threats with a powerful AI engine that learns the unique communication patterns within your organization through access to internal and historical emails. Once it understands what legitimate emails looks like for each user, it can detect anomalies that signal malicious intent. This context-based detection is more effective at blocking targeted attacks, which are designed to bypass traditional rule-based email security.

    Check Point Harmony Email and Office is a cloud-based software offering complete protection to stop malware attacks through emails. The software is designed to provide protection for organizations using Office 365, G Suite, Google Workspace, and all other collaboration and file-sharing apps. Access permissions can be granted and custom policies can be defined for any user of choice.

    Check Point Harmony Email and Office identifies and blocks advanced malware, phishing, and ransomware attacks in real time before they reach the user’s inbox. In turn, this also helps protect sensitive business data from breaches. Harmony Email and Office was the first solution to implement machine learning, API, and AI for email security, and will ultimately prevent any attempts at account takeover via agentless multi-factor authentication.

    What is Complete Protection?

    Check Point Harmony Email and Office offers a superior catch rate for collaboration apps and cloud email with their API-based solution that detects attacks that other solutions miss, including account takeover, supply chain attacks, ransomware, and BEC. The complete protection offers:

    • Malware Protection - Recognized by NSS Labs as “most effective in breach prevention,” the solution leverages technologies to bring clean files to users within 1.5 seconds. In addition, enterprises can be safer as the solution prevents malicious messages and files from reaching the user’s inbox.
    • Data Leakage Protection - Any confidential or sensitive information will be marked and have a classified suffix added to the end of the message or file to help keep those materials safe. Those files are encrypted, and the user will be alerted to any attempted breach of those messages.
    • Phishing Protection - Before advanced phishing attacks reach the end user, Harmony Email and Office detects and blocks them, including outbound, inbound, and internal communications.
    • Account Takeover Protection - After a user connects their cloud app, the solution captures the user's history and creates a profile and a custom threat profile. In the event of a suspected account takeover, threat intelligence is leveraged through millions of Check Point-secured gateways and endpoints and is blocked.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Check Point Harmony Email and Office offers a revolutionary prevention solution to stop malware attacks through emails. Users particularly like its visibility and the ability to protect sensitive business data.

    David U., a CISO at IMC companies, notes, "It provides visibility of events, what's going on with the environment, what we're missing with our other solution, and the user behavior."

    Mantu S., a senior technology architect at Incedo Inc., writes, "We are able to protect sensitive business data and maintain regulatory compliance with advanced data leak prevention (DLP)."

    Sample Customers
    Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
    ACT Government, Acumen Group, AGIP, Delta Dental Plans Association, Desai/Nasr Consulting Engineers, Inc., Equinox Information Systems
    Helvetia, Denham Capital, Daymark Solutions, Neopharm Group
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company16%
    Computer Software Company16%
    Comms Service Provider13%
    Logistics Company6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Government7%
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company25%
    Security Firm25%
    Construction Company25%
    Educational Organization13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Construction Company7%
    Healthcare Company7%
    Real Estate/Law Firm7%
    REVIEWERS
    Energy/Utilities Company17%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Security Firm10%
    Healthcare Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Real Estate/Law Firm6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business42%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise42%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business30%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise51%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business57%
    Midsize Enterprise36%
    Large Enterprise7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business41%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise41%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business51%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise32%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business36%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise46%
    Buyer's Guide
    Barracuda Email Protection vs. Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Protection vs. Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    768,857 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Barracuda Email Protection is ranked 15th in Email Security with 13 reviews while Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration is ranked 7th in Email Security with 47 reviews. Barracuda Email Protection is rated 8.8, while Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Barracuda Email Protection writes "Set-it-and-forget-it type of product that doesn't require a lot of management". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration writes "Has a user-friendly dashboard, a great anti-phishing algorithm, and sandboxing for testing". Barracuda Email Protection is most compared with TitanHQ SpamTitan, Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP), Abnormal Security, Mimecast Email Security and Fortinet FortiMail, whereas Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration is most compared with Avanan, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Mimecast Email Security, Cisco Secure Email and Fortinet FortiMail Cloud. See our Barracuda Email Protection vs. Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration report.

    See our list of best Email Security vendors.

    We monitor all Email Security reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.