IT AI Index

Index › Vendors › Barracuda Email Security Gateway · September 2026 Edition

Barracuda · 1 category · Named, not ranked

Barracuda Email Security Gateway

15Judge labels

1First choices

7Negative labels

6 of 12Models named it

1Category

September 2026 Edition. Every number here is derived from the raw labels under vendor table vv2026-09.2, every buyer segment counted.

Standing

6 labels, too few to rank

A product needs 10 labels in a category before a share or quadrant is stated. Barracuda Email Security Gateway was named 6 times in Email security, where Microsoft Defender for Office 365 led with 31%. The labels and the evidence are below, counted exactly.

By buyer segmentRead the same way at every buyer size.

Small business23 of 57

under the label threshold

Mid-market50 of 71

under the label threshold

Enterprise8 of 47

under the label threshold

In email security · each standing computed within its segment · bars are 0 to 100 · the accent bar is the product's own best reading

Standing by category

Every category where a model named Barracuda Email Security Gateway for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant
Email security	Security operations	0%	50 of 71	50%	6	under 10 labels · led by Microsoft Defender for Office 365 at 31%

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for Barracuda Email Security Gateway yet. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.

By model

How each model treated Barracuda Email Security Gateway across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Twelve models, six prompts per category.

Model	Alternative	Negative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	0	0	0
GPT-5.4 mini	0	0	0
Gemini 3.5 Flash	0	0	0
Perplexity Sonar	0	0	0
Grok 4.1 Fast	0	1	1
Mistral Small	1	0	1
DeepSeek V4 Flash	2	1	3
Llama 4 Maverick	0	0	0
Qwen 3.7 Flash	0	0	0
Kimi K2	0	1	1
GLM 4.7 FlashX	0	0	0
MiniMax M2.5	0	0	0

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct0 labelsNone

Paraphrase1 labelNone

Comparative3 labelsNone

Budget-constrained3 labels1

Scale-constrained1 labelNone

Negative7 labelsNone

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative15 labels in all, every segment counted; 1 of the 1 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

“Strong value proposition vs. Mimecast with more automation and faster response ... Good mid-market option.” DeepSeek V4 Flash · Email security · comparative prompt · alternative

“Great "best budget option" with AI-based phishing detection” DeepSeek V4 Flash · Email security · budget prompt · alternative

“also highly regarded for mid-market companies” Mistral Small · Email security · paraphrase prompt · alternative

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

“Barracuda advised affected customers to replace devices. Ongoing exploits via third-party libraries ... have kept it risky.” Grok 4.1 Fast · Email security · negative prompt · hard negative

“Avoid: Barracuda ESG appliances specifically” Kimi K2 · Email security · negative prompt · hard negative

“Why be cautious: Any appliance-based Secure Email Gateway (SEG) that relies on a "black box" with delayed updates is a liability today.” DeepSeek V4 Flash · Email security · negative prompt · soft negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as Barracuda Email Security Gateway, over the 15 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Barracuda Email Security Gateway was named but was not.

ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

Proofpoint Email Protection14 of 153Not in the top three

Mimecast Email Security11 of 152Not in the top three

Microsoft Defender for Office 36510 of 154Not in the top three

Abnormal AI10 of 152Not in the top three

IRONSCALES7 of 151Not in the top three

Cisco Secure Email7 of 150Not in the top three

Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration5 of 150Not in the top three

SpamTitan4 of 150Not in the top three

Material Security3 of 151Not in the top three

Google Workspace3 of 150Not in the top three

A head-to-head page exists where both products are in a category's top three. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named Barracuda Email Security Gateway. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, four of the twelve in this edition, so these counts come from 13 of the 15 answers that named Barracuda Email Security Gateway and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

gartner.com10

sublime.security6

cipherssecurity.com5

esecurityplanet.com5

g2.com4

material.security4

proofpoint.com4

thehackernews.com4

trust.barracuda.comYour site4

cybersectools.com3

Forty-five of the forty-nine domain citations in answers naming Barracuda Email Security Gateway came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

gartner.com/reviews/market/email-security10

esecurityplanet.com/products/best-email-security-software5

sublime.security/articles/enterprise-email-security-solutions5

cipherssecurity.com/best-email-security-gateways-20264

trust.barracuda.com/security/information/esg-vulnerability4

cybersectools.com/resources/shortlists/best-email-security-platforms3

cybervendorguide.com/guides/email-security3

ironscales.com/blog/the-best-email-security-companies-rankings-and-reviews3

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Names read as Barracuda Email Security Gateway

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as Barracuda Email Security Gateway; a claim can dispute any of them.

Barracuda Email Security Gateway (ESG) 3

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when Barracuda Email Security Gateway's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as Barracuda Email Security Gateway, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

It does not get any change to labels, shares or verdicts, any preview, or any say over which quotes appear. A verification link goes to your work email; an address at barracuda.com is approved on the spot, any other address is reviewed by hand.

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