When it comes to email security, Barracuda certainly is the right tool. A small, lightweight appliance that handles not only scanning of emails, it also does traffic routing and monitoring and gives you detailed reports about the health of your environment. Barracuda has an up-to-date database of IBL addresses, as well as advanced virus scanning built-in. Definitions are updated automatically as they come out, so you don't need any manual intervention. Firmware updates are also automatic, so it pretty much takes car of itself. Everything is manageable through and easy to use Web Interface, which lets you blacklist, whitelist, track delivery, run reports and so much more. Honestly though, the only time you really need to log into the console is to check on a blacklisted address, which is very rarely. You do get your occasional false-positive and even rarer false-negative, but it happens so rarely that I really find it insignificant. In terms of reliability, I have found that the Barracuda hardly needs to be rebooted(Maybe once a year, if even) and quickly comes back online and continues what it does best.

I honestly don't have anything I dislike about the Barracuda. It works and works well. Aside from email security, I have used it as a traffic router and proxy server and a NAT firewall, so I really find nothing wrong with it

We used BSF to reduce overall spam e-mail and improve network security; it has accomplished those goals.

The Barracuda Spam Firewall simply does what it is supposed to do -- it stops spam. Since implementation we've seen a significant decrease (to less than 2% of all attempts) in spam getting through to our users.

The user interface is slow and sometimes hides options in strange tabs (for example, Administration vs Advanced Networking -- why not just a single "networking" tab where you can do it all?)

Price is reasonable for what you get; interface is smooth; easy to use; support is very helpful. I think with more training some of the spam that is getting through could be cleaned up for my business. The firewall has many options and features. The interface is complex.

No content filter - this software filters inbound or outbound messages only. It definitely takes some time to adjust and customize.

Barracuda seems to do a fine job filtering out at least the obvious threats. I haven't had any major problems with it in the 4+ years my company has used it.

It does not detect phishing emails very well. I would think it would be able to see that an email had certain traits, like being non-personalized, very short, containing a link, and sent from a Russian email address and filter it, but I don't think it can do that.