The best secure email gateway for MSPs: CloudFilter vs. Barracuda and Proofpoint
Every client brings its own policies, exceptions and mail platforms. With the wrong gateway, the real cost is not the license: it is the time your team spends working around it.
Barracuda: hardware moved to the cloud
Barracuda began as a hardware appliance company. When the market moved to the cloud, it put that appliance-based design online instead of rebuilding for multi-tenant work.
MSPs report slow load times and a dated interface, and bundled tiers and add-on SKUs move the monthly fee around.
Proofpoint: built for enterprise teams
Proofpoint suits large organizations with dedicated security teams. When it replaced its MSP gateway, Essentials, with Proofpoint 365 Total Protection, MSPs got more Microsoft 365 features, along with more complexity and administrative overhead.
Most MSPs need to stop spam, phishing and malware without a manual workaround for every release request or policy exception.
CloudFilter: designed for MSPs
CloudFilter works out of the box and still lets you customize.
- Cascading policies: set a policy once at the reseller level and it applies to every client account, with overrides for a client, group or user
- Multi-signal filtering: each message is weighed across many signals, not a single pass/fail decision
- One-click release: users preview questionable mail safely and release it when admins allow, so fewer tickets reach techs
- Real-time logs: techs see why a message was held and trace its path
- Outbound scanning: spam and viruses are caught before they hurt a client's domain reputation, and SafeSend adds DLP rule templates, compliance controls and attachment blocking
What it means for MSPs
Email filtering affects your margins, not just your clients' security. CloudFilter sits alongside Bracket for encryption and Radar for DMARC health checks, so you add protection as needs change without another vendor.