We performed a comparison between Microsoft Exchange and Zimbra Collaboration based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Microsoft Exchange and Zimbra Collaboration have a similar user rating regarding ease of deployment, pricing, and service and support. However, based on the reviews, Microsoft Exchange reviewers felt it was an overall better solution for medium to larger enterprises, whereas Zimbra Collaboration was a better solution for smaller businesses.
"The latest versions have gotten much better about balancing the load on the backend."
"It is very well integrated with other Microsoft programs, teams, and so on. They work well together."
"The availability group settings are better, so it has inherent scalability. In 2010, they added several sensible rules."
"The product works very well."
"Communication is the most valuable feature of the solution."
"Our customers are satisfied with the features included in Microsoft Exchange."
"The technical support services are good."
"Microsoft Exchange is a powerful solution. It can easily integrate with Active Directory and other business applications. It does not require any training, it is flexible and simple to use. When comparing Microsoft Exchange to other solutions, such as Lotus Note, it is more straightforward for business."
"One of the premium features was customized rooms tailored to the collaboration needs. Many of the clients customize features such as organization logos and scanners."
"The most valuable feature of Zimbra Collaboration is email functionality."
"The most valuable feature of Zimbra Collaboration is the cost."
"The backup and storage management features of Zimbra Collaboration are valuable."
"Zimbra Collaboration's sharing features are most valuable."
"Zimbra Collaboration is light to manage. It works on the Linux operating system, which is far better to manage than Microsoft Windows. Microsoft Exchange works only on the Windows server. We prefer working on the Linux server for security reasons and ease of management. Zimbra Collaboration also has some integrated tools for security. It some modules to fight malware. These modules are not very powerful but are still doing a great job. Microsoft Exchange doesn't have a basic module. You have to purchase a security solution and add it to the solution. The cost of Zimbra Collaboration is one more reason for liking it. It is also very simple to migrate from Zimbra Collaboration to another email solution."
"The most valuable feature is sending messages as well as text and documents. It's a big solution for us since internal communication is a must in our organization."
"A lot of other products like Microsoft Exchange offer email or collaboration features, but they are not as fast as Zimbra."
"When an update wants to come, it should just come maybe once or twice rather than having us deal with constant updating."
"They could continue to improve the consolidation and integration of mailbox services to make them more flexible, easier to deploy, and more manageable."
"The calendar integration in Exchange is not that great. The email features are okay, but it doesn't integrate well with the calendar and appointments, especially Zoom appointments. It integrates fine with Microsoft Teams, but Zoom is a challenge."
"The support needs to be more knowledgeable."
"It is important to have the updated version for scalability."
"The default storage capacity is too small."
"In terms of probability, every now and then there are changes coming and going. The changes are not that frequent because every month they got updates back, so that is an issue."
"The solution should be easier to deploy."
"File sharing permissions with Nextcloud integration need improvement."
"It does have a few bugs."
"It would be great if a group chat feature were created to allow for a team environment."
"Zimbra must improve its solution to make it easy so that the users don't have to use webmail to connect to their accounts and log in to webmail every time. This is something that is lacking in Zimbra Collaboration. They should provide a better way to easily connect email applications on the desktop to the Zimbra server. They should also try to have more functionality for storage management, like Microsoft Exchange. Currently, the management of the email data must be done manually in Zimbra Collaboration, which we are finding very difficult. They should provide a way to save emails so that you can have more space on the server and storage. Because of the lack of this functionality, we are planning to migrate to Microsoft Exchange. Microsoft Exchange provides a better way to manage storage than Zimbra Collaboration. You cannot have a mail solution without storage management because emails will always increase. Zimbra Collaboration also needs tools for management. More back-office tools are required to manage the whole mailbox and space. You don't only manage emails but also the documents attached to the emails. Therefore, you require tools to select and decide what do you want to save or how do you want to free up space in your infrastructure."
"Zimbra Collaboration does not have a solution roadmap as aggressive as the new collaboration mail solutions. Additionally, they can have a better interface and integration with single sign-on."
"I can confidently say that Zimbra is good enough for 2,000 client users. But, at the same time, if my client needs more than that and we have two options—Zimbra or Microsoft—I'm going with Microsoft because many admins will speak to Microsoft's ability to handle that many."
"Zimbra Collaboration's video conferencing could be improved."
"The antispam and antivirus features are hard to understand on mobile devices."
Microsoft Exchange is ranked 3rd in Email Applications with 78 reviews while Zimbra Collaboration is ranked 4th in Email Applications with 28 reviews. Microsoft Exchange is rated 8.4, while Zimbra Collaboration is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Microsoft Exchange writes "Very stable with an easy-to-use email management system". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Zimbra Collaboration writes "Provides good email capability; lacking in security and performance". Microsoft Exchange is most compared with KerioConnect, HCL Domino, Open-Xchange, IceWarp and HCL Notes, whereas Zimbra Collaboration is most compared with Open-Xchange, IceWarp, Google Workspace, KerioConnect and HCL Domino. See our Microsoft Exchange vs. Zimbra Collaboration report.
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