Microsoft Exchange vs. Zimbra Collaboration Comparison

Microsoft Exchange

Zimbra Collaboration

Microsoft Exchange

Read 8 Microsoft Exchange reviews.

6,542 views|5,236 comparisons

Zimbra Collaboration

Read 2 Zimbra Collaboration reviews.

6,225 views|5,211 comparisons

Most Helpful Review

Use Microsoft Exchange? Share your opinion.

Anonymous User

Control Department Head of Information Security at a financial services firm

Researched Microsoft Exchange but chose Zimbra Collaboration: It is light to manage and low-cost, but lacks storage management

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Quotes From Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros
"It's so much of a part of what I do every day that I don't give it a lot of thought. It just works, for the most part, until it doesn't, in which case I call tech support.""Now, we manage to serve almost 99% of the information.""It is very well integrated with other Microsoft programs, teams, and so on. They work well together.""The initial setup is very simple.""It is easy to set up.""Customers can benefit from this new pricing model because it's expensive and now with the subscription they can budget for this.""The initial setup is quite a straightforward process. I don't think it is a very complicated solution. Plenty of things could be more complex, but the ordinary, general settings are quite simple.""It has a feature that allows you to retain an email and recover it as an administrator. When you activate this feature, even if a user deletes an email, the email is still in the system, and we can retrieve it as an administrator. It is a very useful function. We turn this feature on for some of the mailboxes because we need to keep all the records. I like the way emails are classified in this solution. It makes it really easy to take a look at the most important messages. This is a really good functionality. Some of the emails directly exchanged with you are marked as important and shown in one tab, and everything else is in another tab. We usually don't have any issue with Exchange. It can be integrated with different solutions." More Microsoft Exchange Pros »	"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 web interface is powerful and easy to use." More Zimbra Collaboration Pros »
Cons
"Exchange can be a little finicky, sometimes, or flakey. Last week, for example, I had gone into my calendar to check on some briefings that I had established, and then went back into my inbox, and suddenly the view had changed. I had no idea what it was that I had done, and I couldn't figure out how to get that view back. I took a productivity hit as a result of that, trying to fix it, due to the fact that it just wasn't what I wanted. It wasn't what I was used to working with. Two different tech support people had to work with me in order to get the view back to what I wanted just so I could be productive.""When we started using Exchange on the cloud, we had a lot of initial problems relating to our main database and we also experienced issues with the accidental deletion of inboxes, amongst other things. In fact, many of the files we had moved to the cloud had disappeared. There also seems to be a problem with the retention of information.""It's not always the finest solution in terms of integration with products that are not from Microsoft. It integrates very well with Microsoft products but not with third-party products.""In the version we have, I would like to see better communication between the end device and the Exchange server.""It doesn't work very well on a virtual machine. We had to move it around. There are also issues when you try to move it between computers.""The pricing could be better, and it could have an easier implementation.""In terms of what should be improved, they should probably move to a cloud option like Office 365. We would like to get this functionality without the need to deploy complex hardware and software solutions. This should be the next thing, making Exchange more related to Office products, which are more cloud-oriented, less on-premise or desktop-oriented solutions, like the direction Google is strongly moving towards.""Its search functionality can be better. It is currently not really easy. It has the capability to search your mailbox, but it has some restrictions in terms of the number of results that you can retrieve. You can only get around 250 results. If you want to do a deeper search, you need to use different functionalities of the product. The policy that we have for handling emails is that we do not delete emails at all. If I insert the text that I am searching for in the Search field, it only retrieves a limited number of emails. To search for an email from 2010, I need to use different search functions to find what I am looking for. Microsoft can also improve its licensing for its products. Microsoft's licensing is not very easy to understand. It can sometimes be really complex to understand what you need to have in order to comply with Microsoft licensing." More Microsoft Exchange Cons »	"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.""The support was lacking in my experience. However, recently the support I received was good. Perhaps they have improved." More Zimbra Collaboration Cons »

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's working very well. There is no problem, but the price is not the best.""Its price is okay.""It's a little bit expensive.""Its price is very affordable, and basically, it is the standard of the industry. We have the Exchange 365 subscription, which includes the usage of Exchange Online. I don't know the specific cost, but it is the retail price of Microsoft 365 E3 licenses. Microsoft's licensing is not very easy to understand. Microsoft changes rules every other day, which makes it difficult for us to understand the licensing not only for Exchange but also for other products. It can sometimes be really complex to understand what you need to have in order to comply with Microsoft licensing."

More Microsoft Exchange Pricing and Cost Advice »

"Zimbra Collaboration is less expensive than Microsoft Exchange. Zimbra works for small companies because it is not expensive. Zimbra Collaboration has more security tools than Microsoft Exchange. If you are choosing between Zimbra Collaboration and Microsoft Exchange, you have to take into account the cost of security tools with Microsoft Exchange. When you purchase Microsoft Exchange, you will also have to purchase tools for security, which adds to the cost. The migration from Zimbra Collaboration to another email solution is very simple and easy. Migration from Microsoft Exchange to another email solution is very difficult. Microsoft doesn't allow migration that easily. In fact, you have to pay for tools to do that. You have to buy some expensive tools to migrate.""If you choose the network edition, it is a little pricier. They have the open-source edition too which is only community supported."

More Zimbra Collaboration Pricing and Cost Advice »

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Ranking
2nd out of 17 in Email Applications Views 6,542 Comparisons 5,236 Reviews 6 Average Words per Review 423 Rating 7.8	3rd out of 17 in Email Applications Views 6,225 Comparisons 5,211 Reviews 1 Average Words per Review 931 Rating 7.0
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Also Known As
Exchange
Learn
Microsoft	Zimbra
Overview
Built to deliver the enterprise-grade security and reliability that businesses require, Microsoft Exchange provides email, calendar and contacts on your PC, phone and web browser.	Zimbra Collaboration provides administrators and their end users innovative features that solve the challenges faced by organizations using today's legacy communications infrastructure.
Offer
Learn more about Microsoft Exchange Learn More	Learn more about Zimbra Collaboration Learn More
Sample Customers
Paderborn-Lippstadt Airport, Scitec Nutrition, British Airways, InnoGames, Osteology Foundation, Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH, NTC Contracting	NEC Biglobe, City of Ventura, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Hola Publishing, BIG, Sleepwell, LaFayette College, Xmission, DNA, Ring Line, Future Group, TIGC
Top Industries
REVIEWERS Healthcare Company14% Computer Software Company14% Security Firm14% Retailer14% VISITORS READING REVIEWS Comms Service Provider30% Computer Software Company25% Government8% Media Company4%	VISITORS READING REVIEWS Comms Service Provider44% Computer Software Company19% Media Company8% Educational Organization6%
Company Size
REVIEWERS Small Business43% Midsize Enterprise26% Large Enterprise30%	REVIEWERS Small Business63% Midsize Enterprise25% Large Enterprise13%

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