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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Microsoft Azure

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft Azure is a cloud computing platform and infrastructure for building, deploying, and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters.

    $29

    per month

    Microsoft Exchange

    Score8.6 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft Exchange is a secure email / messaging gateway with file archiving and encryption / data loss capability, available as a hosted service (Exchange Online) or installed (Exchange Server).N/A
    Pricing
    Microsoft AzureMicrosoft Exchange
    Editions & Modules
    Developer
    $29
    per month
    Standard
    $100
    per month
    Professional Direct
    $1000
    per month
    Basic
    Free
    per month
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Microsoft AzureMicrosoft Exchange
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsThe free tier lets users have access to a variety of services free for 12 months with limited usage after making an Azure account.—
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Microsoft AzureMicrosoft Exchange
    Considered Both Products
    Microsoft
    Chose Microsoft Azure
    Nowadays it is too hard to say why and how one cloud service is better than the other. IT is probably the question that combines a lot of different aspects like price, functionality, how it looks, ease of administration, size of the infrastructure. As for me, it is more …
    Incentivized
    Microsoft
    Chose Microsoft Exchange
    Microsoft Exchange has the most features in one package, and also has the best integration with the rest of our tool set.
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Exchange
    Microsoft Exchange is better at connecting with different Microsoft products and has a lot more freatures.
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Exchange
    We have largely been an Exchange shop that used to use multiple open source products to assist with its overall capabilities. Now using the hybrid approach along with some tuning work along the way we have been able to just rely on Microsoft solutions. Thankfully they are …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Exchange
    Frankly we never tried anything else so I do not have anything to enter here. The largest competitor would probably be Google/Gmail/G Suite and a lot of start up and smaller companies do use it successfully. Since it is all off premises, Gmail does have some traction for …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Exchange
    Honestly, there are very few other enterprise-level email servers that I know about other than the basic gmail, yahoo, Hotmail, and just hosting it yourself. You either can get away with a very basic mail server, or your business needs true enterprise-level functions. If your …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    92%
    Would buy again
    34 Answers
    94%
    Would buy again
    65 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    31 Answers
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    63 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    35 Answers
    99%
    Happy with the feature set
    68 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    89%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    24 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    46 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    34 Answers
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    52 Answers
    Features
    Microsoft AzureMicrosoft Exchange
    Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
    Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Exchange
    Feature
    Microsoft Azure
    8.4
    27 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Microsoft Exchange
    -
    Ratings
    Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime8.126 Ratings00 Ratings
    Dynamic scaling8.725 Ratings00 Ratings
    Elastic load balancing8.624 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pre-configured templates8.225 Ratings00 Ratings
    Monitoring tools8.326 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pre-defined machine images8.424 Ratings00 Ratings
    Operating system support8.926 Ratings00 Ratings
    Security controls8.626 Ratings00 Ratings
    Automation8.224 Ratings00 Ratings
    Secure Email Gateway
    Comparison of Secure Email Gateway features of Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Exchange
    Feature
    Microsoft Azure
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Exchange
    7.3
    84 Ratings
    14% below category average
    Anti-malware00 Ratings6.567 Ratings
    Customizability00 Ratings8.079 Ratings
    Data Loss Protection00 Ratings8.368 Ratings
    Threat Detection00 Ratings6.566 Ratings
    Sandboxing00 Ratings7.444 Ratings
    End-to-End Encryption00 Ratings6.767 Ratings
    Management Tools00 Ratings8.080 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Microsoft AzureMicrosoft Exchange
    Small Businesses
    IBM Cloud Object Storage
    Score9 out of 10
    Sophos Email
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Sophos Email
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Enterprises
    SAP on IBM Cloud
    Score9 out of 10
    OpenText Core Email Threat Protection
    Score7.5 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Microsoft AzureMicrosoft Exchange
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.7
    (96 ratings)
    9.0
    (102 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (17 ratings)
    10.0
    (4 ratings)
    Usability
    8.3
    (36 ratings)
    8.5
    (6 ratings)
    Availability
    6.8
    (2 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.0
    (27 ratings)
    9.9
    (12 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Microsoft AzureMicrosoft Exchange
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Microsoft
    Azure is particularly well suited for enterprise environments with existing Microsoft investments, those that require robust compliance features, and organizations that need hybrid cloud capabilities that bridge on-premises and cloud infrastructure. In my opinion, Azure is less appropriate for cost-sensitive startups or small businesses without dedicated cloud expertise and scenarios requiring edge computing use cases with limited connectivity. Azure offers comprehensive solutions for most business needs but can feel like there is a higher learning curve than other cloud-based providers, depending on the product and use case.
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Creating and receiving emails is simple. Managing contacts is a nice feature, especially connecting to Active Directory. Calendar management is also helpful and sharing access to others' calendars for scheduling meetings is useful. And reserving resources such as rooms or equipment is also useful. Personal and shared mailboxes are good features, as well. Tasks are a little lacking, but other than that, the features are thorough.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Microsoft
    • Microsoft Azure is highly scalable and flexible. You can quickly scale up or down additional resources and computing power.
    • You have no longer upfront investments for hardware. You only pay for the use of your computing power, storage space, or services.
    • The uptime that can be achieved and guaranteed is very important for our company. This includes the rapid maintenance for security updates that are mostly carried out by Microsoft.
    • The wide range of capabilities of services that are possible in Microsoft Azure. You can practically put or create anything in Microsoft Azure.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • As we have a large user base of 11,000 users we use MailTips to avoid people getting confused with people with similar names in the organization.
    • The integration between Teams Meeting and Resource booking is generally very good. The Scheduling Assistance makes it easy to scan calendars and find free periods to provisionally scheduled events.
    • Marking yourself as Out of the Office and busy is easy, as is sharing your calendar within the team/organization or individuals.
    • Voicemail integration and the ability to receive missed chats in your inbox are highly used and useful.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Microsoft
    • The cost of resources is difficult to determine, technical documentation is frequently out of date, and documentation and mapping capabilities are lacking.
    • The documentation needs to be improved, and some advanced configuration options require research and experimentation.
    • Microsoft's licensing scheme is too complex for the average user, and Azure SQL syntax is too different from traditional SQL.
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • The two main factors for the better reliability & Uptime of internally hosted Exchange Server depends on Exchange Server configuration and the level of investment the organization is willing to provide for hosting the Exchange Server On-Premise Environment. As the data is stored in the organization’s hardware, any disaster may lead to the loss of email and servers.
    • Losing data might affect business continuity and rebuilding it can be costly.
    • Security remains a major concern.
    • Security of data loss is main concern. To ensure that, organization needs to configure networks, systems and Exchange platform against possible threats.
    • Hardware and license costs are high.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    Microsoft
    Moving to Azure was and still is an organizational strategy and not simply changing vendors. Our product roadmap revolved around Azure as we are in the business of humanitarian relief and Azure and Microsoft play an important part in quickly and efficiently serving all of the world. Migration and investment in Azure should be considered as an overall strategy of an organization and communicated companywide.
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Email and calendars in a business setting are requirements. And Microsoft continues to be the standard of business applications. Microsoft 365 makes Microsoft Exchange easy to use. Everything is in the cloud. Let Microsoft take care of the hardware, the software, and the security. You just enable your business users with the functionality they need.
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    Microsoft
    As Microsoft Azure is [doing a] really good with PaaS. The need of a market is to have [a] combo of PaaS and IaaS. While AWS is making [an] exceptionally well blend of both of them, Azure needs to work more on DevOps and Automation stuff. Apart from that, I would recommend Azure as a great platform for cloud services as scale.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Microsoft Exchange has come a long way over the years and has nowhere near the technical overhead required for support as it did back in 2003/2007 and prior. The integrations with Teams, Defender, Sharepoint, Copilot and many other products make it a solid and well-rounded tool used for many day-to-day tasks.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    Microsoft
    It has proven to be unreliable in our production environment and services become unavailable without proper notification to system administrators
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    Exchange is setup with multiple servers behind load balancers to provide high availability.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    I would say it's the best email product I've experienced.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    Microsoft
    We were running Windows Server and Active Directory, so [Microsoft] Azure was a seamless transition. We ran into a few, if any support issues, however, the availability of Microsoft Azure's support team was more than willing and able to guide us through the process. They even proposed solutions to issues we had not even thought of!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    We have a good enterprise agreement with Microsoft which affords us quick phone support. I have found the support staff knowledgeable and prompt with a solution when required. At times it may be difficult to schedule a call back, this is mainly due to our need for calls early in the morning which happens to be during a shift change at Microsoft support.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Microsoft
    As I have mentioned before the issue with my Oracle Mismatch Version issues that have put a delay on moving one of my platforms will justify my 7 rating.
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    Microsoft
    Implementation/conversion can be quite complex and, unless you have certified Exchange administrators in-house, you should strongly consider a 3rd party consultant for this implementation.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Microsoft
    As I continue to evaluate the "big three" cloud providers for our clients, I make the following distinctions, though this gap continues to close. AWS is more granular, and inherently powerful in the configuration options compared to [Microsoft] Azure. It is a "developer" platform for cloud. However, Azure PowerShell is helping close this gap. Google Cloud is the leading containerization platform, largely thanks to it building kubernetes from the ground up. Azure containerization is getting better at having the same storage/deployment options.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    Microsoft Exchange Product The best cloud-based enterprise-grade archiving platform with a host of features that enable files to be securely archived and retrieved with advanced search options. This tool is very easy to use and has a User-friendly interface. It is a highly reliable platform that allows all employees to automatically store their data without any limitations. It offers a cost-effective solution with customized policy management. We are happy that the customer support team is always fast and concerned, and the product's uninterrupted service experience. It is very good that it stores data in real-time without losing it, even in the event of a disaster. The cost-effective solution and integration with other tools are seamless.
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    The only time Exchange has failed us is when we did something to cause the failure.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Microsoft
    • For about 2 years we didn't have to do anything with our production VMs, the system ran without a hitch, which meant our engineers could focus on features rather than infrastructure.
    • DNS management was very easy in Azure, which made it easy to upgrade our cluster with zero downtime.
    • Azure Web UI was easy to work with and navigate, which meant our senior engineers and DevOps team could work with Azure without formal training.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • It has been an important factor in allowing seamless communication with clients and scheduling business meetings, which in turn works in the company's favor.
    • Haven't noticed any negative impact Exchange has had on our ROI. The support team is also responsive and helpful.
    Incentivized
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