Likelihood to Recommend You can use Microsoft Exchange Server with peace of mind for e-mail, calendar, communication, scheduling, and collaboration services. Microsoft's Exchange Server is a product designed to provide users with access to the messaging platform from mobile devices, desktops, and web-based systems. Telephony features in Exchange Server support voicemail. Exchange Server successfully offers high availability service with Microsoft Exchange Database availability groups.
Read full review I think Sendgrid is a great tool for sending out emails of all types. I've primarily used it for transactional emails as we've had other solutions for marketing emails, but I'm sure it would do just a good job - there is a "Marketing" section within the app you can use. Sendgrid integrates really easily with the development frameworks I've used, such as Laravel and Lumen; I've also integrated it with Moodle with ease.
Read full review Pros 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. Read full review Managing email lists / audiences is easy with features like groups and segments. They provide pre-built email templates that are very easy to modify. It is also super easy to create new email templates with their drag-and-drop email builder. Provides clear / easy-to-read analytics of email campaigns. I can easily import large email contact lists all at once or add a user manually one-at-a-time, when needed. Read full review Cons 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. Read full review Not necessarily their Email API but their email in general - they are currently in beta for automated email sequences but are still bare bones. Much more work is needed before it can be used mainstream and be able to convert everything to SendGrid. Helping with warming up our dedicated IP for the best-sending score. We seem to hit the promotions folder a decent amount (maybe the IP problem above) and even a lot of their emails hit my spam or promotions folder (whether they be transactional or marketing) which isn't a great sign when trusting an ESP. Transactional email sequences would be a huge plus. Now that Twilio owns SenGrid, having an integrated platform where you could see all our transactional emails together. Better reporting and split reporting between transactional and marketing emails. Read full review Likelihood to Renew It is the best, and perhaps only, email solution worth considering.
Read full review Usability Microsoft Exchange is well suited for inexperienced Messaging Admins and veterans alike. If you have no idea of the fundamentals of modern email (SMTP, mail headers, MX Records, SPF/DKIM, Encryption, etc.) and just need to get people's mailboxes and calendars the support they need, you can use it with confidence. If you are an old pro and want to leverage and dovetail your Powershell and AD with Exchange, you will be rewarded for your efforts.
Read full review It has the potential to be really cool. However, it feels as if it was created by developers for developers (and I work with developers, yet even for me the instrument was somewhat not easy to use - just read SendGrid's help manuals...) However, if you are into data and your way of thinking is more mathematical rather than lyrical, you'll enjoy this instrument
Read full review Reliability and Availability Exchange is setup with multiple servers behind load balancers to provide high availability.
Read full review Performance I would say it's the best email product I've experienced.
Read full review Support Rating 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.
Read full review Twilio SendGrid Email API is everything we want it to be, and we have no reason to look for any other solution. Features and pricing match exactly what we need. As developers for SaaS products, Twilio SendGrid Email API provides a great service. I hope that they stay this way and don't inflate the service with too many marketing oriented features, because there are other tools for that and Twilio SendGrid Email API is a API for sending email first and foremost.
Read full review Implementation Rating 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.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Most of the 365 subscriptions include desktop and cloud versions of Microsoft programs. These "traditional" software may be installed on a desktop computer and used offline without any problems, as long as you have a working Internet connection. Because so many firms still transmit each others file's developed locally using these applications, despite this being an era of cloud computing– there is a strong case for keeping desktop versions available.
Read full review If given a choice between the two, I would pick
Mandrill over SendGrid.
Mandrill is slightly more expensive but the data & reports that you receive from it make the service worth it.
Mandrill lets you export reports over a period of time, view the actual content of emails that you've dispatched and the customer support is way better. If you can bear the slightly higher cost,
Mandrill would be a better choice.
Read full review Scalability The only time Exchange has failed us is when we did something to cause the failure.
Read full review Return on Investment 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. Read full review Our clients experience significant ROI from their web forms - without receipt of forms, many of them would not still be in business. As a solution for clients' sites, we find SendGrid is a fast installation and a 1 stop problem solver, saving us man-hours. Read full review ScreenShots