Microsoft Exchange vs. Zimbra by Synacor

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

Zimbra is great for an email system for a medium or large organization with appropriate IT staffing. The system is easy to use for end-users, and has a fantastic web interface. Unfortunately, it is overly complex, when considering staffing requirements and price, when compared with Office 365 or Google Apps for smaller organizations. For other education customers, it is hard to compete with Microsoft and Google providing their services for "Free" now though

Incentivized

• 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

• Filter emails with specific information required.
• Very good storage capacity.
• Has a mobile version and another web.
• It has a friendly and modern graphic interface.
• It is compatible with all operating systems.

• 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

• Zimbra's mobile application leaves much to be desired; it is its weakest point.
• This forces the use of third-party applications on smartphones, which only offer a more or less complete integration with the ActiveSync protocol.
• Zimbra allows for an on-premise scenario, which is not for everyone, especially considering that the trend nowadays is to outsource email; in any case, it also offers this alternative.
• The cost of Zimbra as a SaaS solution comes too close to that of more widely adopted competing options.
• Zimbra lacks a robust integrated chat system, which its competitors offer.
• It lacks AI integration.

Incentivized

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

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

The web usability of the solution is adequate, with all functions integrated into a single interface. However, it is important to note that in the desktop environment, it lacks its own application and relies on ActiveSync synchronization with reference solutions like Outlook or Thunderbird. Some features, such as the briefcase, will be excluded. The same happens on smartphones.It is also common for competing solutions to include integrated chat or video call tools, which Zimbra lacks. These shortcomings are among the most frequently requested by users.

Incentivized

Exchange is setup with multiple servers behind load balancers to provide high availability.

Incentivized

I would say it's the best email product I've experienced.

Incentivized

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

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

Overall, we were satisfied with the implementation. We perhaps should have spent more time consulting with Zimbra or others regarding best practices but as we got to know the system better we were able to make changes relatively easily after the fact.

Incentivized

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

Zimbra is a significantly cheaper option than one of the Microsoft solutions, such as Exchange. It is able to run in a free environment, as it is in the case of Linux. It offers the advantages of a powerful mail manager, such as indexed searches and the integration of contacts and notes, all in one platform. It is constantly updated and the operation of its connection in mobile equipment is remarkable and very efficient. Additionally, it is able to easily integrate with Outlook solutions with its connector, which brings all the benefits of Zimbra to the user under the interface known as "mail manager." So far, I have been using Zimbra for several years and I have not missed my previous work platforms.

Incentivized

The only time Exchange has failed us is when we did something to cause the failure.

Incentivized

• 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

• Zimbra is a cheaper email service than other similar platforms and in my point of view offers better features, that's why the company migrated services to this platform several years ago and without a doubt, it has been the best investment.
• Zimbra has a more user-friendly interface for employees, this has improved response times to external customers of the company.
• The implementation of Zimbra in the company motivated the IT engineering department to make improvements in open source to adapt it to the needs of the company.

Incentivized