Microsoft Exchange vs. Zoom Workplace

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Microsoft Exchange
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft 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
Zoom Workplace
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Zoom Workplace, Zoom’s open collaboration platform with an AI Companion, empowers teams to be more productive, and strengthen customer relationships throughout the customer lifecycle with Zoom’s Business Services for sales, marketing, and customer experience teams, including Zoom Contact Center.
$16.99
per month per user
Pricing
Microsoft ExchangeZoom Workplace
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Add-On Zoom Translated Captions
$5
per month per license
Pro
$16.99
per month per user
Business
$21.99
per month per user
Add-On - Conference Room Connector
$499
per year
Basic
Free
Enterprise
Custom
Add-On - Zoom Whiteboard
starting at $2.49
per month per user
Add-On - Large Meetings
starting at $600
per year
Add-On - Cloud Storage
starting at $120
per year
Add-On Audio Conferencing
starting at $1200
per year
Add-On Zoom Phone Power Pack
Starting at $300
per year per user
Add-On - Quality of Service Subscription
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft ExchangeZoom Workplace
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsDiscount available for annual billing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Microsoft ExchangeZoom Workplace
Considered Both Products
Microsoft Exchange

No answer on this topic

Zoom Workplace
Chose Zoom Workplace
Zoom Workplace as far as feature set for cost is beyond the offerings that other vendors have.
Chose Zoom Workplace
I've used many other collaboration solutions, primarily WebEx. It is very feature-rich, and has the price tag to go with it. For some companies it probably makes sense. But for probably 95%, Zoom has all of the features they'll need at a very good price point.
Chose Zoom Workplace
We have used both of these solutions. In our case, both were locally hosted, so we had to maintain the platform that ran the solution ourselves. That need is completely gone with Zoom. Running those solutions on in-house computers was relatively easy, but interfacing with …
Features
Microsoft ExchangeZoom Workplace
Secure Email Gateway
Comparison of Secure Email Gateway features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Exchange
7.3
84 Ratings
14% below category average
Zoom Workplace
-
Ratings
Anti-malware6.567 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizability8.079 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Loss Protection8.368 Ratings00 Ratings
Threat Detection6.566 Ratings00 Ratings
Sandboxing7.444 Ratings00 Ratings
End-to-End Encryption6.767 Ratings00 Ratings
Management Tools8.080 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance & Compatibility of Online Events Software
Comparison of Performance & Compatibility of Online Events Software features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Exchange
-
Ratings
Zoom Workplace
8.4
1005 Ratings
1% above category average
High quality audio00 Ratings8.7997 Ratings
High quality video00 Ratings8.8996 Ratings
Screen Sharing
Comparison of Screen Sharing features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Exchange
-
Ratings
Zoom Workplace
8.6
1004 Ratings
2% above category average
Desktop sharing00 Ratings9.31003 Ratings
Online Meetings / Events
Comparison of Online Meetings / Events features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Exchange
-
Ratings
Zoom Workplace
8.6
1010 Ratings
3% above category average
Calendar integration00 Ratings8.8922 Ratings
Meeting initiation00 Ratings9.1984 Ratings
Record meetings / events00 Ratings9.1959 Ratings
Online Events Collaboration
Comparison of Online Events Collaboration features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Exchange
-
Ratings
Zoom Workplace
8.4
873 Ratings
3% above category average
Live chat00 Ratings9.0855 Ratings
Online Events Security
Comparison of Online Events Security features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Exchange
-
Ratings
Zoom Workplace
8.8
863 Ratings
12% above category average
User authentication00 Ratings8.8757 Ratings
Participant roles & permissions00 Ratings8.6828 Ratings
Cloud PBX
Comparison of Cloud PBX features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Exchange
-
Ratings
Zoom Workplace
7.9
237 Ratings
5% below category average
Hosted PBX00 Ratings8.0115 Ratings
Multi-level Interactive Voice Response (IVR)00 Ratings7.7141 Ratings
Directory of employee names00 Ratings8.2220 Ratings
Call Management
Comparison of Call Management features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Exchange
-
Ratings
Zoom Workplace
8.0
266 Ratings
5% below category average
Answering rules00 Ratings8.5194 Ratings
Call recording00 Ratings8.6243 Ratings
Call park00 Ratings7.7151 Ratings
Call screening00 Ratings7.8168 Ratings
Message alerts00 Ratings8.0212 Ratings
Business SMS/External Messaging00 Ratings8.0135 Ratings
Voicemail Transcription00 Ratings7.7186 Ratings
Mobile apps
Comparison of Mobile apps features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Exchange
-
Ratings
Zoom Workplace
8.7
294 Ratings
1% above category average
Mobile app for iOS00 Ratings8.6260 Ratings
Mobile app for Android00 Ratings8.8180 Ratings
Unified Communications Platform and Collaboration
Comparison of Unified Communications Platform and Collaboration features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Exchange
-
Ratings
Zoom Workplace
8.5
251 Ratings
3% above category average
Centralized communications management00 Ratings8.7201 Ratings
Team messaging00 Ratings8.6217 Ratings
Team document sharing00 Ratings8.4194 Ratings
Call and meeting analytics00 Ratings8.3204 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Microsoft ExchangeZoom Workplace
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Score 9.2 out of 10
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Broadvoice | GoContact
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Avanan
Avanan
Score 9.8 out of 10
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)
Score 8.6 out of 10
Enterprises
Avanan
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Score 9.8 out of 10
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)
Score 8.6 out of 10
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User Ratings
Microsoft ExchangeZoom Workplace
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(102 ratings)
8.8
(1019 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(4 ratings)
7.7
(25 ratings)
Usability
8.5
(6 ratings)
8.8
(45 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
9.9
(12 ratings)
6.2
(46 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
6.3
(11 ratings)
Configurability
7.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(13 ratings)
Ease of integration
5.0
(1 ratings)
7.3
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.7
(3 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
9.2
(8 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
5.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.0
(1 ratings)
7.3
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft ExchangeZoom Workplace
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
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Zoom
Zoom Workplace is ideal for many businesses, more so because it saves money by uniting different functionalities into one app - meetings, messaging, phone, and scheduling. The tool keeps teams connected thanks to the amazing collaboration and communication features. In addition, Zoom Workplace is helpful for businesses with a hybrid team, thanks to its effortless connections.
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Pros
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.
Read full review
Zoom
  • It offers amazing unified collaboration features, including Zoom whiteboard, Zoom team chat, and integrated mail and calendar.
  • Zoom is a great meeting solution, with features like smart recording, breakout rooms, and personalized video and audio, making it a functional business meeting tool.
  • It is equipped with amazing AI features that help summarize meetings, generate content, and provide quick catch-up, allowing one to ask AI questions without interrupting meetings.
Read full review
Cons
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.
Read full review
Zoom
  • I don't think there is any malfunction in their solution; it's extremely convenient to use, be it creating a meeting invite, adding people, sending any extra stuff to them. It's quick, and this is the only tool that works seamlessly even on Androids.
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Likelihood to Renew
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.
Read full review
Zoom
We're sticking with Zoom for the foreseeable future--given its compelling feature set, ease of use, and advanced technology, there's just no other competition to be excited about. Plus it's a Gartner-recognized industry leader, so it's a rather easy choice.
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Usability
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.
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Zoom
Zoom is made for the non tech office. It has features that can be made to do what you need to run things on a day to day basis. Immediately we we able to get meetings going with remote employees. The ability to be able to add smartphone connected people was a big plus. Zoom met our needs at the time.
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Reliability and Availability
Microsoft
Exchange is setup with multiple servers behind load balancers to provide high availability.
Read full review
Zoom
There have been less than a handful of outages during our two years with Zoom, and whenever there was one, an email informing us of the outage went out immediately, and they had the issue resolved shortly thereafter.
Read full review
Performance
Microsoft
I would say it's the best email product I've experienced.
Read full review
Zoom
Zoom has among the best performance of any video conference platform, as I've mentioned several times. Besides that, their Chat platform works great, and their back end always runs smooth. It's unfortunate that reporting can now only be done by one month at a time, but nonetheless, it only takes a second to run any kind of Zoom report, whether it's an attendee report, Poll results, a user report, a list of meetings from the past month, etc.
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Support Rating
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.
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Zoom
Because I got a response right away, and was assigned one specific individual to work with me from the beginning to the resolution. I had an actual email address and direct contact with this person without having to start over and over every time I contacted Zoom - this singular individual remained attentive and was well informed on the subject matter and quite able to resolve my needs.
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Implementation Rating
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.
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Zoom
If you receive any pushback from higher ups, point to any of the various positive reviews like this one. Or show Zoom's excellent Gartner report, or articles describing Zoom's partnership with Sequoia capital. It's not difficult to show how Zoom is a trustworthy industry leader with best-in-class technology.
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Alternatives Considered
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.
Read full review
Zoom
Teams do not stack up to Zoom at all. My clients use Teamas because it is a corporate policy, and they use it most of the time between employees of the same company. It makes sense for this, NOT for me. Every time a Teams meeting is launched, since I am not part of this company, the meeting is laborious, the interface is not as nice as Zoom's, sharing documents is more difficult, etc., etc. Zoom is superior to Teams in every way!!!
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Zoom
The billing and price model is really fair for so many functions that they offer, our remote work requires each of the features that Zoom offers, so accepting payment for a tool like this is the least we can do. I like that billing arrives on time and that they offer opportunities and payment times.
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Scalability
Microsoft
The only time Exchange has failed us is when we did something to cause the failure.
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Zoom
Because the Basic licenses are completely free, and because it's very easy to configure and install Zoom, and because anyone can join Zoom from a link without needing an account, scaling is a Breeze. There are absolutely no roadblocks. My company keeps adding more Zoom Pro license every week since it's so in demand. We were able to convert users from several different platforms onto Zoom with no trouble at all.
Read full review
Professional Services
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Zoom
Zoom is perfect for our business. We use it to video chat with prospective clients. The name recognition alone gives us credibility and it is very easy to screen share and send content out.
Read full review
Return on Investment
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.
Read full review
Zoom
  • We are still early in our adoption of Zoom Workplace for business, so we don't really have any data to show cost savings.
  • The ability to take a call summary or meeting summary and add it to our practice management system have been remarkable. It's a quick copy/paste and it's in the system. Prior to this, we would have to scan in notes and save them into the system, if it even got that far. Mostly, attorneys would be searching through legal pads for the notes of a previous meeting or phone call.
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ScreenShots

Zoom Workplace Screenshots

Screenshot of an example collaboration feature. These are used to:
Transcribe, summarize, and capture action items with AI Companion from your in-person meetings.
Improve visibility and alignment by sharing emails to chats
Elevate a chat to a meeting or phone call to get to resolution faster. 
Continue meeting conversations and easily access shared information in Team Chat.Screenshot of an example of Zoom's productivity features. These features are used to:
Improve productivity across teams, locations, and time zones.
Organize project deliverables and assets in a centralized, collaborative doc.
Collaborate and map out projects visually on a whiteboard.
Jumpstart brainstorming sessions using AI and templates.
Gather valuable team input for well-informed decision-making with surveys and polls.
Stay on top of action items surfaced from across Zoom Workplace.Screenshot of some additional collaboration features. These are used to:
Optimize office experiences and in-person time.
Make sure remote participants feel connected with what is going on in the room.
Collaborate across remote and in-person teams on a virtual whiteboard.
Easily know and identify who is in the room and who is speaking in a Zoom Room with smart name tags and smart speaker tags.Screenshot of an example of Zoom's AI companion. This feature is used to streamline communications, improve productivity, increase employee engagement, and optimize flexible work.Screenshot of additional AI Companion features. The tools is also used to:
Launch internal campaigns.
Deliver visually rich updates with live streams, billboards, and videos.
Ensure critical comms are never missed with read receipts.
Send updates to deskless workers with Workvivo TV and Chat.