Sophos Email vs. Zimbra by Synacor

The Sophos email solution is a good fit for my organization which is a mid-size resort with 200 users. Sophos email has revealed unwanted emails that were getting through our built in Microsoft email security scanning and policies so having this extra layer was a no brainier. With that we were able to focus on the bad stuff and even tweak our products with this information from Sophos email.

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

• We could customize it to have a certain level of workflow. We manage to enforce certain email (based on key-phrases) to be quarantined before send it to the recipient. And the email needs to be approved (manually) before being released.
• For certain type (using regex) of email, we will encrypt it if it's sent outside our organization domain.
• Scalable

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.

• I would love to see tips integrated into the user interface from the management side to allow for easier dissection of email headers. This would allow lower level admins that may work at smaller companies to better understand the information presented.

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

It was easy to use and easy to implement. You don't need previous knowledge on the products, after we got this up and running, it took us hours to put everything together. The transition was easy and seamless.

Incentivized

It's mostly great and for policies and features, it does everything we would ask it to and more. The only thing keeping it from being a 10 is the lack of granularity in the reporting, which is actually an issue within Sophos Central as a whole. The ability to drill down from dashboards into accurate, detailed data would be very helpful at times.

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

Support is slow to respond. They call back outside of normal business hours despite clearly being advised when they should call. They try to BS you that the platform is working properly although there is hard evidence to the contrary. Once you get to senior level of support they agree that the product is incapable of performing properly in its current iteration.

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

I have only tried Sophos Email, and I find it to be a very useful tool, as it protects against information leakage such as fraudulent emails, cloud sandboxing and quarantine, which are essential functions and the product works excellent.

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

• Sophos Email has been protecting our users, including the administrative branch, who are the target of attacks most frequently.
• Every month Sophos Email stops about 100,000 malicious emails. We calculate that if these attacks have saved the company time, it prevents us from having a lot of support staff to attend to the cases.

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