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Microsoft Exchange

Microsoft Exchange

Overview

What is Microsoft Exchange?

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).

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Recent Reviews
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

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  • Data Loss Protection (66)
    8.6
    86%
  • Management Tools (78)
    8.4
    84%
  • Threat Detection (65)
    7.9
    79%
  • Customizability (76)
    7.9
    79%
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Pricing

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What is Microsoft Exchange?

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).

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  • No setup fee

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  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Product Demos

Microsoft Lync Server 2010 - Convergent Crew Dispatch System v1.1 Demo

YouTube

How to understand Microsoft Exchange Online Mail Flow

YouTube

How to Configure & Migrate Hybrid Exchange and Office 365 | Full Step by step Demo | Video 1

YouTube
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Features

Secure Email Gateway

Secure email gateway software prevents the transmission of emails that contravene company policy or contain malware, phishing attacks, spam or other unwanted emails

8.1
Avg 8.4
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Product Details

What is Microsoft Exchange?

Microsoft Exchange Video

What is Microsoft Exchange online?

Microsoft Exchange Integrations

Microsoft Exchange Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

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).

Reviewers rate Data Loss Protection highest, with a score of 8.6.

The most common users of Microsoft Exchange are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(599)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-18 of 18)
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Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Maintaining different user's mailbox's was difficult in the past now that the Microsoft Exchange online comes with robust 99.9% uptime with Outlook with office 365 bundle we all can sync all our emails files everything anywhere any device with just one login. Where I manage user's in my project and its pricing is very flexible per user per month like subscription so any user leaving or joining the project can be easily scaled.
  • robust uptime for all apps including outlook one drive with email protection filtering and anti- spam subscriptions
  • integration with Mac and Linux can be improved
In my production environment we manage a very big client and its user's use Office 365 so from an admin perspective the dashboard is robust and where we manage user's lost file backup's and any issue's with adding or removing user's form directory using Office 365.

Outside the production environment we use Microsoft Exchange everyday. Its email functionality with integrated calendar and Teams or Webex meeting scheduling add-in's and calender updates whenever there is a meeting prior to be more productive. Great integration features.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
With Microsoft Exchange, we manage all the organization's mail. It allows us to have policies to control malicious mail, control the size of each user's mailbox, create automatic mail forwarding to other users, track or trace incoming or outgoing mail, and block domains related to SPAM. Integrates with Active Directory or LDAP.
  • Mailbox management
  • Traceability of incoming or outgoing mail
  • Malicious domain blocking
  • Updates or patches are a bit difficult
Microsoft Exchange is very suitable for corporate environments given its high integration with other products (such as Active Directory). The product is also suitable for any size company. It also requires having personnel in the information technology department trained to administer or support the product or to carry out updates.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Exchange is used extensively within the organization for email, calendaring, and resource bookings such as rooms and conferencing facilities. We operate in Hybrid mode because we have both on-premise and cloud presences. Therefore our source of authority(SOA) comes from the on-premise Active Directory (AD). This makes life a little more complicated as we need a process to connect both presences and keep them in synchronization which is done with a service called Azure AD Connect. We will eventually remove our on-premise Exchange service and move completely to Exchange Online but because of other dependencies, we cannot do this at the moment.
  • 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.
  • Exchange Online has a limitation of only being able to send a message to 500 recipients within a 24-hour period. Bulk emails may therefore require batching.
  • Initially, provisioning users can take a little while due to mailboxes being created and policies applied. It would be advisable to give a least 24 hours.
  • PowerShell skills are recommended to perform bulk administrative operations. They may be slow and tedious from the Administrative Console.
Mailbox delegation is used extensively so that personal assistants can manage the email/diaries of high-profile members of staff. The ability to convert a mailbox from regular to shared is also beneficial when a person is on leave or absent for a period of time as it frees up a license. As Exchange is so accessible, it can be used as a filing cabinet which is not what it is designed to be. This can lead to large mailboxes which can lead to users losing the information within them.
June 07, 2022

Review

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
At previous employers, I also used Microsoft Exchange, and it has always performed admirably and provided solid, dependable email access. We prefer on-premise to hosted Exchange because it gives us complete control over both the architecture of our Exchange environment and the Exchange servers themselves. VMWare ESXi is also used to virtualize all of our Exchange servers. Microsoft Exchange is simply the best email solution available, and the on-premise version of that product is the best.
  • User management is simple. Creating, deleting, and moving mailboxes and distribution lists is simple.
  • The Active Directory integration is excellent. Once again, this is the best of the best.
  • Mobile device integration is possible. Integration with Microsoft Outlook is quick, easy, and effective.
  • Troubleshooting problems can be difficult. Even for seasoned Exchange Admins, some of the issues that arise are not particularly intuitive.
  • Exchange cost is costly, both in terms of hardware and, more importantly, in terms of software.
  • It's not something you want a novice to set up or manage. You'll need administrators who are familiar with Microsoft Exchange.
For many small businesses, on-premise Microsoft Exchange may be prohibitively expensive. Office 365 is a hosted Exchange option for small businesses that want the power of Exchange but can't afford the costs of installing and maintaining an on-premise Exchange instance. Microsoft Exchange is ideal for medium- to large-sized businesses. It's sturdy, powerful, and dependable. If you want the best email in the industry, Microsoft Exchange is the way to go. In this regard, there is literally no better product on the market.
Donald Mascola | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Microsoft Exchange is our corporate email communications system of choice. Allows our multinational workforce to communicate seamlessly and share files of all types. It also integrates well with all other Microsoft products, particularly the Teams application. Simply put it is the gold standard for email platforms.
  • Ease of management
  • Active Directory Integration
  • Great security features
  • Easy mailbox management
  • User comfort and familiarity are unmatched
  • Would love to be able to shrink database size.
  • Better built in spam filtering capabilities.
Simply put, Microsoft Exchange is the gold standard for your corporate email backbone needs. There is a reason for its incredibly large martketshare worldwide. Would not use anything else for email.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Microsoft Exchange is used as one of the key services of the Office suite that we use. We mainly use it for email, and in integration with all the other Microsoft services we use.
  • Easy Integration with Microsoft products
  • Reliable Email Service
  • Great mobile and desktop app support
  • Integration with newer Microsoft products like Teams could be less buggy
  • More support integrating with non-Microsoft products
  • Feature synchronization with overlapping Microsoft products like Teams (e.g. calendar)
As an Enterprise service, Microsoft has done well to cater to the business needs of organizations with its strong suite of products that Microsoft Exchange is a part of. It is a relatively user friendly, reliable, and secure service that integrates will with other leading Microsoft Enterprise services like Active Directory. This makes it a very easy choice for any business organization to cover all their needs.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We currently use it as the primary tool to manage all our email addresses, distribution lists and shared mailboxes in our organization. When our parent company bought us, it helped manage all the migrated mailboxes from our Lime Energy Tenant to their own tenant. We have a hybrid setup where we have a local Microsoft Exchange that syncs to the cloud and also syncs to our On-Premise Active Directory. This serves as the central management of mailboxes etc.
  • Ease of Mailbox Management
  • Ease of managing all Shared mailboxes and Distribution list
  • Great to to manage Exchange Global Rules and Alerts
  • Page Load times
This is well suited if you need to check the status of newly created mailboxes, converting mailboxes to a shared mailbox, managing distribution lists.
Jeffrey Rudacille | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use [Microsoft] Exchange (both on premise and online, in a hybrid setup at this point) for an organization wide email and communication solution. It is the basis for the majority of communication both internally and with external clients and customers. It allows all of our devices, both mobile and otherwise, to have on centralized location for most of our companies communication needs.
  • [Microsoft] Exchange is the gold standard for Corporate email. It is flawless in maintaining and delivering email to all of our users. It has been around so long the thing it does the best is just work. Most of the flaws and bugs are already out of the system.
  • The GUI management tools for MS Exchange, whether Online or on-premise, are fairly well documented and for the most part fairly easy to use.
  • [Microsoft] Exchange gives you the option to have an all in one box solution. Its not recommended but for smaller shops its a nice alternative to a more extensive setup that requires multiple servers.
  • If sized correctly, MS Exchanges is fine tuned out of the box to be fairly quick and responsive as to email delivery.
  • [Microsoft] Exchange is best used with MS's Outlook Email client. Trying to use it with third party options, including mobile possibilities, limits some of the capability a use may have.
  • If an on-premise [Microsoft] Exchange server has an issue and data corruption takes place, the method in which MS uses mail logging to restore a system can be overly complicated and take an extensive amount of time.
  • If the admin need you have is not included in the Graphic interface one has to move to using Powershell to get some basic tasks done. This is a bit cumbersome for part time Exchange admins.
  • Setting up Exchange to be fault tolerant can be a cumbersome process.
[Microsoft] Exchange is well suited for any organization that uses or plans on using Microsoft products as part of their offering. Almost all versions of Office come with the Outlook client and that sets up the expectation that those organizations will also use Exchange, whether Online or On-Premise, for their service side needs. In addition it is used so widely in corporations that finding support is much easier than some lesser known situations so its safe to use even in smaller shops where full time IT is not on staff. If your business is one that focuses on Google or open source products, trying to shoe horn Exchange into your environment is probably not the best choice as it would needlessly complicate your infrastructure.
Jacob Klein | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Microsoft Exchange is used at our organization for email and communications. We use it for scheduling meetings and maintaining our meeting room spaces as well. The entire organization is using it across all our departments. Email is used on desktops, laptops, mobile devices, and even touch screens across our buildings for digital signage in our meeting rooms.
  • Reliable platform for email
  • secure email system
  • able to serve thousands of users with minimal infrastructure resources
  • Provide gui admin functions that mirror powershell commands
Microsoft Exchange is well suited for the organization that runs Microsoft Active Directory Services. The integration with Active Directory makes this well suited for any organization that also has staff with MS knowledge and skillsets to manage an Exchange environment. It may not make sense to install Exchange if you don't have the ability to host an on premise exchange server. If you don't have the proper environment to support the investment, then it may make more sense to use Microsoft 365.
April 08, 2021

Exchange Overview

Benjamin Davis | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We actually use a hybrid approach at the university. We generate our mailboxes and other resources onsite and then sync them with O365 to provide users with access from anywhere. Our contacts and distribution lists still reside on-site only and as email comes in it is redirected from our location.
  • Now that it has hybrid flexibility it can be used for many different needs.
  • Exchange still has the easiest interface in the business for configuration.
  • It allows you to manage large amounts of users with relative ease.
  • It can still tend to be pretty resource intensive.
  • The connection of the hybrid setup and migration could be a little clearer.
I think the usage of this product really depends on the size of the company involved. If you are still considered a small to medium business then I would still go for a full O365 setup. If you are a large company looking for added security and flexibility then Microsoft Exchange really starts to shine.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Microsoft Exchange was used across all 3 of our corporate branches. This made it possible for all emails to be hosted in a central location for staff across continents to access.
  • Microsoft Exchange offers a Desktop Client called Outlook to manage emails, calendars & contacts
  • Microsoft Exchange offers a feature to have staff's mailboxes, calendars & contacts shared when given permission to rest of the team
  • Microsoft Exchange offers a Public Folder mailbox location for the entire office team to access
  • Microsoft Exchange should offer an option to spam/filter out junk emails
  • Microsoft Exchange is currently missing a shared Calendar feature that will allow for reminder notifications
  • Microsoft Exchange should provide an option for the office team to fill out group surveys or event sign ups
Microsoft Exchange is very well suited for larger organizations that have offices spread across the globe. This way all staff can still access their mailboxes from any where. But for smaller individual offices, it may be more advantageous to just sign on to a web service to access email instead of Microsoft Exchange.
Kyle Naidoo | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Across the whole organization. It works well and addresses communication.
  • Active sync
  • Group dist list creation
  • Manage permissions
  • Manage space
  • Mail relays could be easier to navigate to.
  • Easier to create groups
  • One touch technology could be better.
Suited for all functions. No issues and works great. Could use one-touch to create and attach to default databases.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Microsoft Exchange across out whole company, spanning multiple sites. It enables us to effectively communicate and coordinate with calendar features across departments. Coupling Exchange with Outlook gives us a reliable platform for messaging. We make use of several third party applications which integrate seamlessly with Exchange and Outlook as well. Upgrades are fairly straightforward as are patches. We feel that we get a good benefit for the resources dedicated to this application.
  • Public folders are still supported and allow for effective handling of incoming requests.
  • Department level calendars allow for excellent coordination of schedules.
  • Better integration with cloud based mail would be welcome.
  • Native deduplication for mail databases would be a useful feature.
If you require on premises mail as we do there are few alternatives to Exchange in a business environment. Tight integration with Outlook makes training users fairly easy as Outlook is the de-facto leading mail client. Most businesses need an on premises SMTP server, and this fits the bill.
Where Exchange would be less appropriate would be a new company without a significant investment in on premises infrastructure and Active Directory. Using cloud based messaging would most likely be the best path forward for them, and the most forward looking.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We have used Microsoft Exchange (2016) in our company for more than 10 years. It's still on-premise. The problems we had with Exchange are rather small beauty flaws. With the DAG, Exchange is working fine and has e cluster functionality. It could be nice when you can do more with the GUI, but with Powershell skills there are no limits.
  • Easy user management.
  • Unlimited possibilities with Exchange Shell.
  • Failover possibility.
  • You can't use Exchange without Active Directory.
  • Message tracking is not that easy.
  • Installing updates can cause some problems.
Of course it's one of the best E-Mail Software you can use and it's fully integrated in the Office suit. Create Shared Mailboxes and Distribution Groups is done in a few clicks or in one row in the Exchange Shell.
Some settings can only be done in the Exchange Shell, so you need a little bit know how in Powershell.
Christopher Kaldenberg | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Microsoft Exchange as our primary method of email communication for internal business users, contact center agents, and for business-to-customer interactions.
  • Microsoft Exchange offers the best integration with Active Directory.
  • Microsoft Exchange offers a great web management interface for administrators.
  • Microsoft Exchange web services provide key functionality on how we integrate emails into ACD workgroup queues for customer support purposes.
  • Microsoft Exchange could use more canned mail filtering tools to block spam.
  • Microsoft Exchange should include it's own quarantine solution.
  • Microsoft Exchange requires external recipients to become Exchange mail contacts before you can add those recipients to a distribution group.
Microsoft Exchange is well suited for a business that can afford the pricing structure, as well as afford the additional costs to improve mail server security.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Microsoft Exchange is used as our e-mail, calendar, and task-management application. The entire organization uses it, we run two servers in a redundancy and failover configuration to maintain uptime. In the current environment, all businesses must have e-mail, and most should have shared calendars or other ways of scheduling meetings with multiple people. Exchange allows for that pretty seamlessly.
  • E-Mail: The primary function of Exchange, I'd argue, and it does it well right out of the box. There are a thousand ways to customize the way e-mail works - mail flow, rules for types of connections, group or shared boxes - but even with a minimal, almost default setup, e-mail works perfectly.
  • Shared Resources: Shared calendars, public folders, and rooms are a few of the resources you can add to Exchange for tracking. We prefer shard mailboxes rather than public folders in most cases, but Exchange supports both, which gives it some versatility.
  • Active Directory Integration: If you run Active Directory, Exchange is very easy to manage. Automatic rules can be set up for new users, group emails can be managed within AD instead of logging into Exchange, &c. And it means only one password.
  • Mobile Access: Users can access their email on their phones or via the web, which is especially useful for employees who travel. But even internally, it means users don't need an additional application to use most of Exchange's feature (although Outlook is extremely useful, too).
  • No Management App: Microsoft decided to most administration of Exchange to a web portal instead of a separate application like older editions. This does allow an admin to log in from anywhere, but it's not as clean as a dedicated app. For example, if a browser update breaks compatibility, you have to wait for a fix, whereas a native app would just work regardless of browser functionality.
  • Less GUI/More Powershell: There are a handful of things you cannot manage in the management web portal. They require Powershell commands. Powershell is useful in many cases, but usually for advanced features, not regular, every day type things like running reports.
  • Cost: Exchange is not an inexpensive product, and with the licensing model, the more users you have, the more expensive it becomes.
Exchange is well suited for just about every business, except perhaps the smallest (in which case Office 365, which is essentially a hosted Exchange implementation, would probably be more cost effective). It's extremely scalable, flexible, and still easy to admin and maintain. It's also an industry standard with many experts out there, and tons of documentation in case you run into issues.

The only scenario I can really think of where Exchange would be inappropriate would be a sole proprietor or two- to three-person small business, where maybe personal e-mails would be acceptable. Or, as I mentioned before, some place where an on-site server may make less sense, so a hosted solution like Office 365 would be better (perhaps you have poor Internet service).
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Microsoft Exchange throughout the organization for email, calendar, and contact management. Exchange also handles the scheduling of our shared resources, such as our conference rooms. By utilizing Exchange, we can see the availability of conference rooms on any given day and at any given time, which greatly improves our ability to schedule meetings with other co-workers and avoid scheduling conflicts.
  • Resource Scheduling
  • Publishing Availability
  • Active Directory Integration
  • User Experience in Web Access Client
  • User Mailbox Management
  • Message Recall
Exchange is great for integrating active directory accounts and for providing a simplified way to book shared resources. I think resource booking and the sharing of availability information across an organization are Exchange's strongest capabilities from a user's perspective. The administration of Exchange can be a little challenging, but the benefit to users makes it worthwhile.
Kurt Ferguson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Microsoft Exchange being used by the entire organization. Our entire email infrastructure is Microsoft Exchange, including alerts and notifications. Our current system is Microsoft Exchange 2010, which is on-premise. We are in the process of upgrading to Microsoft Exchange 2016, which will also be on-premise. We have it deployed in multiple data centers for redundancy. It provides dependable, reliable email for the entire company, across a wide variety of devices. We also have Exchange access on all of our mobile phones, which is managed by Airwatch MDM. I also used Exchange at my previous employers, and it has always worked very well and provided solid, dependable email access. We prefer on-premise to hosted, as it gives us absolute control of both the architecture of our Exchange environment, as well as very granular control over the Exchange servers themselves. All of our Exchange servers on virtualized in VMWare ESXi, as well. Exchange is simply the best email solution available, and on-premise is the best version of that product.
  • Integration with mobile devices. It's fast, simple, and effective
  • Integration with Microsoft Outlook. There's no better product in the business if you use Microsoft Office, period.
  • Simple user management. It's easy to create, delete, and move mailboxes & distribution lists.
  • Excellent active directory integration. Again, best of breed here.
  • Cost. Exchange is expensive, both in terms of hardware costs and especially software costs.
  • Complexity. It is not something that you have a novice setup or administer. You need admins trained in Microsoft Exchange.
  • Problems can be difficult to troubleshoot. Some problems that pop up are not especially intuitive, even for seasoned Exchange Admins.
Microsoft is very well suited for medium to large businesses. It is robust, powerful, and reliable. If you want the best email in the business, you want Microsoft Exchange. There is literally no better product out there in this regard.

It may be cost prohibitive for on-premise Exchange for many small businesses. Office 365 is a hosted Exchange option that is a good alternative for small businesses that still want the power of Exchange, but cannot afford the costs of installing and maintaining an on-premise instance of Exchange.
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