Zimbra vs. Microsoft Office 365

E-mail is crucial to the success of an organization, regardless of whether it is a small business or a large enterprise. While every email solution on the market has certain advantages, organizations need to choose one that fits well with their business requirements. Zimbra Collaboration Suite and Microsoft Office 365 are two reliable email solutions with a huge client base around the world. They have a user-friendly interface, but differ in several aspects that you need to know before making the final choice.




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Microsoft Office 365 is commercial software and services that offer a set of Microsoft products: Microsoft Office, Microsoft Server (including Exchange Server, SharePoint Server, and Lync Server)

Zimbra Collaboration Server is free software - email server, calendars and more. In addition to email and calendar, it provides file sharing, tasks, contacts, social networks, document management, and simplified administrative controls in the webmail user interface. ZCS also provides mobility and synchronization with desktop client applications. The server is deployed on Linux and Mac.

1. Code setting

Zimbra is open source software. This means that organizations can have more control over postal operations, as there is always the possibility to customize the code in accordance with various business requirements. Office 365, on the other hand, is closed source software, since only Microsoft is allowed to make any code changes if necessary.

2. Platform or device support

Zimbra supports Android, iOS and all leading web platforms. Also, Zimbra Open Source + Zextras Suite supports Microsoft Outlook and Windows Mail through the Exchange ActiveSync protocol, but does not support Exchange Web Services. Office 365, on the other hand, supports iOS, Windows and leading web platforms, but is only compatible with the limited release of Android, starting with Kitkat 4.4.

3. Pricing

Zimbra wins the competition when it comes to pricing, as users can first upgrade to a trial version called Open Source before continuing to pay for network release. There is no “freemium account” in Office 365, and users need to pay a minimum monthly subscription of $ 4 from day one to access the range of services. Further purchase of Zimbra is on average 50% cheaper.

4. Features

Office 365 includes a set of Microsoft desktop applications, hosted versions of Microsoft server products such as Exchange, Sharepoint, and Lync. Zimbra, in addition to e-mail and calendars, also offers many features such as file sharing, document management, simplified administrative controls and an excellent AJAX-based user interface. In addition, Zimbra also offers useful features, such as cross-platform synchronization, platform search and email sorting, which Office 365 does not.

5. Scalability

Zimbra has an excellent score for every aspect of deployment and scalability, be it file collection requirements, user policy management, room parameters, cloud availability and security. Office 365, on the other hand, is specifically designed as a cloud solution with decent cloud storage and mailbox sizes. But still, Zimbra has more opportunities to scale than Exchange, using the same configuration. However, Exchange also has several background processes that perform tasks in the background, for example, database optimization to reduce IOPS.

Total

Comparing Zimbra and Office 365, it should be understood that these software systems must be chosen for the specific objectives of your business. For some, Zimbra will be more convenient, which provides more control over the software, while others need the cloud capabilities of Microsoft.