Zimbra vs Microsoft Exchange
| Feature Group | Feature | Zimbra | Microsoft Exchange 2007 | Commentary, feedback and remarks |
| Web-based Messaging | AJAX-based end-user interface | Good | Good | |
| Automatic Web client updates | Good | Good | ||
| Online end user help | Good | Good | ||
| Themes & user personalization | Good | Fair | Exchange offers choice of a couple of options; requires browser refresh after selection | |
| Re-branding support | Good | Poor | Ability to re-brand (skin) the Web application seriously limited in Exchange | |
| Web offline access | Good | Fair | Local repository of user data that is available even when user is not connected; 2-way sync on connection | |
| Integrated Web search | Good | Poor | Ability for end-users to search the Web is a feature not supported in Exchange | |
| Keywords-based ad serving | Good | Poor | Ability to display ads based on message content is a feature not supported in Exchange | |
| Support for banner ads | Good | Poor | Ability to place banner ads in the Web client is a feature not supported by Exchange | |
| Offline Client | Multiple OS Support | Good | Poor | Zimbra works well with Linux, Apple, and Windows OSes whereas Microsoft is Windows centric |
| Large mailbox | Good | Poor | Ability to support large mailboxes without affecting stability and performance | |
| Same user experience on web and desktop | Good | Poor | Similar look and feel (as well as most functionality) for both web client and offline client is sadly lacking in Outlook | |
| Zimlets (Mash-up) functionality | Good | Fair | Outlook has limited ability to dynamically interact with internet/intranet applications and data sources | |
| Tasks | Good | Good | ||
| Docs | Good | Fair | While Exchange has Word/Notes, it is not as well integrated as Docs in ZCS | |
| Briefcase | Good | Good | Exchange has support for public folders, which is similar to briefcase in ZCS | |
| Good | Good | |||
| Address book | Good | Good | ||
| Calendar | Good | Good | ||
| Mobile Support | Mobile Web client | Good | Fair | XHTML client support in Zimbra is optimized to work with several phones including iPhone and Smartphone |
| J2ME Client | Fair | Poor | Zimbra’s downloadable mobile application (beta) provides rich experience and over-the-air data synchronization on Java enabled mobile devices | |
| Blackberry Support | Good | Good | Zimbra’s support for BES is similar to Exchange’s support for Blackberry devices | |
| iPhone Support | Good | Good | Both Zimbra and Exchange support native synchronization for iPhone | |
| Cross Application Features | Drag/drop with drag context | Good | Good | |
| Auto-complete addresses | Good | Good | ||
| Tagging | Good | Fair | Ability to quickly categorize messages, contacts or documents through Tags (user-defined names & colors) rudimentarily supported by Exchange in “Categories” | |
| HTML formatting | Good | Good | ||
| Spell check | Good | Good | ||
| Share with Internal users and groups | Good | Poor | ZCS allows end-users to share address books, calendars and documents securely over the Web with internal users and groups. The share can grant read and write access or be restricted to read access only | |
| Share with external users | Good | Poor | Ability to securely share calendars, address books or documents with external (non system users) is not supported by Exchange | |
| Share with public | Good | Poor | Ability to share calendars, address books or documents publicly is not supported by Exchange | |
| Multi-source address picker | Good | Fair | Ability to choose from users in shared Address Books is not supported in Exchange | |
| View as HTML option for attachments | Good | Poor | Number of attachment types that can be converted and viewed as HTML is limited in Exchange. Zimbra supports over 200 attachment types that can be rendered as HTML | |
| Keyboard navigation | Good | Fair | Basic keyboard navigation available in Exchange, much more sophisticated navigation possible without a mouse with ZCS | |
| Custom keyboard navigation shortcuts | Good | Poor | Ability to customize keyboard shortcuts for navigation not a feature Exchange supports | |
| Address Book | Contact Card view | Good | Good | |
| Create & manage contacts in Web browser | Good | Poor | Exchange OWA pops up a new window in order to create, edit or view contacts | |
| Contact List view with Preview Pane | Good | Good | ||
| Import/export contacts in CSV format | Good | Poor | Ability to import/export contacts is not a feature Exchange OWA supports. In order to avail of this feature, end-users must license Outlook. | |
| Import/export vCards | Good | Poor | Not a feature Exchange OWA supports. End-users must license Outlook to avail of this feature. | |
| Contacts printing | Good | Poor | Ability to print a single Contact or list of Contacts and see a print preview is not a feature Exchange supports | |
| Right-click Contact context menu | Good | Poor | With ZCS, right-clicking a Contact displays a menu of actions to take on the Contact (e.g. compose message, search for messages). In Exchange, this right-click option is limited to “Open”. | |
| Drag/drop Contact to mini-cal date to create appointment | Good | Poor | Ability to drag a Contact to a mini-calendar date to create an appointment with that Contact is not a feature Exchange supports | |
| Multiple Address Books per mailbox | Good | Good | ||
| Move/copy contacts across Address Books | Good | Good | ||
| Personal Distribution Lists (Group Lists) | Good | Poor | You cannot create or edit distribution lists in Contacts in Exchange OWA. To create distribution lists, you must use Outlook. | |
| Calendar | Personal scheduling | Good | Fair | In ZCS, end-users can click and drag a time-slot on the calendar to create a new appointment or meeting request. The feature is not supported in Exchange OWA |
| Group scheduling | Good | Good | ||
| Recurrences and recurrence exceptions | Good | Good | ||
| Create & manage Calendar Events in Web browser | Good | Poor | Exchange OWA pops up a new window in order to create, edit or view meeting requests or personal appointments | |
| Resource scheduling | Good | Good | ||
| Resource search by attributes | Good | Poor | Exchange does not categorize resources except “All Rooms”. ZCS supports search of other attributes including site, building, floor, and capacity | |
| Resource auto-respond | Good | Good | ||
| Calendar alerts | Good | Good | Both ZCS and Exchange supports the ability for end-users to set custom alerting schedules for each meeting or appointment | |
| Time zone adjustment | Good | Good | ||
| Per-appointment time zone | Good | Poor | ZCS supports the ability for users to set an explicit time zone for an appointment. Feature is not supported in Exchange OWA. | |
| Day, Week, Work Week, Month views | Good | Fair | Exchange OWA does not support monthly view of an end-user calendar | |
| Customizable first day of week | Good | Good | ||
| Drag appointment inline in calendar views | Good | Good | Ability to drag an appointment’s boundaries inline in calendar views | |
| Quick Accept, Tentative, Decline from calendar views | Good | Good | ||
| Faded display of declined appointments | Good | Poor | In ZCS, declined appointments are displayed faded so that the user remains aware of their occurrence. Exchange does not support this feature | |
| Calendar printing | Good | Poor | Exchange OWA does not support the ability for end-users to print their calendars | |
| Hover over appointment shows details | Good | Fair | Hovering over an appointment or meeting event in ZCS shows more fields – status (accepted, tentative), duration, and notes | |
| Mini-cal | Good | Good | ||
| Hover over date in mini-cal shows schedule | Good | Poor | Capability not supported by Exchange OWA | |
| Right-click mini-cal context menu | Good | Poor | Capability not supported by Exchange OWA | |
| Multiple calendars per mailbox | Good | Good | ||
| Free/busy inclusion by calendar | Good | Good | ||
| Subscribe to external calendars | Good | Poor | Ability to subscribe and view external (private or public) calendars is not supported by Exchange | |
| Publish calendar in iCal format | Good | Poor | Ability for end-users to publish their calendar in standards-based format is not supported by Exchange | |
| Multi-calendar overlay views | Good | Poor | Ability to selectively overlay multiple calendar views is not supported by Exchange OWA | |
| Schedule “thermometer” | Good | Fair | Ability to visually compare free-busy schedules of attendees is not supported in Exchange OWA. Exchange OWA, however, offers “Suggested Times” as part of its “Scheduling Assistant” | |
| Briefcase | Briefcase feature | Good | Good |
Exchange has public folders which is similar to Briefcase feature in ZCS |
| Integrated email attachment saving experience | Good | Not in Exchange | Add email attachments to a selected folder | |
| Documents | Rich Web Document authoring | Good | Not in Exchange | ZCS supports the ability to create rich Web Documents with WYSIWYG or HTML editing |
| Notebooks | Good | Not in Exchange | Integrated support to create notebooks as a Document repository and as a mechanism for navigating through Documents in ZCS. | |
| Multiple notebooks per mailbox | Good | Not in Exchange | ZCS offers the ability to create multiple notebooks in a single mailbox | |
| Domain-level Notebook option | Good | Not in Exchange | In ZCS, sharing can be configured so all users in a domain have the ability to create a notebook that is shared by everyone within that domain | |
| WikiWords | Good | Not in Exchange | “WikiWords” in ZCS Documents automatically create links to other Web Documents referenced by the WikiWords | |
| Links | Good | Not in Exchange | ZCS supports the ability to insert links in Documents to other Documents or to external URLs | |
| Attachments as Documents | Good | Not in Exchange | ZCS supports the ability to upload attachments as Documents | |
| Ajax Linking & Embedding (ALE) | Good | Not in Exchange | End-users have the ability in ZCS to embed rich content objects as independently editable items inside a Web Document | |
| Inline images | Good | Not in Exchange | End-users can embed an image as an ALE object inside a Web Document in ZCS | |
| Inline spreadsheets | Good | Not in Exchange | End-user can embed a spreadsheet as an ALE object inside a Document in ZCS | |
| Templates | Good | Not in Exchange | End-users can use templates for Documents (headers, footers, etc.) in ZCS | |
| Document print and print preview | Good | Not in Exchange | End-users can print shared documents in ZCS | |
| Tasks | Manage tasks | Good | Good | Manage tasks – set priority, keep track of progress and percentage completion |
| Share task lists | Good | Fair | ZCS allows users to share task lists with internal and external users and set permission levels. Exchange does not have public and private views | |
| Create task folders | Good | Good | Organize task lists into folders | |
| Sort tasks | Good | Good | ||
| Prioritize tasks | Good | Good | ||
| Tag tasks | Good | Good | Categorize tasks in Outlook which is similar to tagging in Zimbra | |
| Attachments to tasks | Good | Good | Ability to attach files to tasks | |
| Search | Server-side indexing | Good | Fair | Ability to index messages, contacts and tasks to get quick search results is extensive in ZCS and limited in Exchange 2007 |
| Multi-condition search | Good | Poor | Structured search limited to From, Message subject/body and category in Exchange 2007 | |
| Text-based search queries | Good | Poor | Syntactic text-based search (e.g. in:inbox) not supported by Exchange | |
| Advanced search | Good | Poor | ZCS enables users to search based on From, To/CC, Subject, Content, Dates (between), Domain, Folders, Size, Status, etc. Capability not available in Exchange | |
| Cross-context search | Good | Poor | Ability to search for a specific item type (Mail, Contacts, Documents, etc.) or across item types is not supported in Exchange | |
| Wildcard searches | Good | Poor | Ability to search using a prefix plus a wildcard not available in Exchange | |
| Continuous search | Good | Poor | In ZCS, when using Advanced Search, the search results updates continuously as search conditions are changed. Capability not supported in Exchange OWA. | |
| Saved Searches | Good | Poor | ZCS ability to save searches for subsequent one-click re-execution is not available in Exchange | |
| Search by keywords | Good | Fair | Exchange supports search by keywords in a message. However, it does not support keyword search in attachments | |
| Search by date or date range | Good | Poor | Structured queries on a particular date or across a date range is available in ZCS but not supported in Exchange | |
| Search by relative date/time | Good | Poor | Ability to search for items with specific relative date/time characteristics (e.g. “today”, “yesterday”, “last 4 hours) is not supported in Exchange | |
| Search by existence of an attachment | Good | Poor | Ability to search for items that contain an attachment is not supported by Exchange | |
| Search by existence of an attachment type | Good | Poor | Ability to search for all messages that contain certain attachment types (e.g. PowerPoint presentations) is not supported by Exchange | |
| Search by flagged/unflagged status | Good | Good | Exchange offers the capability to search by “Category” similar to ZCS feature to search by “Flags” | |
| Search by folder | Good | Fair | Exchange supports the ability to search in a folder (or nested subfolders). However, it can not search across folders. | |
| Search by size | Good | Poor | Unlike ZCS, Exchange cannot offer users the ability to search content by size | |
| Search by read/unread status | Good | Poor | Exchange does not support ability to search by message read/unread status | |
| Search by recipients | Good | Fair | Capability in Exchange is limited to messages in a single folder | |
| Search by sender | Good | Fair | Capability in Exchange is limited to messages in a single folder | |
| Search by subject | Good | Fair | Capability in Exchange is limited to messages in a single folder | |
| Search by Tag | Good | Poor | Tagging is not a supported Exchange feature | |
| Search by Zimlet content pattern | Good | Poor | Support for regular expressions or patterns in messages during search (e.g. phone numbers) is not supported by Exchange | |
| Search by To/From domain | Good | Poor | Domain-level searching is not supported by Exchange | |
| Shared Contacts search | Good | Poor | Sharing of address book not supported by Exchange | |
| Attachment contents search | Good | Poor | Exchange does not support indexing and search of attachment content | |
| Multi-mailbox message search | Good | Poor | Exchange does not support the capability for administrators or authorized users to search across multiple mailbox | |
| System Health & Security | Native anti-spam | Good | Fair | Microsoft offers EHF (Exchange Hosted Filtering) and an on-site option for spam detection/filtering. However, this solution is unproven in the market. The Zimbra solution integrates with proven and reliable open-source anti-spam solution Spam Assassin |
| Configurable spam sensitivity | Good | Good | ||
| Automated spam training | Good | Good | ||
| Native anti-virus | Good | Fair | Microsoft offers EHF and an on-site option for virus detection/filtering. However, this solution is unproven in the market. The Zimbra solution integrates with market-proven ClamAV | |
| Configurable virus signature update frequency | Good | Good | ||
| SMTP authentication | Good | Good | ||
| System dashboards | Good | Good | ||
| Monitoring & status view | Good | Good | ||
| Attachment blocking | Good | Good | ||
| Attachment conversion to HTML | Good | Fair | While both Zimbra and Microsoft solutions offer the ability to enforce that attachments be viewed as HTML, the number of attachment types is limited in Exchange as compared to over 200 in ZCS | |
| Clustering/High-Availability | Good | Fair | ZCS supports RedHat Clustering and will support Veritas Cluster Server in 5.0. The Microsoft Clustering solution is often cited as weak and unreliable by enterprise customers | |
| Strong Password Enforcement | Good | Good | ||
| Secure connectivity over HTTPS | Good | Good | ||
| Local archiving | Good | Poor | Zimbra solution offers an integrated archiving, discovery and compliance enforcement solution for enterprises to provision and meet corporate and regulatory compliance requirements. | |
| Intra-organization Encryption | Fair | Good | Exchange 2007 provides high-level intra-organization encryption features like selectively encrypting email messages before they are sent. The Zimbra solution can support intra-organization encryption through the use of publicly available PGP | |
| Migration Tools & External Components | Exchange Migration Wizard | Good | N/A | Tool to migrate all user data from Exchange 5.5, 2000 and 2003 to ZCS |
| Lotus Domino Migration Wizard | Good | Good | Tool to migrate all user data from Domino 6.x to ZCS | |
| Active Directory integration | Good | N/A | ZCS can use Active Directory to synchronize user profiles and for authentication user access | |
| External LDAP directory | Good | Poor | ZCS can support other third party LDAP directories. Microsoft relies on Active Directory | |
| Mac, PC & Linux Desktops Support | iCal calendar 2-way sync | Good | Poor | Exchange 2007 does not include support for Apple iCal. The Zimbra iSync connector supports 2-way sync of iCal data |
| Apple contacts 2-way sync | Good | Poor | Exchange 2007 does not include support for Apple Address Book. The Zimbra iSync connector supports 2-way sync of Apple Address Book | |
| Microsoft Entourage | Good | Good | ||
| iCal/Apple Address Book schedule synchronization | Good | Poor | ZCS supports end-user configurable synchronization of all user data with the server | |
| IMAP4 Client support (including Thunderbird) | Good | Good | ||
| POP3 Client support (including Thunderbird) | Good | Good | ||
| CalDAV support (Beta) | Good | Poor | Zimbra provides ability to model calendar events as HTTP in iCal format. Exchange does not have support for CalDAV | |
| SOAP/REST APIs | Good | Fair | ZCS offers Web-services API (SOAP) and Standards-based REST API support to access all system capabilities and features. Exchange 2007 introduces a Web-services framework for message manipulation | |