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Amazon WorkMail vs Microsoft Exchange comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon WorkMail
Ranking in Email Applications
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Email (2nd)
Microsoft Exchange
Ranking in Email Applications
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Wireless Email (1st), File Archiving (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of Amazon WorkMail is 9.7%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Exchange is 11.4%, down from 12.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Applications
 

Featured Reviews

Michael Olayemi - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides free messages and helps to keep customers updated
The solution is quite low-level and lacks some advanced features. For example, it doesn't provide tracking capabilities, such as knowing how many users opened an email, which is crucial for email marketing. You would need to integrate these analytics with other tools to get them. I need to know if there has been a bounce and how customers interacted with the email. I would only suggest that Amazon WorkMail relax the rules for using Amazon SES in production. When you create an account, it starts in Sandbox mode, which means you can't use it in production right away. You must go through a process, message Amazon, and request to move it to production. Since Amazon is a big company, I feel customers shouldn't need this permission to use the service in production.
Hesham Hussain - PeerSpot reviewer
A good solution for large enterprises, but is expensive when compared to other solutions
Regarding the decision of increasing the number of users, it depends on the organization's choice, whether to opt for CapEx or OpEx. Both options involve expenses over the years. Building an in-house Exchange solution requires investing in hardware, storage, connectivity, and administrative resources. Office 365 shifts the budget solely to OpEx as a subscription service. Scalability is another factor. Starting a new company favors Office 365 due to cost efficiency. As the organization grows, the choice depends on available resources and technical expertise. An internal Exchange setup is feasible with skilled engineers, while Office 365 suits those lacking in-house resources.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Amazon SES is very easy to configure."
"The best feature is that Amazon SES provides verified email messages."
"Amazon SES can handle a high volume of emails, making it suitable for organizations with large email lists or that need to send a large number of emails on a regular basis."
"Amazon WorkMail integrates with Route 53 and other AWS services, providing a seamless experience when using AWS infrastructure."
"The most valuable feature of the Amazon WorkMail for me is the SMC server. It makes my work much easier, especially since I often work with Spring Boot. There are many built-in APIs in Spring Boot that help with messaging. What I appreciate about it is that it simplifies the process. I don't need to write much code; I define the credentials in my properties or environment variables. The Java Message API, an internal API from Spring Boot, does most of the work. I set up the properties and connected them to the SMC server, and I can send emails."
"It is highly available and scalable. It is also highly reliable. I don't lose any of the messages or emails. If there is an issue where the email sent operation failed, Amazon as a platform ensures that the send operation is retried, and the email reaches its destination. This way, it is highly reliable."
"The product is very user-friendly."
"We use the tool for transactional emails and marketing."
"Microsoft Exchange is a powerful solution. It can easily integrate with Active Directory and other business applications. It does not require any training, it is flexible and simple to use. When comparing Microsoft Exchange to other solutions, such as Lotus Note, it is more straightforward for business."
"The technical support is fine."
"It's a very user-friendly application. The mail server is also valuable when compared to other services like SquirrelMail."
"It is a very stable tool...It is a very scalable tool."
"I find the Outlook client very valuable. It allows me to connect to the Exchange Server and send and receive emails easily. The graphical interface is user-friendly and has a good look and feel."
"The exchange functionalities are good."
"It's very well integrated with OneDrive and Teams Calendar."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Exchange is the collaboration tools."
 

Cons

"I would like to see detailed reports on email success and failure rates."
"There is room for improvement in the support. It's just that customer support, though good, takes time to resolve issues."
"Email service is definitely a requirement from an enterprise standpoint. Many organizations have their own on-premise email services, which take a lot of memory, backup, and other resources. If we can have a completely managed backup solution where we have a tiered backup or a tiered archival to be able to retrieve emails, it would be great. I would like to be able to retrieve emails in real-time (hot retrieval), over the 90-days period (warm retrieval), and over the one-year period (cold retrieval). It would be useful to have tiered backup and retrieval. It would help us in managing emails better and have a better backup solution. So, backup is something that we require."
"There is room for improvement in the scalability."
"WorkMail is not available in all the regions."
"Amazon WorkMail's user interface could be more intuitive and user-friendly."
"The only issue is the price, which is far too expensive."
"The product should improve technical support."
"The default storage capacity is too small."
"It doesn't work very well on a virtual machine. We had to move it around. There are also issues when you try to move it between computers."
"The support needs to be more knowledgeable."
"They could offer simultaneous features for Exchange Online and on-premises versions. Specific features such as litigation hold and audit setups should be available on-premises."
"When an update wants to come, it should just come maybe once or twice rather than having us deal with constant updating."
"The platform could be more user-friendly."
"For new users, it might take them some time to get used to the product."
"In terms of probability, every now and then there are changes coming and going. The changes are not that frequent because every month they got updates back, so that is an issue."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the solution's pricing as one out of ten. It is close to being cheap. Sometimes, the tool offers a generous amount of free messages, up to 40,000, which is great for startups like ours. This means that we don't accumulate any costs for some months because we stay within the free usage tier. When we exceed the free allocation, the costs are reasonable, and no hidden charges exist."
"It's very cheap. The cheapest among all the services available."
"The solution should improve its price."
"WorkMail does require a license, it is, per user."
"We are currently using enterprise licenses for the solution. They are different pricing models available. There are individual, cloud-based, and enterprise licenses all with different pricing models. The larger the number of users, the lesser the price. For small to medium companies like us, we feel it is expensive."
"Since my company is on Microsoft Cloud, we pay for the licenses per user. Compared to volume licensing, I would say the present licensing cost is not expensive."
"The pricing is expensive."
"Microsoft doesn't have a unit price, it's based on the quantity, and they offer great discounts."
"I have Outlook 365 Professional, and Exchange comes in the bundle with other solutions, such as Word and OneDrive. I pay for the use of the bundle monthly and I can imagine if you are a company with many licenses the pricing model would be a lot different."
"Compared to the other options in the market, the licensing costs attached to Microsoft Exchange seem reasonable."
"Licensing costs for Microsoft Exchange have increased, but are still fair. For some users, the cost is high considering the number of functions and features they will use."
"They are flexible when it comes to pricing, unlike most of the other vendors I have dealt with."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
University
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon WorkMail?
We use the tool for transactional emails and marketing.
What needs improvement with Amazon WorkMail?
Amazon WorkMail's user interface could be more intuitive and user-friendly. Integration with Gmail using both SMTP and POP3 would be beneficial.
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon WorkMail?
Currently, I don't have any advice about using Amazon WorkMail. Since I only use AWS and am unfamiliar with its competitors, I can't recommend it.
How does Zimbra Collaboration compare with Microsoft Exchange?
Zimbra is a free, open source collaborative software suite. The features I like best are the ease of integration and the email, calendar, and collaboration server with web interface. In addition, I...
What do you like most about Microsoft Exchange?
The initial setup was straightforward and fast.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Exchange?
The licensing and pricing are quite costly, which can demotivate customers from opting for features and upgrades. However, the solution provides value for money if one is well-acquainted with Excha...
 

Also Known As

Amazon SES
Exchange, MS Exchange
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Paderborn-Lippstadt Airport, Scitec Nutrition, British Airways, InnoGames, Osteology Foundation, Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH, NTC Contracting
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon WorkMail vs. Microsoft Exchange and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.