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Amazon WorkMail vs Zarafa comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on May 21, 2025

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
6.4
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Email (2nd)
Zarafa
Ranking in Email Applications
16th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of Amazon WorkMail is 9.9%, up from 9.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zarafa is 1.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Applications Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon WorkMail9.9%
Zarafa1.7%
Other88.4%
Email Applications
 

Featured Reviews

GM
Owner at Marinov
Centralized email accounts have streamlined routing, security checks, and long-term organization
While using Amazon WorkMail over time, I haven't encountered substantial disappointments, but there have been usual glitches with the web interface. For instance, while the service is generally 99.5% perfect, I experience issues like the folder structure I set up sometimes not remembering the state of expanded and collapsed nodes after refreshing the page. This lack of persistence in which nodes are collapsed or opened can be frustrating. However, since it's a minor technical issue, I doubt the average user would notice it. If Amazon WorkMail were not discontinuing, I wouldn't think there is much to improve or enhance about it. It is standard enough and easy to use, and any glitches are minor, not worth evolving or disrupting its current functionality. As for whether the user interface is intuitive and if I'm satisfied with its flexibility and customizability, there are some minor features lacking, but I don't feel a need for changes since it works as designed. The most crucial aspect is that I can set up my address book with the complex organizational structure needed for the accounts connecting to AWS. The lower-level functionalities suit me well enough. Other services often have customizable views of email representations with senders, subjects, and even snippets of content. While my external application on mobile can show customizable lines with my email list, Amazon WorkMail does not offer that feature. I don't really need it, but it would be a nice addition for power users.
it_user302112 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant IT Infrastructure at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
Our customers are able to use this groupware solution to connect to Active Directory and OpenLDAP, although Postgres support would be an improvement.
Zarafa has several very valuable features, among them a very good Outlook-like web interface. Furthermore, ZPush for talking between ActiveSync and mobile devices is a valuable asset. In addition, one is able to connect via Outlook and the exchange protocol to Zarafa. This makes Zarafa a free, and working, alternative to Microsoft Exchange.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"WorkMail works very well, and the functionality is fine."
"It is very stable. I haven't faced any issues."
"There is no need for me to set up security."
"We have cut our costs in half."
"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."
"Despite being an end-user service on AWS, the backend is complex enough to enable many useful features, I invested time in configuring it, and it worked flawlessly for six years."
"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."
"Amazon SES is very easy to configure."
"This makes Zarafa a free, and working, alternative to Microsoft Exchange."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"There is room for improvement in the support. It's just that customer support, though good, takes time to resolve issues."
"The only issue is the price, which is far too expensive."
"The product should improve technical support."
"There is room for improvement in the scalability."
"It would be nice if they had a what you say is what you get editor to build newsletters like MailChimp has."
"Amazon WorkMail's user interface could be more intuitive and user-friendly."
"Not really, although the Zarafa-index component was using a lot of memory and disk I/O bandwith."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's very cheap. The cheapest among all the services available."
"WorkMail does require a license, it is, per user."
"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."
"The solution should improve its price."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Amazon WorkMail?
While using Amazon WorkMail over time, I haven't encountered substantial disappointments, but there have been usual glitches with the web interface. For instance, while the service is generally 99....
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon WorkMail?
When assessing the security features offered by Amazon WorkMail, such as encryption protocols, I check the security protocols on my phone using an external application that displays them immediatel...
What is your primary use case for Amazon SES?
My usual use cases for Amazon WorkMail started from my interest in all the AWS services, which are numerous, like hundreds, and how I could set up an online document service, something like Google ...
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Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Amazon SES
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Tivoli, InterAkt Contour, Riagg Rijnmond, Lammerink, Revell, KMP, International School of the Hague
Find out what your peers are saying about Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in Email Applications. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.