Google Workspace vs Zimbra Collaboration comparison

Google and Zimbra are both solutions in the Email Applications category. Google is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.2, while Zimbra is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.0. Google holds a 20.1% mindshare in EA, compared to Zimbra’s 8.0% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Zimbra users who would recommend it.

Google Workspace

Read 104 Google Workspace reviews

6,650 Views
5,054 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Zimbra Collaboration

Read 29 Zimbra Collaboration reviews

2,311 Views
2,195 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Google Workspace

Zimbra Collaboration

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

Zimbra Collaboration and Google Workspace are competing in the organizational communication and collaboration sector. Google Workspace has an edge due to its extensive feature set and seamless integration.

Features: Zimbra Collaboration offers integrated email, chat, and calendar with a focus on customization and open-source flexibility. Google Workspace includes Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Meet, delivering real-time collaboration and seamless cloud integration.

Room for Improvement: Zimbra Collaboration could enhance integration capabilities and user interface design. It may also need a more robust mobile app and improved integration with third-party services. Google Workspace could improve offline capabilities, the meeting scheduling interface, and customization options for larger enterprises.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zimbra Collaboration allows for customizable deployments with strong support for on-premises setups, appealing to organizations wanting infrastructure control. Google Workspace offers a streamlined cloud-based deployment with minimal setup time and 24/7 support, ideal for organizations focusing on remote work and scalability.

Pricing and ROI: Zimbra Collaboration is more cost-effective with lower setup costs, appealing to budget-conscious businesses. Google Workspace, though pricier, provides a comprehensive suite that justifies its cost for companies needing extensive digital tools.

To learn more, read our detailed Google Workspace vs. Zimbra Collaboration Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Google Workspace vs. Zimbra Collaboration

September 2025

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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

Google Workspace

Ranking in Email Applications

1st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

104

Ranking in other categories

Wireless Email (1st), Cloud Storage (8th), Content Collaboration Platforms (4th)

Zimbra Collaboration

Ranking in Email Applications

5th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of Google Workspace is 20.1%, down from 24.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zimbra Collaboration is 8.0%, down from 9.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Email Applications Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Google Workspace	20.1%
Zimbra Collaboration	8.0%
Other	71.9%

Email Applications

Featured Reviews

Sunil-Nair

IT Manager at Universal Carpets & Rugs

Email collaboration and accessibility have improved team productivity

The valuable features include the email service, email updates, and Google Drive. People are given email access to Google Drive. The team can share manual files and work accordingly. They can access different teams from anywhere, collectively putting files, sharing them, and managing them. Additionally, the manufacturing product does not require any downgrades. It works fine and continuously for the last three or four years. Users can access their emails from anywhere in their browser without a laptop or can directly access from Gmail. This is helpful for salespeople.

Read full review

Muhammad Talha Baig

Business Analyst and Associate Project Manager at SAMI Pharmaceuticals

One of the premium features was customized rooms tailored to the collaboration needs

Zimbra's strength lies in its individuality, and it should focus on leveraging its unique features rather than trying to emulate competitors. My organization has certified Zimbra technicians, so we believe we can utilize Zimbra certification. However, I was recently informed by Zimbra that no such certification exists. I have recently completed the test kit, and after the training, I will gain access to tickets. Therefore, if any clients are experiencing issues, we have a certified technical team available to provide support 24/7. This is how we can cater to our client's needs. I recommend Zimbra to small-scale and enterprise customers. Anyone, even those with 5 users, can opt for Zimbra. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Good performance, even on relatively slow connections; no local apps required."

"We find Google Drive and mail useful for our services."

"It's stable. There isn't really any downtime."

"The stability of Google Workspace is excellent and very solid."

"We use Google Sheets extensively for things like sharing plans, data, test reports, and more."

"Google Workspace is an excellent tool for communicating with people, which allows users to collaborate and edit files simultaneously."

"The initial setup is simple."

"Google Workspace enhances my productivity within my organization."

More Google Workspace pros

"We can control all the data in my IT infrastructure."

"The backup and storage management features of Zimbra Collaboration are valuable."

"Good email solution and it's open-source."

"Zimbra Collaboration's best feature is its compatibility with Microsoft's ActiveSync protocol, which allows users to use Outlook on Windows or MacOS."

"A lot of other products like Microsoft Exchange offer email or collaboration features, but they are not as fast as Zimbra."

"Zimbra Collaboration is light to manage. It works on the Linux operating system, which is far better to manage than Microsoft Windows. Microsoft Exchange works only on the Windows server. We prefer working on the Linux server for security reasons and ease of management. Zimbra Collaboration also has some integrated tools for security. It some modules to fight malware. These modules are not very powerful but are still doing a great job. Microsoft Exchange doesn't have a basic module. You have to purchase a security solution and add it to the solution. The cost of Zimbra Collaboration is one more reason for liking it. It is also very simple to migrate from Zimbra Collaboration to another email solution."

"One of the premium features was customized rooms tailored to the collaboration needs. Many of the clients customize features such as organization logos and scanners."

"The most valuable feature of Zimbra Collaboration is email functionality."

More Zimbra Collaboration pros

Cons

"The user interface, especially on Google Drive, could be better."

"Google Meet is a very good product, but it's not up to the mark if you compare it against other products like Zoom or Microsoft Teams."

"I'm not sure if Google Drive has a customizing feature, however, if it did, then it would be better."

"For Google Docs, if you upload a Word document up to Google Docs, it could mess up your formatting quite a bit."

"G-Suite is excellent for what we're trying to do, but it could use some extra features. For example, it would be helpful if we had a seamless way to convert Excel macros to Google Sheets."

"The solution is not user-friendly and it doesn't integrate that well with Microsoft Office, which is one of the bigger business apps on the market, compared to Google Sheets and applications of that sort."

"Google needs to improve its support."

"Everything is online, so you don't have a client on your desk. Working on email is online work, so can't do work offline and go back online. Sometimes it's not so intuitive. If you answer an email, it puts your answer at the bottom of the existing email."

More Google Workspace cons

"The new patches are, at times, not so good, so we don't install them, causing the tool to be not so stable overall."

"I would like to see a Microsoft schedule function added."

"Some issues cause the solution not to function correctly or to cause downtime once a month."

"The support was lacking in my experience. However, recently the support I received was good. Perhaps they have improved."

"Zimbra must improve its solution to make it easy so that the users don't have to use webmail to connect to their accounts and log in to webmail every time. This is something that is lacking in Zimbra Collaboration. They should provide a better way to easily connect email applications on the desktop to the Zimbra server. They should also try to have more functionality for storage management, like Microsoft Exchange. Currently, the management of the email data must be done manually in Zimbra Collaboration, which we are finding very difficult. They should provide a way to save emails so that you can have more space on the server and storage. Because of the lack of this functionality, we are planning to migrate to Microsoft Exchange. Microsoft Exchange provides a better way to manage storage than Zimbra Collaboration. You cannot have a mail solution without storage management because emails will always increase. Zimbra Collaboration also needs tools for management. More back-office tools are required to manage the whole mailbox and space. You don't only manage emails but also the documents attached to the emails. Therefore, you require tools to select and decide what do you want to save or how do you want to free up space in your infrastructure."

"The solution’s forums don't have much information or documentation on administration tasks."

"I can confidently say that Zimbra is good enough for 2,000 client users. But, at the same time, if my client needs more than that and we have two options—Zimbra or Microsoft—I'm going with Microsoft because many admins will speak to Microsoft's ability to handle that many."

"In the next release, Zimbra Collaboration should include a security feature to allow access for mobile device administrators."

More Zimbra Collaboration cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have purchased an annual subscription."

"You pay for Google Workspace based on your usage and the apps you use, but in my case, it's free, but if I used it a lot more, I'd probably need to pay. 15GB is enough for me, but I see myself upgrading and paying the additional charges for more storage regularly."

"G Suite and Microsoft Office 365 offer products with similar functionality at several different price points. Zoho offer a more extensive range of products and attempts to provide all the applications required to run most small and medium-sized businesses."

"The pricing is comparable, it's pretty decent."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"The price of G Suite Enterprise is reasonable compared to HotSpot. I'm not going to say G Suite Enterprise is affordable. It's valuable, you find value in paying your gas bill or your electricity bill, because of what it allows you to do."

"It's cheaper to run a couple of users in a Google platform than what it would be with Microsoft Exchange."

"It's about $8.30 up a user per month."

More Google Workspace pricing and cost advice

"We are using perpetual licenses. We have deployed it in our local data center, and we buy perpetual licenses on a per-user basis."

"Zimbra Collaboration is less expensive than Microsoft Exchange. Zimbra works for small companies because it is not expensive. Zimbra Collaboration has more security tools than Microsoft Exchange. If you are choosing between Zimbra Collaboration and Microsoft Exchange, you have to take into account the cost of security tools with Microsoft Exchange. When you purchase Microsoft Exchange, you will also have to purchase tools for security, which adds to the cost. The migration from Zimbra Collaboration to another email solution is very simple and easy. Migration from Microsoft Exchange to another email solution is very difficult. Microsoft doesn't allow migration that easily. In fact, you have to pay for tools to do that. You have to buy some expensive tools to migrate."

"If you choose the network edition, it is a little pricier. They have the open-source edition too which is only community supported."

"It's very expensive. When we compare the cost with Google Workspace, it's so expensive."

"I use Zimbra Collaboration's community version. We may move to the enterprise version since prices are affordable."

"Zimbra Collaboration offers a good price-to-feature ratio."

"When it comes to the licensing of Zimbra Collaboration, my license covers the servers and I find its terms to be much simpler than those of Microsoft Exchange."

"The solution is not expensive compared to other products."

More Zimbra Collaboration pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Educational Organization

10%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

16%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	63
Midsize Enterprise	13
Large Enterprise	27

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	19
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	7

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Google Workspace?

Easy-to-build forms are allowing me to get feedback and information from my internal teams as well as from the customers very efficiently with the result data in structured manner.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Workspace?

The pricing for Google Workspace is moderate. I would rate it a five out of ten, indicating it is neither cheap nor expensive. The current cost is approximately seven to ten euros per user per mont...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Google Workspace?

I don't see many areas of Google Workspace that could be improved or enhanced because everything I have been using has been effective. Regarding the user interface, when calling a member in the org...

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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...

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What do you like most about Zimbra Collaboration?

The most valuable feature of Zimbra for our team's productivity is its efficiency in handling email communication.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zimbra Collaboration?

The solution is competitively priced.

See all answers

Comparisons

Amazon WorkMail vs Google Workspace

Compared 23% of the time

Microsoft Exchange Online vs Google Workspace

Compared 18% of the time

Office 365 vs Google Workspace

Compared 16% of the time

ProtonMail vs Google Workspace

Compared 10% of the time

Microsoft OneDrive for Business vs Google Workspace

Compared 2% of the time

More Google Workspace Competitors

Microsoft Exchange vs Zimbra Collaboration

Compared 24% of the time

Open-Xchange vs Zimbra Collaboration

Compared 22% of the time

KerioConnect vs Zimbra Collaboration

Compared 14% of the time

IceWarp vs Zimbra Collaboration

Compared 9% of the time

HCL Domino vs Zimbra Collaboration

Compared 5% of the time

More Zimbra Collaboration Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Google Workspace

September 2025

Download Google Workspace product report

Buyer's Guide

Zimbra Collaboration

September 2025

Download Zimbra Collaboration product report

Also Known As

G-Suite Enterprise, G-Suite, Google Apps for Business, G Suite Basic, G Suite Business, G-Suite Basic, G-Suite Business, Google Vault

No data available

Overview

Similar to G Suite, all Google Workspace plans provide a custom email for your business and include collaboration tools like Gmail, Calendar, Meet, Chat, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Sites, and more.

As we’ve evolved G Suite into a more integrated experience across our communication and collaboration tools, we’ve rebranded to Google Workspace to more accurately represent the product vision.

Google

Zimbra Collaboration provides administrators and their end users innovative features that solve the challenges faced by organizations using today's legacy communications infrastructure.

Zimbra

Sample Customers

There are over five million businesses that use Google Apps for Business worldwide. Some key customers include The Roche Group, National Geographic, American Red Cross, City of Los Angeles, Flight Centre, and Konica Minolta.

NEC Biglobe, City of Ventura, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Hola Publishing, BIG, Sleepwell, LaFayette College, Xmission, DNA, Ring Line, Future Group, TIGC

Buyer's Guide

Google Workspace vs. Zimbra Collaboration

September 2025

Free Report: Google Workspace vs. Zimbra Collaboration

Find out what your peers are saying about Google Workspace vs. Zimbra Collaboration and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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