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Google Workspace vs Microsoft Exchange vs Zoho Mail 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of Google Workspace is 22.1%, down from 24.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Exchange is 11.3%, down from 12.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zoho Mail is 5.1%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Applications
 

Featured Reviews

Sunil-Nair - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Harry Murdani - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps with email services and communication with internal and external contacts
Everything is useful. The only useful thing Microsoft Exchange could do is give us more of a discount on pricing because it's so expensive. Regarding the calendaring functions of Exchange, there is a problem when scheduling an event for the whole day. When you click the whole day event, the scheduling doesn't really work. For example, if I schedule a meeting with you and block your whole day, instead of just putting a time from morning to afternoon, other people can still block your time, which results in double booking. It's kind of a bug that allows people to double-book. So, the scheduling isn't working properly yet. We also faced challenges with backup services. You need to use a third-party backup solution to back up the whole Exchange server properly. You can't use the native Windows backup services. It's like they're forcing me to buy another product, which means additional costs. The backup solution and the double booking issues. If Microsoft Exchange can fix these two things, then it will be very good.
AvinashLotke - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good security with effective spam filtering but has update issues
Zoho is not just a traditional software-based company. It offers a wide range of APIs and other integration tools, including a CRM tool and various other products, so integration is not limited. Zoho has operations management and developers, making integration feasible with any system. Zoho is a cloud-based solution, meaning maintenance is managed by their system. They don't provide access to unauthorized persons. Zoho handles maintenance. Traditionally, we haven't recommended Zoho as extensively because we prefer systems we have thoroughly tested and can confidently endorse. We've deployed Zoho a few times with mixed success. In comparison, we've had more success with Google deployments, with higher implementation rates and ease, offering better revenue opportunities. Based on requirements, I might recommend Zoho, but for higher needs or better collaboration, I'd suggest Google, possibly combined with iSoft. If there is no other support, Google remains a strong recommendation. Overall, considering support, I rate the solution a six out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's secure. It offers data security and user privacy. I use it for personal purposes. The interface is okay, and it's easy to use."
"All the Microsoft Office features are available in Google Workspace."
"The solution offers very good email. It's a very good email provider."
"It's stable. There isn't really any downtime."
"The corporate email feature on Google's Gmail is fantastic."
"The valuable features include the email service, email updates, and Google Drive."
"It's more open than Microsoft and easy to use."
"Overall, I rate Google Workspace a ten out of ten."
"This solution handles all of our primary functionality including email, message delivery, message archiving and calendars."
"The search tools are good."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Exchange is the collaboration tools."
"The backup and archiving features are valuable, it is user friendly too."
"Microsoft Exchange is a user-friendly product that is easy to manage and configure."
"Customers can benefit from this new pricing model because it's expensive and now with the subscription they can budget for this."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Exchange is the email storage is on the cloud. We don't have to delete emails often."
"It is easy to use and we can allow many users because now our users are scattered They over a wide area. We can use it from anywhere. That is the main benefit for us."
"Zoho gives you a set amount of free users, so you can use it until you reach the limit and see if it's something you want to adopt. I tried it and stuck with it. Since then, I've seen a lot of improvement. I already think it's top-notch, but I believe it will become one of the best in the world."
"Zoho Mail is a cost-effective solution."
"Zoho Mail is a stable product."
"The solution has more security compared to other products. Zoho Mail comes with TLS and SSL. It has email-sharing features. It is an advanced product."
"Their experience with Zoho Mail has been positive, as customers haven't complained about anything."
"The notifications, scheduling, and meetings are all integrated."
"It uses an alert system and other monitoring tools."
"Zoho Mail organizes your email well, and you can do a lot of things if you use other Zoho applications along with it."
 

Cons

"There are too many steps for sharing pictures."
"We noticed that sometimes when we forward emails to somebody, it is being relocated as part of the communication somewhere else. The traceability and other features should be improved."
"Integrating Copilot with Google Workspace is slightly difficult."
"Google Workspace doesn't have some of the Excel and PowerPoint presentation functions you get with Microsoft Office."
"What needs improvement in Google Workspace is the Google Drive app, in particular, making the process of finding the shared and most used files and folders easier. The first time you get an invite to view a file or folder in Google Drive and you view that folder or file, it's pretty easy, but the next time you try to access it again, sometimes, it's a bit difficult to find what was shared with you. An additional feature I'd like to see in Google Workspace is the option to un-send messages in Gmail. Microsoft has a message recall feature, and this isn't available in Gmail, so it's the feature I'd like to be added to Gmail."
"They can maybe improve its graphical user interface. Google is not really known for having a PC interface. It is just a nice-to-have feature."
"The solution could always be more secure, although that doesn't affect me so much."
"I believe Google Drive has potential for improvement. Enhancements could be made in terms of synchronization and the functionality of the Google Sheets app, particularly in areas like formulas and pivot tables, to make it more comparable to Microsoft Excel. Google Chat needs to make improvements so that we can send Excel and PDFs from the mobile app itself. I would like to see Google Bard integrated with the product."
"The solution is stable, but it could improve. It's crashing if there is a big mail database. The Zimbra solution is better in this area."
"The security features could be improved. There should be a better policy management system."
"Microsoft Exchange is highly stable. However, after receiving some updates it can be unstable."
"In terms of configuring the product, that's definitely an area in which they can make some improvements on."
"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."
"They could improve on the search function, it takes too much time."
"I'd like the archiving process to be faster."
"From a reliability perspective, they need to improve the search engine, it is not very powerful."
"Zoho Mail needs to improve its integration because direct integration is not possible with many applications."
"They have issues when they are rolling out updates"
"The interface isn't quite good. Everything looks a little low-quality."
"The solution doesn't need to be improved."
"For the admin side of Zoho Mail, they need to add features for organizing users in organizational units."
"Zoho Mail is not as good as G Suite, which has integrated calendars."
"They could increase the available space which is currently 5 GB. Gmail provides 15 GB of storage space, which would be more useful."
"The initial setup of Zoho Mail can take some time because we have 30 to 35 users and we need to register each one. This can take one or two days to complete. The process could be better for administrators to register their users. If the setup interface was better in explaining the process it would be helpful to become more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are several areas where a G Suite implementation can reduce costs: lower license fees than some competing products, reduced hardware, and IT support costs."
"The overall cost is very reasonable when considering all of the security features that you are receiving. It is a bit more expensive than our local host and/or other hosting companies that are available on the market, but it is worth it."
"I can't recall the exact pricing per user for Google Workspace, but I know it's not that expensive. I'm in a mid-sized company that's able to maintain and afford Google Workspace, so it has competitive pricing, and I would rate its price as four out of five."
"The price of Google Workspace is reasonable. I pay less than 100 a month."
"It's low in cost as compared to Office 365. There is an annual licensing cost."
"The pricing of Google Workspace, so far, has been reasonable."
"The pricing is comparable, it's pretty decent."
"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."
"They are flexible when it comes to pricing, unlike most of the other vendors I have dealt with."
"The product is quite cheap."
"Microsoft Exchange is an inexpensive application."
"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."
"I rate Microsoft Exchange's pricing a six out of ten."
"The platform has a reasonable price."
"Its price is fair."
"It would be nice if it used less resources to run on-premise."
"One of the reasons people use Zoho in Nigeria is because we can pay for it in Naira. It's very affordable already. For example, we can get Zoho Mail for somewhere between 1000 naira per user, which is less than one dollar. In my opinion, it's very affordable."
"The solution is not costly."
"Zoho One has all 50 applications in it, and Zoho Mail is part of it. Zoho One is about 35 GBP per person per month. It includes Zoho Projects, Zoho Mail, Zoho CRM, and everything else."
"Zoho Mail is more cost-efficient than its competitors."
"The solution is more affordable compared to other products. It is cheap."
"There is no license required to use Zoho Mail."
"The solution’s pricing is very reasonable."
"If you have ten users, for Google, you'll pay $100. With Zoho Mail, you'll only pay $30 to $40."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Educational Organization
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
17%
Retailer
13%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 custom...
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 e...
What needs improvement with Google Workspace?
I do not have any major suggestions for improvement. However, while the security functionalities are similar to those...
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 ...
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?
Microsoft Exchange is costly, and its licensing model can be expensive over time as more users require licenses.
What do you like most about Zoho Mail?
It also offers the search functionalities. For end users, the search is quite easy to use. There are a few tabs to se...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zoho Mail?
Zoho Mail is more cost-efficient than its competitors.
What needs improvement with Zoho Mail?
The solution's meeting plans and online virtual activity task list could be improved and made more seamless.
 

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
Exchange, MS Exchange
No data available
 

Overview

 

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.
Paderborn-Lippstadt Airport, Scitec Nutrition, British Airways, InnoGames, Osteology Foundation, Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH, NTC Contracting
BBDO, HuffPost
Find out what your peers are saying about Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in Email Applications. Updated: June 2025.
858,469 professionals have used our research since 2012.