Microsoft Exchange vs Zoho Mail comparison

Microsoft and Zoho are both solutions in the Email Applications category. Microsoft is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.0, while Zoho is ranked #5 with an average rating of 7.4. Microsoft holds a 11.5% mindshare in EA, compared to Zoho’s 5.3% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Zoho users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Exchange

Read 92 Microsoft Exchange reviews

3,617 Views
2,966 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Zoho Mail

Read 14 Zoho Mail reviews

1,126 Views
1,126 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

Microsoft Exchange

Zoho Mail

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on May 21, 2025

Microsoft Exchange and Zoho Mail compete in the enterprise email service category. Microsoft Exchange seems to have the upper hand for larger businesses due to its comprehensive features and integration, while Zoho Mail provides an advantage for smaller businesses with its cost-effectiveness and simplicity.

Features: Microsoft Exchange offers seamless integration with Microsoft products, flexible scalability, and comprehensive email management, including email retention and recovery capabilities. Zoho Mail is known for its collaboration features and security integration, with a streamlined user experience and easy integration with its suite of applications.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Exchange users point to its complex licensing, search functionality, and integration with non-Microsoft products as areas in need of improvement. Security and documentation are also mentioned as needing enhancement. Zoho Mail's user interface and integration limitations, alongside some performance issues like delayed email delivery, are areas where users express dissatisfaction.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Exchange provides various deployment options, such as on-premises and hybrid setups, which can be challenging for small enterprises due to complexity and resource demands. Customer service experiences vary, with some delays in support. Zoho Mail's cloud-focused deployment is straightforward, with generally satisfactory customer service, albeit lacking in dedicated support.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Exchange is considered expensive for small businesses due to its licensing model and infrastructure costs, but larger corporations might offset these with advanced features. Zoho Mail is more economical for startups and small businesses, offering a straightforward pricing structure. ROI perceptions vary, with Exchange justifying its cost with extensive features, while Zoho offers essential functionalities at lower costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Exchange vs. Zoho Mail Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Exchange vs. Zoho Mail

July 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 864,053 peers since 2012

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

Microsoft Exchange

Ranking in Email Applications

3rd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Wireless Email (1st), File Archiving (3rd)

Zoho Mail

Ranking in Email Applications

5th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

5.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of Microsoft Exchange is 11.5%, down from 11.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zoho Mail is 5.3%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Email Applications

Featured Reviews

Harry Murdani

Manager, IT Security at Averis Sdn Bhd

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.

Read full review

Salem Shafik

Founder at Tech Force

Zoho Mail suits small businesses well but can improve user organization features

For the admin side of Zoho Mail, they need to add features for organizing users in organizational units. We currently only have the ability to add users to groups, but some admins need to organize users in organizational units and apply security policies or other configurations based on these units.

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

"It's very well integrated with OneDrive and Teams Calendar."

"The initial setup is easy."

"Our customers are satisfied with the features included in Microsoft Exchange."

"All features are useful; they meet the purpose of an email server."

"Exchange is very scalable, it's one of the most important things about this software."

"It is a very stable tool...It is a very scalable tool."

"The exchange functionalities are good."

"The interface is user-friendly."

More Microsoft Exchange pros

"The notifications, scheduling, and meetings are all integrated."

"It uses an alert system and other monitoring tools."

"We can create email accounts for our customers."

"It also offers the search functionalities. For end users, the search is quite easy to use. There are a few tabs to select to find exactly what you're looking for. It's pretty simple. As long as the data is available, you can use filters like from whom, to whom, subject, attachment, and even use advanced settings. It's pretty nice."

"Zoho Mail organizes your email well, and you can do a lot of things if you use other Zoho applications along with it."

"Zoho Mail is a stable product."

"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."

"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."

More Zoho Mail pros

Cons

"Exchange took time to be deployed. It requires extensive configuration and setting up servers and managing internal network access."

"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."

"They could improve on the search function, it takes too much time."

"From a reliability perspective, they need to improve the search engine, it is not very powerful."

"The product or service could be improved in terms of Microsoft Outlook client compatibility."

"Currently, its administration is too cumbersome. It's unwieldy. It's slow. It consumes too many resources. Configuration needs to be much more streamlined and administratively automated."

"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."

"After 2022, users of Microsoft Exchange have to migrate mailboxes to Microsoft Exchange Online, and what I'd like to improve is for Microsoft to publish more on-premise versions for customers using Microsoft Exchange. Having more security is another room for improvement in the solution, particularly for mailboxes that develop the Exchange Edge rule to protect internal mailboxes. What I'd like to see from Microsoft Exchange in the future is for Microsoft to still update the latest, existing version which is 2022. I'd like Microsoft to still push more cumulative updates for Microsoft Exchange 2022."

More Microsoft Exchange cons

"Zoho Mail is not as good as G Suite, which has integrated calendars."

"For the admin side of Zoho Mail, they need to add features for organizing users in organizational units."

"The solution's meeting plans and online virtual activity task list could be improved and made more seamless."

"They could increase the available space which is currently 5 GB. Gmail provides 15 GB of storage space, which would be more useful."

"Zoho Mail needs to improve its integration because direct integration is not possible with many applications."

"The interface isn't quite good. Everything looks a little low-quality."

"Zoho Mail needs to add an IT system management feature."

"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."

More Zoho Mail cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate Microsoft Exchange a four out of ten for pricing because it is quite cheap, and many companies use the solution."

"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."

"This solution is expensive."

"There are different prices depending on the customer's use cases and amount of users. The price of the solution could improve."

"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."

"It would be nice if it used less resources to run on-premise."

"Compared to the other options in the market, the licensing costs attached to Microsoft Exchange seem reasonable."

"The price of Microsoft Exchange could improve. In Egypt, the price keeps increasing."

More Microsoft Exchange pricing and cost advice

"The solution is more affordable compared to other products. It is cheap."

"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."

"There is no license required to use Zoho Mail."

"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 not costly."

"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."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Email Applications solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

864,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Government

10%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Comms Service Provider

14%

Retailer

12%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Microsoft Exchange?

The initial setup was straightforward and fast.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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 select to find exactly what you're looking for. It's pretty simple. As long as the...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zoho Mail?

Zoho Mail is economical compared to Microsoft and Google Workspace. Speaking specifically about Egypt and the region, they have competitive pricing compared to others.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Zoho Mail?

They could increase the available space which is currently 5 GB. Gmail provides 15 GB of storage space, which would be more useful. Additionally, considering how WhatsApp backup automatically goes ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Zimbra Collaboration vs Microsoft Exchange

Compared 17% of the time

Open-Xchange vs Microsoft Exchange

Compared 16% of the time

KerioConnect vs Microsoft Exchange

Compared 16% of the time

HCL Domino vs Microsoft Exchange

Compared 12% of the time

Veritas Enterprise Vault vs Microsoft Exchange

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Exchange Competitors

IceWarp vs Zoho Mail

Compared 32% of the time

ProtonMail vs Zoho Mail

Compared 22% of the time

Google Workspace vs Zoho Mail

Compared 19% of the time

Microsoft Exchange Online vs Zoho Mail

Compared 14% of the time

Zimbra Collaboration vs Zoho Mail

Compared 3% of the time

More Zoho Mail Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Exchange

July 2025

Download Microsoft Exchange product report

Buyer's Guide

Zoho Mail

July 2025

Download Zoho Mail product report

Also Known As

Exchange, MS Exchange

No data available

Overview

Built to deliver the enterprise-grade security and reliability that businesses require, Microsoft Exchange provides email, calendar and contacts on your PC, phone and web browser.

Microsoft

Secure Business Email for your organization

Host your business email on a secure, encrypted, privacy-guaranteed, and ad-free email service.

Zoho

Sample Customers

Paderborn-Lippstadt Airport, Scitec Nutrition, British Airways, InnoGames, Osteology Foundation, Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH, NTC Contracting

BBDO, HuffPost

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Exchange vs. Zoho Mail

July 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Exchange vs. Zoho Mail

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Exchange vs. Zoho Mail and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

864,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Microsoft Exchange vs. Zoho Mail report.

See our list of best Email Applications vendors.

We monitor all Email Applications reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.