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Amazon WorkMail vs Microsoft Exchange Online 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 Online
Ranking in Email Applications
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of Amazon WorkMail is 10.6%, up from 10.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Exchange Online is 14.4%, down from 15.2% 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.
Babatunde-Olugbode - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good user interface and seamlessly integrates with other Microsoft services
I like its user interface. I don't struggle or face any challenges while using it. The design interface is simple. I haven't had any trouble managing it for a long time. Even if I encounter a challenge or two, I can always reach out to Microsoft for help. So, overall, it's been a very positive experience. Having everything under one account was valuable. I just had to go through cybersecurity for licensing and download everything. With one account, you can download Office and use Online features directly from your Exchange. There are security solutions in place, and we take customer data very seriously. For example, if I accidentally create a forwarding rule or send an email with an image attached, I get a notification immediately. Compliance-wise, it's quite good online. We can do many things. Even if I can't click on something or upload a specific file type, it'll still be stored for compliance or investigation purposes. So, subscribing to these features. The benefits are widespread and effective communication. We use Microsoft Teams for meetings within and outside our organization. Additionally, Teams can be used for chat, allowing us to track communication and see user activity. Those are the key points that have proven to be beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use the tool for transactional emails and marketing."
"The product is very user-friendly."
"Amazon SES is very easy to configure."
"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 most valuable thing is that emails sent through SES have a delivery rate of greater than ninety percent."
"The best feature is that Amazon SES provides verified email messages."
"Amazon WorkMail integrates with Route 53 and other AWS services, providing a seamless experience when using AWS infrastructure."
"Microsoft has many consultants who can provide support."
"We also create technical presentations, so most of the time we are dealing with MS Word and Excel. Sometimes, we also use Visio for diagramming. Our overall experience is good."
"Microsoft Exchange Online is a very stable solution."
"The product enables us to have remote meetings."
"We have found the solution to be stable."
"The reliability factor is high."
"The initial setup is straightforward and is definitely easy."
"The solution is very easy to set up and quite quick to deploy."
 

Cons

"When we first set up an email on Amazon SES, they had to verify it, which was not fast enough."
"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."
"Amazon WorkMail's user interface could be more intuitive and user-friendly."
"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."
"There is room for improvement in the scalability."
"I would like to see detailed reports on email success and failure rates."
"The product should improve technical support."
"I think there should be an incorporation of DLP on the business premium version of Exchange, as well."
"The integration could be better if it could integrate well with other products and software."
"It is tricky to integrate Microsoft Exchange Online if you are in an infrastructure provided by other vendors."
"We would like to have more automation with Microsoft Exchange Online."
"I don't really like the response time of the web GUI for administration."
"The solution could be a bit cheaper."
"For non-technical people, some configurations might be a little bit difficult. We can use it on our laptops or our portable devices like mobiles and others gadgets, but we have had repeated problems with syncing. That is, when using different gadgets and devices, there are issues with syncing. The configuration could definitely be improved."
"Microsoft Exchange Online can improve message delivery. There are times we receive a message that the email failed to be delivered, and there is no reason given. We sometimes have emails that are flagged as spam that are not. We cannot do anything about it because it's not managed by us, it's managed by Microsoft."
 

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."
"The solution should improve its price."
"WorkMail does require a license, it is, per user."
"It's very cheap. The cheapest among all the services available."
"The cost is around $12 to $16 per user."
"I would say the solution is reasonable and affordable."
"There is an annual license required to use this Microsoft Exchange Online."
"I think that the price is a little high, especially considering that Google have a similar, free email solution."
"It is a cluster solution."
"The pricing for this solution is good. We renew our contract every three years. I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"The licensing cost increased at least 15 to 20 percent recently and it would be helpful for them to be reduced."
"We have a license per user scenario."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Government
9%
University
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

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.
What do you like most about Microsoft Exchange Online?
The benefits are widespread and effective communication. We use Microsoft Teams for meetings within and outside our organization. Additionally, Teams can be used for chat, allowing us to track comm...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Exchange Online?
The pricing for Microsoft Exchange Online is quite reasonable, in my opinion. Many licensing options are available so that we can choose based on the customer's needs. For example, if a customer on...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Exchange Online?
There are always improvements needed. My personal issue with using OfficeSuite and the Exchange Server is that one has to cobble together a whole bunch of different applications. Therefore, a lot o...
 

Also Known As

Amazon SES
Exchange Online, Exchange Online Plan 1, Exchange Online Plan 2, MS Exchange Online
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Bank Alfalah Ltd., Paderborn-Lippstadt Airport, Blue Star Infotech, Scitec Nutrition, Resolution Films, British Airways, Empire Cinemas, InnoGames
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon WorkMail vs. Microsoft Exchange Online and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,388 professionals have used our research since 2012.