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 8.1, while Zimbra is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.0. Google holds a 23.5% mindshare in EA, compared to Zimbra’s 9.1% 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 101 Google Workspace reviews

6,346 Views
5,788 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Zimbra Collaboration

Read 29 Zimbra Collaboration reviews

3,307 Views
2,535 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Google Workspace

Zimbra Collaboration

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 2025

Zimbra Collaboration and Google Workspace are business communication and collaboration tools. Google Workspace seems to have the upper hand due to its extensive feature set and seamless integration options.

Features: Zimbra Collaboration includes tools for email, calendar, and task management along with robust integration capabilities. It allows customization and administration with a good web interface and security modules. Google Workspace offers an integrated suite with Gmail, Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Meet, facilitating seamless collaboration and real-time editing. Its vast application suite and third-party integrations provide comprehensive productivity solutions.

Room for Improvement: Zimbra could enhance its user interface and mobile app functionalities. Improvement in anti-spam and antivirus modules would be beneficial. More robust scalability and refinement in admin tools are needed. Google Workspace could focus on improving its cost-effectiveness for small businesses and enhancing offline support. Providing more intuitive initial setup and increasing support for non-Google integrations would be advantageous.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zimbra Collaboration allows deployment on-premise or in private clouds, offering control over data, which is appealing for specific privacy needs. Google Workspace, being cloud-based, provides quick deployment with minimal maintenance. Its customer service is often praised for reliability, contributing to a positive user experience.

Pricing and ROI: Zimbra Collaboration is more cost-effective, attracting budget-conscious businesses or those with existing infrastructure. Google Workspace, despite higher costs, offers strong ROI through its productivity features and seamless collaboration capabilities. This pricing structure is often justified by the efficiency and comprehensive solutions it provides.

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

Buyer's Guide

Google Workspace vs. Zimbra Collaboration

January 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

7.3

Number of Reviews

101

Ranking in other categories

Wireless Email (2nd), Cloud Storage (5th), Content Collaboration Platforms (2nd)

Zimbra Collaboration

Ranking in Email Applications

5th

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of Google Workspace is 23.5%, up from 23.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zimbra Collaboration is 9.1%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

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

"The calendar is the most valuable feature."

"The Hangouts feature is the most valuable aspect of the solution for us."

"The solution helps us to collaborate."

"The features we use quite a lot are the mail and Google Drive. We can store documents and share documents between both employees here, locally in Sweden, and we have an office in the US as well. It's a very easy way to share information and documents, and have online meetings and stuff with Google Meet. We use it quite a lot."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is email."

"G Suite Enterprise is user-friendly, and the technical toolkits and other information are on the website. Additionally, the technical documents are comprehensive."

"Being able to back up our data on Google Drive is a critical and valuable feature for our customers. It is just in sync. Imagine you change a file on the desktop, and it gets updated directly to your Google Drive. Our laptop is completely in sync with Google Drive. Google Meet, Google Sheets, and Google Docs are also amazing products. They're very versatile and easy to use as compared to Office 365. I am using Google Sheets and Google Docs, which first save the work on my memory or ROM, and then on my RAM. It gives me better productivity through Google Sheets and Google Docs."

"The initial setup is simple."

More Google Workspace pros

"Zimbra Collaboration has integrated a lot of their party tools and they have good documentation available."

"Network NG Modules are valuable to us."

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

"The solution is easy to implement."

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

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

"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."

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

More Zimbra Collaboration pros

Cons

"One area of improvement for Google Workspace is the Google Meet functionality. Currently, users cannot upload files directly through Google Meet; instead, they have to share links via Google Drive, which adds unnecessary steps and complexity."

"Google needs to improve its support."

"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."

"There are times the plugins or extensions in the solution do not work properly and I need to disable and enable the solution."

"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."

"There are 120 different products and Google is ready to copy their competitors and vice versa. Some of them work, and some of them don't. There are many newer tools with no-code environments which allow for a leaner self-owned system, where I'm not tied to paying hundreds and thousands of dollars a year to another company."

"G Suite could offer something a little more solid in terms of chat — something that is a little more like Slack and integrates with everything. But, unfortunately, the chat is very basic there. It doesn't offer that many features and feels like it doesn't belong there."

"We use Zoom most of the time for official meetings, and we use Google Meet only for internal meetings. I would like to get an improvised Google Meet. It would be good if they can make Google Meet more clear in communication and more scalable like Zoom."

More Google Workspace cons

"It would be great if a group chat feature were created to allow for a team environment."

"There are some security issues."

"File sharing permissions with Nextcloud integration need improvement."

"We have had an issue with security."

"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 could use more integration with third-party tools."

"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."

"Zimbra Collaboration does not have a solution roadmap as aggressive as the new collaboration mail solutions. Additionally, they can have a better interface and integration with single sign-on."

More Zimbra Collaboration cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I give the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being the most affordable."

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

"We have purchased an annual subscription."

"2,500 Rupees per month per user."

"The solution is expensive."

"We pay on yearly basis."

"The pricing is very high, although I cannot tell if this is the result of the Indian vendors artificially inflating it."

"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."

More Google Workspace pricing and cost advice

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

"There is an annual standard licensing fee to use Zimbra Collaboration and there is no other cost."

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

"We pay yearly licenses for Zimbra Collaboration."

More Zimbra Collaboration pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

Government

Computer Software Company

19%

Government

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

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 customers very efficiently with the result data in structured manner.

See all answers

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

I'm not satisfied with the cost because I feel these services should be free as they use our data.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Google Workspace?

As far as Google Workspace is concerned, it is working fine for us. Our needs are fulfilled, so that's fine. However, integration with Microsoft Outlook could be improved. The new integration was i...

See all answers

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 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

Microsoft Exchange Online vs Google Workspace

Compared 33% of the time

Amazon WorkMail vs Google Workspace

Compared 30% of the time

ProtonMail vs Google Workspace

Compared 7% of the time

IceWarp vs Google Workspace

Compared 4% of the time

GoDaddy vs Google Workspace

Compared 2% of the time

More Google Workspace Competitors

Microsoft Exchange vs Zimbra Collaboration

Compared 32% of the time

Open-Xchange vs Zimbra Collaboration

Compared 22% of the time

KerioConnect vs Zimbra Collaboration

Compared 15% of the time

IceWarp vs Zimbra Collaboration

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Exchange Online vs Zimbra Collaboration

Compared 6% of the time

More Zimbra Collaboration Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Google Workspace

January 2025

Download Google Workspace product report

Buyer's Guide

Zimbra Collaboration

January 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

January 2025

Free Report: Google Workspace vs. Zimbra Collaboration

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