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 7.9, while Zimbra is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.0. Google holds a 24.1% mindshare in EA, compared to Zimbra’s 9.2% 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 100 Google Workspace reviews

6,715 Views
6,038 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Zimbra Collaboration

Read 29 Zimbra Collaboration reviews

3,766 Views
2,876 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Google Workspace

Zimbra Collaboration

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 29, 2024

Zimbra Collaboration and Google Workspace are popular collaboration tools. Google Workspace has an edge due to its comprehensive features and integration, though it comes at a higher cost.

Features: Zimbra Collaboration provides robust email, calendar, and task tools. Google Workspace offers integrated communication apps, real-time document editing, and extensive storage options.

Room for Improvement: Zimbra Collaboration needs better mobile app performance, a smoother user experience, and enhanced search functionality. Google Workspace could improve offline capabilities, integration with non-Google apps, and data migration tools.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service:Zimbra Collaboration is flexible, supporting both on-premises and cloud setups. Google Workspace's cloud-centric model simplifies deployment and offers quick setup. Users report mixed experiences with Zimbra's customer service, while Google Workspace is noted for responsive support.

Pricing and ROI: Zimbra Collaboration is cost-effective with a favorable ROI. Google Workspace, despite being more expensive, is considered worth the investment for its extensive features. Users feel Zimbra appeals to budget-conscious buyers, while Google Workspace justifies its higher price with additional functionalities.

To learn more, read our detailed Google Workspace vs. Zimbra Collaboration Report (Updated: December 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Google Workspace vs. Zimbra Collaboration

December 2024

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Categories and Ranking

Google Workspace

Ranking in Email Applications

1st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

100

Ranking in other categories

Wireless Email (2nd), Cloud Storage (4th), Content Collaboration Platforms (3rd)

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 December 2024, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of Google Workspace is 24.1%, up from 21.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zimbra Collaboration is 9.2%, down from 12.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Email Applications

Featured Reviews

Jerome Poudevigne

CTO at Lounivo

Seamless collaboration with advanced calendaring and real-time document editing

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. This is especially frustrating when dealing with external users who do not have Google IDs. Another area requiring improvement is the chat/messaging feature, which is basic compared to other products like Slack. Having an integrated and efficient messaging system would be beneficial.

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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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution's technical support is very good."

"It's easy to control the admin settings, like updating the SDS, NIK, etc. I"

"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."

"The most valuable feature of Google Workspace is the sheets and documents."

"The tool helps me keep a backup of old emails. Like everyone else, I love the Google search engine for searching emails on webmail. The Google Workspace connector for Outlook works well, so I have no issues with that."

"The solution is very intuitive."

"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."

"G Suite is a powerful suite of tools for messaging and collaboration that has met the fundamental needs of my company, both increasing productivity and reducing costs."

More Google Workspace pros

"One of the most valuable features involves the solution's automatic backup, which I find to be pretty simple and straightforward, and obviates the need for additional software."

"The stability is good and keeps getting better with each new update."

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

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

"It has all collaboration features, such as document sharing, video conferencing, chatting, task sharing, and calendar sharing."

"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."

"Zimbra Collaboration's sharing features are most valuable."

"Zimbra Collaboration has a good web interface."

More Zimbra Collaboration pros

Cons

"We need more functionality with Google Sheets"

"It would be a lot nicer if the default Gmail came with features that we currently need add-ons for, such as tables, automatic BCC, resizing of the panel on the left-hand side, email highlighting, and configuring the display of time and date against each email."

"The price could be reduced."

"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."

"Scalability is not as good as we would like."

"G Suite is not as powerful as Microsoft Office Suite, so sometimes we have to change to Excel and PowerPoint."

"The meeting platform of Google Workspace has room for improvement."

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

More Google Workspace cons

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

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

"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."

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

"The tool should improve its multi-cloud feature."

"It does have a few bugs."

"It is good and competent, but you have to pay for video and group chat features."

More Zimbra Collaboration cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"We have purchased an annual subscription."

"The price of Google Workspace is reasonable. I pay less than 100 a month."

"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 main challenge regarding startups with identity services is you could be on a platform that works well but the services are expensive. For example, Microsoft Azure costs approximately $30 per user which is expensive. You end up choosing a different platform, such as G Suite Enterprise because it is priced reasonably and is less expensive than other solutions."

"We pay a monthly subscription for the use of this solution."

"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."

"Licensing costs are on a yearly basis."

More Google Workspace pricing and cost advice

"We pay yearly licenses for Zimbra Collaboration."

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

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

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

"Zimbra Collaboration is expensive, and there is no perpetual license option."

"The solution is competitively priced."

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

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

More Zimbra Collaboration pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

Government

Computer Software Company

19%

Government

10%

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?

Google Workspace lacks the ability to copy and move files from one folder to another easily. I also find it challenging to perform many operations using the context menu in Google Sheets, Google Do...

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 34% of the time

Amazon WorkMail vs Google Workspace

Compared 30% of the time

ProtonMail vs Google Workspace

Compared 6% of the time

IceWarp vs Google Workspace

Compared 4% of the time

Google Cloud Storage vs Google Workspace

Compared 2% of the time

More Google Workspace Competitors

Microsoft Exchange vs Zimbra Collaboration

Compared 35% of the time

Open-Xchange vs Zimbra Collaboration

Compared 18% of the time

KerioConnect vs Zimbra Collaboration

Compared 14% 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

December 2024

Download Google Workspace product report

Buyer's Guide

Zimbra Collaboration

November 2024

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

Learn More

Google

Zimbra

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.

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

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

December 2024

Free Report: Google Workspace vs. Zimbra Collaboration

Find out what your peers are saying about Google Workspace vs. Zimbra Collaboration and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.

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