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Google Workspace vs Zimbra Collaboration comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 19, 2025

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
6.7
Number of Reviews
105
Ranking in other categories
Wireless Email (1st), Cloud Storage (8th), Content Collaboration Platforms (2nd)
Zimbra Collaboration
Ranking in Email Applications
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of Google Workspace is 16.0%, down from 23.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zimbra Collaboration is 7.1%, down from 9.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Applications Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Google Workspace16.0%
Zimbra Collaboration7.1%
Other76.9%
Email Applications
 

Featured Reviews

AR
Assosiate Professor at Palazzo del Mediterraneo
Collaborative work with students has improved but storage limitations and support issues remain
We have Google Workspace, and we use it primarily for Drive to collect items. We categorize folders with topics and material either for students or for research. We use Google Doc to share documents, especially when we assign homework to be corrected for peer correction or classroom correction. With Teams and Microsoft, we use it for collective calls and exam supervision because we use video surveillance through camera with Teams. We use Teams for meetings and to share material with students. The ability to share documents with students and assign them things and correct them in real time has been beneficial. You can verify what they write, and they can contribute and cooperate to create a collective document, which is something that our society nowadays requires. The ability to cooperate, especially those who work with languages and those who work with writing, need to learn how to cooperate. There is co-editing and co-writing, all these sorts of things. I love the fact that I can easily have access to folders that I can categorize and where I can upload research material and teaching material.
Muhammad Talha Baig - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's certainly easier to meet. We have offices around the world and the ability to have a company meeting on Google Meet platform makes it a whole lot easier to actually have everybody virtually in one room at the same time."
"The most valuable feature of Google Workspace is its ease of use and stability."
"It's easy to use."
"G Suite Enterprise provides many features, such as business increased search visibility, email address, and domain. It's a large whole ecosystem that is the major benefit. You can manage your whole team and have many tools. Over seven years, the solution has gone through some drastic upgrades and improvements which are done automatically, I do not have to manual upgrade."
"Good search features, reliable storage, and quick thinking."
"I have found the solution to be pretty stable."
"personally prefer to use G Suite applications, such as Gmail, Slides, and Sheets, because they give you the freedom to share the document you're editing and co-work with other colleagues simultaneously."
"The corporate email feature on Google's Gmail is fantastic."
"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 Zimbra Collaboration's most valuable feature is web access."
"The logs, troubleshooting, and tracking we have found to be the most valuable features. We have any issues with lost messages the features are useful. It is very easy to track and log."
"The most valuable feature of Zimbra for our team's productivity is its efficiency in handling email communication."
"The solution is easy to implement."
"Zimbra Collaboration has integrated a lot of their party tools and they have good documentation available."
"Zimbra Collaboration's sharing features are most valuable."
"Network NG Modules are valuable to us."
 

Cons

"To a degree, the project management service could be improved."
"For Google Docs, if you upload a Word document up to Google Docs, it could mess up your formatting quite a bit."
"If you use a name with a special character like a slash in the folder, it will crash the migration, with no warning. There is no pre-warning or anything to tell you that if you use characters in a file name that it will crash the migration."
"Google could integrate Gemini AI with Google Workspace to enhance user experience."
"In some cases, we are using the Google Meet functions but only when we have external clients. Internally, we are using Slack. Google Meet virtual meeting function is not as advanced as the one in Slack and should improve."
"G Suite is not as powerful as Microsoft Office Suite, so sometimes we have to change to Excel and PowerPoint."
"Our users have faced an issue with increasing their email quotas over the last three months."
"Google Meet can have a bit more functionality. It should show the views of more people. Right now, it shows just eight at a maximum, or six. When there are more people on the call, more than eight, everyone is not showing."
"The installation is not straightforward, it can take two days for the full implementation."
"They should enhance its online meeting features."
"The tool should improve its multi-cloud feature."
"The solution could use more integration with third-party tools."
"The antispam and antivirus features are hard to understand on mobile devices."
"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."
"File sharing permissions with Nextcloud integration need improvement."
"We have had an issue with security."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay on yearly basis."
"We have purchased an annual subscription."
"There are different versions of the solution available, such as premium."
"The price per client within the business is too high."
"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 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."
"The pricing is a bit on the higher side than normal. For a basic Google account it costs $100, but Enterprise is %150."
"The pricing is comparable, it's pretty decent."
"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."
"I use Zimbra Collaboration's community version. We may move to the enterprise version since prices are affordable."
"If you choose the network edition, it is a little pricier. They have the open-source edition too which is only community supported."
"We pay yearly licenses for Zimbra Collaboration."
"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."
"The price of the solution is low."
"We do not pay for licenses to use this solution."
"The solution is not expensive compared to other products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business64
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise27
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
 

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.
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 expensive. The current cost is approximately seven to ten euros per user per mont...
What needs improvement with Google Workspace?
The only inconvenience is the fact that you have limited storage. After a while, you have to buy a surplus. It is not intuitive with Teams. It is hard to find categories and folders in Teams. I do ...
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...
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.
 

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

 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Workspace vs. Zimbra Collaboration and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,455 professionals have used our research since 2012.