Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users
Microsoft Exchange Online Logo

Microsoft Exchange Online pros and cons

Vendor: Microsoft
4.3 out of 5
Badge Leader

Pros & Cons summary

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.
Get the report

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Microsoft Exchange Online offers reliable and high-performance email management capabilities with very little downtime.
It is highly scalable, supporting large user bases across multiple regions without significant cost increases compared to onsite servers.
The cloud environment provides extensive storage, including massive mailbox capacities, which would be costly to maintain internally.
Exchange Online integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Teams, enhancing collaboration through shared calendars and document sharing.
Data protection and security features, including spam filtering and data loss prevention, strengthen Microsoft's ecosystem and offer peace of mind.

CONS

Microsoft Exchange Online needs better integration with other platforms and software.
There are concerns about cloud security and the limited options for direct security features.
The process of user provisioning and data migration requires improvements.
Pricing is a significant concern, as it is considered high and could be more competitive.
SMTP configuration for third-party applications could be enhanced, especially without an on-premise SMTP server.
 

Microsoft Exchange Online Pros review quotes

it_user746322 - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Manager IT at ACP BILLING SERVICES PVT LTD
Oct 28, 2018
It helps us manage the email focus from our side.
PS
Solutions Architect at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Oct 28, 2018
The reliability factor is high.
RR
Tech Lead at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Oct 28, 2018
It is a reasonable solution.
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Exchange Online. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2025.
879,899 professionals have used our research since 2012.
RG
Senior Technology Support Analyst at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Oct 28, 2018
The overall usage was all good.
RC
Manager IT Projects & Systems Integration at a transportation company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Nov 12, 2018
The initial setup was straightforward.
it_user507216 - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Architect at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Nov 18, 2018
Tech support has been great, when necessary.
PT
CEO at Shivaami Cloud Services Pvt. Ltd.
Apr 25, 2019
I have not had issues with stability of the product.
AB
Network and Security consultant at a energy/utilities company with 201-500 employees
Nov 28, 2018
It is a scalable product. We are using it for 500 users.
MN
Tech consultant at select softwares
May 18, 2020
The online version is faster, as it is a cloud instance. We can have massive mailbox capacity: 100 GB per user, which is huge. We can't provision such capacity internally, as the company would get burnt out paying for mailbox storage.
reviewer1439037 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Analyst at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Oct 20, 2020
It is for emails, and it seems to work okay.
 

Microsoft Exchange Online Cons review quotes

it_user746322 - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Manager IT at ACP BILLING SERVICES PVT LTD
Oct 28, 2018
In the past, we had issues with DB in mailboxes.
PS
Solutions Architect at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Oct 28, 2018
It should integrate better with social media formats.
RR
Tech Lead at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Oct 28, 2018
For example, recently there were some spam incidents that Microsoft does not currently mitigate because they have another paid solution to do so. It would be nice to integrate the security and the anti-spam (i.e. the fake links, etc.) along with the Exchange Online default.
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Exchange Online. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2025.
879,899 professionals have used our research since 2012.
RG
Senior Technology Support Analyst at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Oct 28, 2018
In terms of machine controls, it was very confusing, and some of the administrative parts will be done from the control, but in online writing mostly we can handle everything.
RC
Manager IT Projects & Systems Integration at a transportation company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Nov 12, 2018
When initially setting up, it took a bit of time because we had a lot of PST files with the users, and we had to migrate them batch by batch.
it_user507216 - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Architect at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Nov 18, 2018
Migration can be an issue if you do not have a good audit process.
PT
CEO at Shivaami Cloud Services Pvt. Ltd.
Apr 25, 2019
I would like to let new users know that there are challenges regarding user provisioning, HRMS and the AD. Also, the data migration integrity needs to be checked in terms of the old data.
AB
Network and Security consultant at a energy/utilities company with 201-500 employees
Nov 28, 2018
I have found that Microsoft has vulnerabilities when it comes to Exchange Online. It has become the port of a lot of hacker attacks.
MN
Tech consultant at select softwares
May 18, 2020
I would prefer an anti-malware functionality in at least the basic version.
reviewer1439037 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Analyst at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Oct 20, 2020
I don't like it in general. It sort of has that Microsoft flavor to it, which is just the style they use and the way they color things and lay them out.