Microsoft Exchange Reviews

We use the solution for email, calendar, and integration into Zoom.

The product works very well. Being able to access email outside the organization is a very good feature. It is very easy to set up.

The default storage capacity is too small. Though the mailbox size is one terabyte on the cloud, the default mailbox size can be increased for on-premise products.

I have been using the solution for ten years.

The tool is very stable. I rate the stability a ten out of ten.

The tool is very scalable. It is easy to add additional servers and users. I rate the scalability a nine out of ten. It is very difficult to migrate the server. If a primary Exchange server needs to be moved, it is not very easy. The service has to be shut down completely before it can be moved.

If there were a way to move it in real-time while email is still running, I would give it a ten. However, at the moment, we have to shut down the server and migrate or scale it to bigger capacity servers or the cloud. About 100 people in my organization are using the product. It is extensively used in my organization. As the organization grows, we will increase the usage.

I have used a webmail service that comes with Plesk for Linux servers.

The initial setup is moderately easy. It is neither easy nor difficult. It does require Active Directory to be set up properly. Setting it up is not difficult. It takes two days to set up an Exchange server.

We deployed the solution in-house. We need a manager, a systems engineer, and two developers to deploy the solution.

We have seen very good returns on investment. The solution is almost free. We just worry about Microsoft 365 licenses, and then Microsoft handles the deployment in the cloud. Once we set up the cloud domain, the cost is almost zero.

The licensing is integrated with Microsoft 365. Licensing is becoming easier. We can get Exchange in the cloud along with the Microsoft 365 license. We don't have to worry so much about Exchange licenses in the future. It would be deployed in the cloud.

The tool is very stable and easy to set up. However, we need Microsoft-certified engineers to manage it. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

I use the product to help customers build their infrastructure, support their existing operations, or troubleshoot their Exchange environment. 

My use cases span setting up on-premises solutions to configuring hybrid environments involving Office 365.

The platform has significantly streamlined communication and collaboration for my clients, offering reliable email and calendaring services. It also provides compliance features like email journaling, which is critical for legal and regulatory purposes.

The Database Availability Group (DAG) is the solution's most valuable feature. It ensures high availability and resilience, allowing seamless recovery from potential failures and making it a reliable option for business-critical operations.

The solution's hybrid deployment process could be improved, particularly for customers who initially started in the cloud and may want to return to an on-premises setup. Microsoft could make this transition more flexible.

I have been working with Microsoft Exchange since version 5.4.0, which has been approximately 27 or 28 years.

The product is stable when implemented by experienced professionals.

The platform scales well, especially with the use of hybrid cloud environments. However, to maintain performance at scale it may require careful management of resources and configurations.

Microsoft’s support for Exchange is adequate, but their shift away from partner-focused business models has caused delays in getting timely support. Their support team may not always have the depth of knowledge needed, particularly for complex on-premises or hybrid scenarios.

For someone with my level of experience, the setup is straightforward. However, for less experienced users, the complexity of configuring Exchange, especially in hybrid environments, can be challenging.

I handle the implementation in-house due to my extensive experience with Exchange. However, for those who have in-house expertise, engaging a vendor with specialized knowledge is crucial for a smooth setup.

The product pricing is reasonable if you utilize its full suite of features. However, it may feel expensive for users who only require basic email services.

Exchange was selected based on its advanced features, such as archiving, legal compliance, and multi-site support, which were not fully available in open-source alternatives.

I advise investing in proper training or expert support is essential for maximizing the product's potential.

Overall, I rate it a seven out of ten. 

We are a consulting company. We deploy Microsoft Exchange. One of our clients has been working with a file drive endpoint with Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft 365 Exchange. We use the latest version, which is a hybrid platform with Microsoft 365. I also work with departments in the government that use the solution for email purposes.

The maximum number of users that I am working with is approximately 20,000 users at a time. 

We've been using Exchange as an email platform. Our clients require multi-country, multi-regional email collaboration with controlled mail flow. The most valuable feature is the capability of message tracking and the protection of user data.

I would like to see Microsoft Exchange improve its documentation. The legacy version of the solution had very accurate product documentation. Also, they had very good training courses. Recently, as Microsoft has been frequently adding new features, the documentation has not been as detailed. This means that we need to spend more time making use of our own experience to tackle some problems.

New users will need help from technical professionals. There are not many people in the market that have in-depth knowledge of the product. The documentation for Microsoft Exchange is scattered, poorly organized, and often incomplete.

Due to the lack of adequate documentation, users cannot determine the optimal way to operate the system and end up crashing the product. Unfortunately, many of them do not seek help as they are unwilling to pay Microsoft the high cost of professional services.

I have been working with Microsoft  Exchange for twenty-three years. 

Microsoft Exchange has been in the market for more than twenty-five years. It is a stable, mature product. Any concerns with stability usually have to do with the fact that the user is not using the product in the correct manner because Microsoft did not teach them how to operate the solution correctly.

As long as you have a good plan, Microsoft Exchange can scale very well. However, the solution does consume a lot of web resources if deployed on physical hardware or on VMware. For example, I have an organization that has 200 users and Microsoft has eaten up more than 100 gigabytes of memory.

If you use Microsoft Hyper-V, the scalability is good. 

It is not unusual that when you implement the solution and you need information, you can not find it, or it is not very detailed. You will then need to engage with the Microsoft support team. You will need to spend a lot of time making use of your own experience to tackle some problems.

Microsoft charges very expensive professional fees for support services. Unfortunately, the quality of support is very low. They are not grooming sufficient people to support the end-users.

Positive

The initial setup of Microsoft Exchange is not complicated. However, if you need to set it up to work in harmony with any other program, you need a very in-depth understanding of the platform. 

Licensing costs for Microsoft Exchange have increased, but are still fair. For some users, the cost is high considering the number of functions and features they will use. 

The advice I would give to anyone considering this solution would be to use the latest online version. It is the only way to get quality support when you encounter any type of problem.

If you are not going to use all of the functions and features and only require primitive functions, this solution may be too expensive. When you consider the cost in terms of storage when you are leveraging the online version of Microsoft Exchange, it is quite a good investment.

When considering just the product itself, I would rate Microsoft Exchange a nine out of ten.

We use it to share information and collaborate with each other, even when we're working remotely. 

We exchange files and documents, and we also use it to store recordings and other information from meetings with our customers. 

There are some bad days or hard ways when it's tough to connect with people who don't have MS Teams products. But this is only a hard situation when we need to communicate with people outside MS Teams.

So the connectivity could be improved.

Another area of improvement is the sharing of files, the sharing part of Teams. How I can easily share information files or video files with the colleagues I'm working with? So, this is an area for valuable improvement.

Another area of improvement is support. It should be faster and more clear, and more human.

I have been using this solution for the last five years. We use the latest version.

I would rate the stability a seven out of ten. There are hard days. 

It is very easy to scale. Just add on licensing and keep working the same way.

There are around eight end users in our company. It's suitable for our current level. We're a small company, so it's quite okay.

I don't have the best impression of customer service and support. It should be faster and more clear, and more human. The support team deep dives into thousands of documentation pages, making problem-solving time-consuming without human interaction.

Neutral

The initial setup is very straightforward. It just took a minute. It is very easy. 

The deployment is a plug-and-play process. You simply need to access the administrator platform, set up the configurations easily, and share enrollment links with people. It's a very easy process.

The deployment was done in-house. However, you need an IT-oriented person, an IT manager with knowledge of Microsoft.

The license can be both monthly or yearly. It is not expensive.

It's a useful tool for remote work and communication. Start slow and educate yourself. Learn about the solution and give it a try.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

We use this product for emails and for meetings. I'm the IT coordinator. 

The biggest advantage of this product is that it provides us with unlimited storage for our mailbox. The availability and simplicity of getting emails is great. There's an accessible online version and you have the full Office package available at any moment beyond Outlook. The integration with OneDrive comes in very handy. The Outlook Exchange server becomes your go-to place for storing conversations and correspondence. 

The licensing could be better. There are several levels of licensing depending on the number of users and features but it lacks the breakdown of what's included in the license, and the possibility to customize what you really need. There are likely to be features included that you don't need but there's no opt out option for those.  

I've been using this solution for 10 years. 

Stability has improved tremendously. These days it requires an extraordinary set of circumstances to not be able to access your emails, to send or receive emails, or to access the Exchange server.

The solution is quite scalable. We have over 1,000 users. 

We've contacted technical support several times and they've been responsive. They're pretty good, in general. 

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward. There's really no problem with the setup of the latest Exchange servers and Exchange in general. We deployed in-house and didn't need any external partner to handle it.

Microsoft provides you with an ease of control, and management, and sets certain expectations from the software that you can't have if you implement other, cheaper solutions that are likely to be more difficult to manage or that are unable to adapt to new demands. It has a really nice scalable environment. You can start with the smallest Windows license and then just continue scaling up and upgrading, without the need to completely change and start over as your organization grows. The backbone is there on Microsoft. 

I like this product and rate it nine out of 10. 

This solution handles all of our primary functionality including email, message delivery, message archiving and calendars.

The primary features I use are email and calendar.

In our current situation, the disappearance of sanctions would be a tangible improvement. We are basically cut off from technical support and it's very difficult to obtain any updates.

We have been using this solution for four years. 

This is a stable solution.

This is a scalable solution. We already have over 10,000 users in Microsoft Exchange and the total size of the databases exceeds several hundred terabytes.

In all large corporate installations, the first level of tech support is always the local support team. Only if they aren't able to handle the case, we contact tech support in Microsoft. For now, because of sanctions, this option is quite limited.

Neutral

We had used IBM Notes before but it is an inferior product compared to Exchange.

I barely had any issues with initial setup of Microsoft Exchange. It involves a few clicks on the initial setup dialogue and that's it.

This solution is used by many large organizations and I don't know of any viable alternatives. If there are a large amount of users in an organization, Exchange is probably the best option. If there are less than 1000 users, opensource software may be a better alternative.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten. 

My use case for the product varies depending on the industry. It involves email management, scheduling, and collaboration to support real estate and managed IT services operations.

The platform's most valuable feature is the mailbox roles. I am currently using the 2019 version and previously used the 2016 version. The mailbox role hosts all the mailboxes, which is essential for our email management needs. 

They could offer simultaneous features for Exchange Online and on-premises versions. Specific features such as litigation hold and audit setups should be available on-premises. Additionally, a clear roadmap for future versions is crucial for administrators to plan and implement upgrades effectively. 

I've been working with Microsoft Exchange since 2014.

Microsoft Exchange on-premises is very stable as long as the resources are allocated correctly and the system is properly set up and administered. 

I rate the stability an eight.

I rate the product scalability an eight. 

Microsoft provides very good technical support, especially with an Enterprise Agreement.

Compared to previous versions, the initial setup has become much more straightforward. 

We implemented the product with the help of our in-house team. 

The platform can help save on-premises costs. In the past three years, the cost changes have shown that for an organization with 500 to 1,000 users, Exchange on-premises is more cost-effective over a five-year ROI. 

The platform has a reasonable price. 

We evaluated several other email management solutions to determine the best fit for our business requirements. 

I recommend Microsoft Exchange to others due to its robust features and reasonable pricing. Setting up Microsoft Exchange has become much more straightforward compared to previous versions. The overall setup experience has significantly improved over the past six to seven years, making it easier for administrators.

I rate it a nine out of ten. 

The main use cases are sending and receiving emails, managing calendars, scheduling meetings, and integrating with Microsoft Teams.

I find the Outlook client very valuable. It allows me to connect to the Exchange Server and send and receive emails easily. The graphical interface is user-friendly and has a good look and feel. 

Additionally, I appreciate its seamless integration with other Microsoft solutions like Teams and To-Do.

I would like to see the search capability of the Outlook client improved. I would like to be able to search emails by date, sender, recipient, or attachment.

I have been using this solution for more the ten years. We use the latest version. It's the cloud version of the Microsoft 365 solution that includes the Exchange Server. So, we use the latest solution provided by Microsoft in their cloud environment.

I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. 

It is quite scalable when it comes to Microsoft products. I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten. 

We all use this solution in our organization. 

We have often contacted customer service and support. It's a widely used product around the world. We often turn to community resources. When we are not able to solve a problem we contact our system integrator.  

We switched to Microsoft because Exchange is the most integrated with other Microsoft products.

If you're using Microsoft 365, it's very easy to setup since Microsoft manages most of it. You simply configure your clients to connect to the Microsoft server using your credentials. 

For on-premises solutions, it's a bit more complex as you need to set up and configure servers. You also have to manage roles and permissions, which is not required for the cloud solution.

The setup time can vary. For a small environment, it can take a day or less, especially if you're using a cloud solution like Microsoft 365. However, for larger deployments, there's additional work involved in configuring and optimizing the system.

Many users prefer Microsoft 365 as a cloud solution, which is easy to set up. However, there are still users who opt for on-premises solutions, which require more setup and management. Some are transitioning from on-premises to the cloud for better flexibility and management.

We require a few people for the maintenance of the solution. It's easy to manage. We have one dedicated technician.

For the cloud version, we have to pay. On-premises versions include some licensing, like Office 365 packages. There are variations.

The pricing is reasonable. It's not too expensive. It's comparable to Google, but Google offers fewer features.

We considered Linux-based products and Google products. 

Overall, I would rate the solution a ten out of ten. 

I surely recommend Exchange. The recommendation is to manage the change process correctly, such as the access system, MFA, password change policy, and complex passwords. You should also use Microsoft's email anti-malware solution to resolve issues and avoid phishing campaigns.