Zimbra Collaboration Suite, Professional Edition v5

Zimbra
Score: 3.83 out of 5
Tested on: RHEL 5
Price for 100 users, first year: $3,800 (as tested with mobility features); includes antispam and antivirus; Subsequent years: $3,800; includes antispam and antivirus

Zimbra Collaboration Suite (which can run on a host of operating system platforms including RHEL/Fedora Core, OS X, SuSE, Ubuntu and rPath VMware) is a suite indeed, built on top of more than a dozen major open source products. Zimbra's integration with Outlook, Macintosh clients, and ActiveSync devices such as Windows Mobile and iPhone was outstanding, giving a great user experience. While performance was slower than other products in this test, most end users will find that Zimbra offers them a great e-mail experience.

System managers may be a bit less ecstatic. Although Zimbra has done a fantastic job of making the installation and integration of different open source tools into a full-featured mail server, there's still a large number of rough spots, both in the design of the integration and in what isn't included in the integration at all. Simple and obvious tasks, such as enabling Secure-HTTP in the Web server, aren't covered in the GUI — instead, we had to track it down in the documentation (because it was missing from the index) and then decode the misspelled commands to get it all secured properly.

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Zimbra
Score: 3.83 out of 5
Tested on: RHEL 5
Price for 100 users, first year: $3,800 (as tested with mobility features); includes antispam and antivirus; Subsequent years: $3,800; includes antispam and antivirus

Zimbra Collaboration Suite (which can run on a host of operating system platforms including RHEL/Fedora Core, OS X, SuSE, Ubuntu and rPath VMware) is a suite indeed, built on top of more than a dozen major open source products. Zimbra's integration with Outlook, Macintosh clients, and ActiveSync devices such as Windows Mobile and iPhone was outstanding, giving a great user experience. While performance was slower than other products in this test, most end users will find that Zimbra offers them a great e-mail experience.

System managers may be a bit less ecstatic. Although Zimbra has done a fantastic job of making the installation and integration of different open source tools into a full-featured mail server, there's still a large number of rough spots, both in the design of the integration and in what isn't included in the integration at all. Simple and obvious tasks, such as enabling Secure-HTTP in the Web server, aren't covered in the GUI — instead, we had to track it down in the documentation (because it was missing from the index) and then decode the misspelled commands to get it all secured properly.

Despite these reservations, Zimbra Collaboration Suite is one of the best substitutes for Exchange, even outdoing Microsoft in some areas critical to small businesses, such as Macintosh integration. While you have to be prepared to dive into Unix system management to keep a Zimbra server under control, end-users will be pleased with the results.

Zimbra Collaboration Suite is also available in an open source community edition for unlimited users (with some groupware features removed) without charge.

Zimbra Collaboration Suite also uses a subscription model, and carries a fairly hefty annual price tag for the Professional Edition (needed for MAPI integration). The subscription model means you must keep up to date; if you want to drop support, you must transition to a free version of Zimbra Collaboration Suite (without some critical groupware features) or another product.

< Return to main test: Exchange alternatives are good bet for mid-sized rollouts >

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