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 8.3, while Zimbra is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.0. Google holds a 21.5% mindshare in EA, compared to Zimbra’s 8.6% 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 102 Google Workspace reviews

7,267 Views
5,741 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Zimbra Collaboration

Read 29 Zimbra Collaboration reviews

2,651 Views
2,518 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Google Workspace

Zimbra Collaboration

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

Zimbra Collaboration and Google Workspace are competing in the organizational communication and collaboration sector. Google Workspace has an edge due to its extensive feature set and seamless integration.

Features: Zimbra Collaboration offers integrated email, chat, and calendar with a focus on customization and open-source flexibility. Google Workspace includes Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Meet, delivering real-time collaboration and seamless cloud integration.

Room for Improvement: Zimbra Collaboration could enhance integration capabilities and user interface design. It may also need a more robust mobile app and improved integration with third-party services. Google Workspace could improve offline capabilities, the meeting scheduling interface, and customization options for larger enterprises.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zimbra Collaboration allows for customizable deployments with strong support for on-premises setups, appealing to organizations wanting infrastructure control. Google Workspace offers a streamlined cloud-based deployment with minimal setup time and 24/7 support, ideal for organizations focusing on remote work and scalability.

Pricing and ROI: Zimbra Collaboration is more cost-effective with lower setup costs, appealing to budget-conscious businesses. Google Workspace, though pricier, provides a comprehensive suite that justifies its cost for companies needing extensive digital tools.

To learn more, read our detailed Google Workspace vs. Zimbra Collaboration Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Google Workspace vs. Zimbra Collaboration

July 2025

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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

7.0

Number of Reviews

102

Ranking in other categories

Wireless Email (2nd), Cloud Storage (5th), Content Collaboration Platforms (4th)

Zimbra Collaboration

Ranking in Email Applications

6th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of Google Workspace is 21.5%, down from 24.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zimbra Collaboration is 8.6%, down from 9.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Email Applications

Featured Reviews

Sunil-Nair

IT Manager at Universal Carpets & Rugs

Email collaboration and accessibility have improved team productivity

The valuable features include the email service, email updates, and Google Drive. People are given email access to Google Drive. The team can share manual files and work accordingly. They can access different teams from anywhere, collectively putting files, sharing them, and managing them. Additionally, the manufacturing product does not require any downgrades. It works fine and continuously for the last three or four years. Users can access their emails from anywhere in their browser without a laptop or can directly access from Gmail. This is helpful for salespeople.

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Vidya Shree

CTO at Molecular Connections Private Limited

Deploys quickly and has a good web interface

Zimbra Collaboration has a good web interface When it comes to administration tasks like configuring specific filters or group signatures, I have to dig into the configuration since there's nothing in the graphical or web interface. The solution’s forums don't have much information or…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"Being able to back up our data on Google Drive is a critical and valuable feature for our customers. It is just in sync. Imagine you change a file on the desktop, and it gets updated directly to your Google Drive. Our laptop is completely in sync with Google Drive. Google Meet, Google Sheets, and Google Docs are also amazing products. They're very versatile and easy to use as compared to Office 365. I am using Google Sheets and Google Docs, which first save the work on my memory or ROM, and then on my RAM. It gives me better productivity through Google Sheets and Google Docs."

"From a security point of view, Google will alert you if anything strange is happening. They will flag it for you so you are aware."

"It has saved us money."

"What I like most about Google Workspace is the Google Drive app because you can easily access it from anywhere and from any device. I also find the solution easy to use. It's user-friendly."

"The initial setup is very easy."

"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."

"The corporate email feature on Google's Gmail is fantastic."

More Google Workspace pros

"The most valuable feature of Zimbra for our team's productivity is its efficiency in handling email communication."

"Good email solution and it's open-source."

"The solution is easy to implement."

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

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

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

"The Zimbra Collaboration's most valuable feature is web access."

"One of the premium features was customized rooms tailored to the collaboration needs. Many of the clients customize features such as organization logos and scanners."

More Zimbra Collaboration pros

Cons

"Not all tools are available in the one facility."

"With Microsoft, you can use it on the web version, and you can use Microsoft Outlook. Google has the web version."

"I'm not sure if Google Drive has a customizing feature, however, if it did, then it would be better."

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

"Google Workspace has limitations as a document or file management system. Without a workspace account, manual actions are required to perform tasks such as managing groups of people. Additionally, managing permissions individually is a time-consuming and inefficient process. It's difficult to articulate, but the process is not very streamlined."

"With the Internet of Things, a platform that integrates well with others would be even better."

"The downloading options need improvement, particularly in converting and viewing data formats like PST and inbox formats easily."

"I have had issues with my Google Address Book. I have an address book and it is available to everyone, but I cannot add additional users. In Microsoft Outlook, I could easily share certain contacts with other members of my team, but I cannot do so on G Suite."

More Google Workspace cons

"Some issues cause the solution not to function correctly or to cause downtime once a month."

"I can confidently say that Zimbra is good enough for 2,000 client users. But, at the same time, if my client needs more than that and we have two options—Zimbra or Microsoft—I'm going with Microsoft because many admins will speak to Microsoft's ability to handle that many."

"They should enhance its online meeting features."

"Zimbra should provide a desktop client. Right now, we are using a web browser for accessing our emails. There should also be a desktop client."

"File sharing permissions with Nextcloud integration need improvement."

"We have had an issue with security."

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

"There are some security issues."

More Zimbra Collaboration cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's cheaper to run a couple of users in a Google platform than what it would be with Microsoft Exchange."

"Careful consideration should be given to the different licensing options and provisions should be made for additional applications that may be required for your particular business."

"There are different versions of the solution available, such as premium."

"The solution is expensive."

"The pricing of Google Workspace, so far, has been reasonable."

"I rate Google Workspace's pricing five to six out of ten. We do not pay any extra costs."

"You pay for Google Workspace based on your usage and the apps you use, but in my case, it's free, but if I used it a lot more, I'd probably need to pay. 15GB is enough for me, but I see myself upgrading and paying the additional charges for more storage regularly."

"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."

More Google Workspace pricing and cost advice

"We pay yearly licenses for Zimbra Collaboration."

"We do not pay for licenses to use this solution."

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

"The solution is competitively priced."

"The price of the solution is low."

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

"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."

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

More Zimbra Collaboration pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

18%

Comms Service Provider

Government

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.

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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...

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What needs improvement with Google Workspace?

I do not have any major suggestions for improvement. However, while the security functionalities are similar to those in competitors like Active Directory, they could be optimized for stronger secu...

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...

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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

Amazon WorkMail vs Google Workspace

Compared 28% of the time

Microsoft Exchange Online vs Google Workspace

Compared 24% of the time

ProtonMail vs Google Workspace

Compared 10% of the time

Office 365 vs Google Workspace

Compared 7% of the time

GoDaddy vs Google Workspace

Compared 2% of the time

More Google Workspace Competitors

Microsoft Exchange vs Zimbra Collaboration

Compared 27% of the time

Open-Xchange vs Zimbra Collaboration

Compared 22% of the time

KerioConnect vs Zimbra Collaboration

Compared 15% of the time

IceWarp vs Zimbra Collaboration

Compared 9% of the time

HCL Domino vs Zimbra Collaboration

Compared 4% of the time

More Zimbra Collaboration Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Google Workspace

July 2025

Download Google Workspace product report

Buyer's Guide

Zimbra Collaboration

June 2025

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

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.

Google

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

Zimbra

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

July 2025

Free Report: Google Workspace vs. Zimbra Collaboration

Find out what your peers are saying about Google Workspace vs. Zimbra Collaboration and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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