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Google Workspace vs Zarafa comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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
6.6
Number of Reviews
106
Ranking in other categories
Wireless Email (1st), Cloud Storage (7th), Content Collaboration Platforms (2nd)
Zarafa
Ranking in Email Applications
16th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of Google Workspace is 13.7%, down from 22.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zarafa is 1.4%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Applications Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Google Workspace13.7%
Zarafa1.4%
Other84.9%
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.
it_user302112 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant IT Infrastructure at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
Our customers are able to use this groupware solution to connect to Active Directory and OpenLDAP, although Postgres support would be an improvement.
Zarafa has several very valuable features, among them a very good Outlook-like web interface. Furthermore, ZPush for talking between ActiveSync and mobile devices is a valuable asset. In addition, one is able to connect via Outlook and the exchange protocol to Zarafa. This makes Zarafa a free, and working, alternative to Microsoft Exchange.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"G Suite has saved the company a lot of time."
"The features we use quite a lot are the mail and Google Drive. We can store documents and share documents between both employees here, locally in Sweden, and we have an office in the US as well. It's a very easy way to share information and documents, and have online meetings and stuff with Google Meet. We use it quite a lot."
"The valuable features of this solution are ease of use, performance is great, and collaboration. It is very easy to share and joins documents."
"It's a good solution. It's simple to use and navigate."
"I think the most valuable feature is Gemini, which is now included in 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."
"We're replacing a mishmash of different solutions with one fully integrated product."
"I think it is a great subscription for me. I think it is important, especially when making an internal email subscription. For example, I can easily create my colleague's email address, and we can use it. I benefited from G Suite. I am using the G Suite Drive, which provides 30GB of storage, and it is helping for me. I think it's better for me."
"This makes Zarafa a free, and working, alternative to Microsoft Exchange."
 

Cons

"We would like to use something within Google Workspace for project management, but we didn't find it there."
"Google Mail's spam filter needs improvement. If I'm sending mail to another email user, sometimes it goes to the spam folder, and they won't know unless they check because they aren't seeing it in the primary inbox."
"The stability is good and it permits collaboration, but I think in the last couple of years it hasn't been as good as the Microsoft solution."
"The price could be reduced."
"I sometimes am logged out randomly from my account and it's a pain to have to log in again."
"There is quality lacking in their support."
"They can maybe improve its graphical user interface. Google is not really known for having a PC interface. It is just a nice-to-have feature."
"Some people complain that Google Mail is inflexible. It was advanced 10 years ago, but other solutions are cleaner and clearer."
"Not really, although the Zarafa-index component was using a lot of memory and disk I/O bandwith."
 

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."
"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."
"2,500 Rupees per month per user."
"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."
"We pay on yearly basis."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"It's low in cost as compared to Office 365. There is an annual licensing cost."
"I give the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being the most affordable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business64
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise28
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Workspace?
The company made the decision to migrate, so I'm not sure why specifically. The company is moving the data and the Microsoft subscription is no longer continued, so I have the choice to use Google ...
What needs improvement with Google Workspace?
Before I was in a Microsoft environment, which had its own software that was not website-based. When I moved to Google Workspace, it was not seamless because I have to access it through a web view ...
What is your primary use case for Google Workspace?
I have been using Google Workspace for file organizing, including Google Drive, Spreadsheet, Gmail, and Google Form, with most of my usage being in Spreadsheet. I do use Google Groups, which combin...
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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.
Tivoli, InterAkt Contour, Riagg Rijnmond, Lammerink, Revell, KMP, International School of the Hague
Find out what your peers are saying about Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in Email Applications. Updated: April 2026.
893,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.