Nextcloud vs. Zimbra by Synacor

While searching for tools to satisfy a quickly scaling online startup, we found Nextcloud is well suited for today's remote collaborative team. Nextcloud has just the right toolset for a collaborative workspace including video, chat, many file formats accepted, and intuitive user interface. Comparatively other popular tools like Trello were distracting with more features than functionality. Working with Nextcloud is much like having a workspace with all your content and tools available anywhere on any device, without the ads, distractions, and irrelevant functionality. We will continue to utilize Nextcloud as a remote workspace for evolving and scaling teams.

Incentivized

I consider Zimbra Email & Collaboration a viable alternative to the major American cloud email platforms. In a scenario where data protection and privacy are critical, especially in an on-premise environment, Zimbra is a very suitable solution. It is also capable of offering a comprehensive set of tools and additional features (tasks, calendars, contacts, briefcase) in an integrated manner.

Incentivized

• File sharing (internal, public or federated).
• One software, many activities (files, address book, calendar, chat, edit, email) ...
• Groupware, sharing between users or groups is really easy and finely controlled.
• Integrations and many apps.

• The management of incremental mail backup. It is very simple, and the administrators of my company recover information quickly.
• The management of the distribution lists is structured. This allows easy distribution of mass information.
• The web application is very complete and intuitive.

Incentivized

• Slow in comparison to other solutions
• May be complex for the start since there are lots of apps and features
• May be not focusing on core topics

Incentivized

• User web interface could be more friendly, but it is enough for daily use. It could be renewed and has to consider some usability concerns. Improving usability would significantly improve users' satisfaction.
• Message backup recovery is not a simple activity.
• As an administrator, some of the features work better using the command-line interface.
• The webclient uses ajax requests in almost every event. Because of that you may need a fast internet connection to have a good experience. You can switch to HTML version but it will limit what you can do.

Incentivized

The web usability of the solution is adequate, with all functions integrated into a single interface. However, it is important to note that in the desktop environment, it lacks its own application and relies on ActiveSync synchronization with reference solutions like Outlook or Thunderbird. Some features, such as the briefcase, will be excluded. The same happens on smartphones.It is also common for competing solutions to include integrated chat or video call tools, which Zimbra lacks. These shortcomings are among the most frequently requested by users.

Incentivized

I never needed support as everything always worked fine. The documentation on Nextcloud website is extensive and clear. The community is very active on the forum and should support you if you don't already find what you are looking for.

Overall, we were satisfied with the implementation. We perhaps should have spent more time consulting with Zimbra or others regarding best practices but as we got to know the system better we were able to make changes relatively easily after the fact.

Incentivized

PIM and file sharing are the same as you get in Google's Drive/Calendar. With extensions, you can also implement web meetings (e.g., by using Jitsi), but this comes with more administrative effort. In the end, this comes down to how big of a user/customer base you are supporting. For small enterprises, Nextcloud stacks up very well against its big competitors. At a large scale, you will have increased maintenance and resource costs which you need to check against licensing fees for the cloud providers.

• We were originally a Groupwise shop before changing to Zimbra in 2008. Zimbra, from an end-user standpoint, pricing, system administration, and management is a far better system.
• We use Google Apps for our students. We did not find it to be suitable for faculty and staff due to its lack of shared accounts.
• We are moving from Zimbra to Office 365. Office 365 offers just about all that Zimbra had, though its web interface is inferior to that of Zimbra. It does offer us greatly reduced costs though, and high availability. If Zimbra were to have a fully HA environment, we may have stayed with them.

Incentivized

• It allowed us access to our files from any device over the internet.
• It helped manage and organize our file sharing with third parties.
• It provided a secure wrapper for accessing files.

• Improved internal communication and dissemination and distribution of messages and corporate objectives.
• The creation of an internal network of employees is something that gives us security and confidence.
• Having a private and exclusive messaging system differentiates us from the competition and from other companies.