Zimbra

// June 4th, 2006 // Other Web, Technology Bits

Zimbra LogoFor a long time I’ve been touting Zimbra as the greatest available web-based mail client. I’ve never gotten around to mentioning it here, but I figure it’s time. In fact, Zimbra is more than just a web-based mail client, they call it a collaboration suite. Basically this means it has email, calendar, and contact management. It’s all Ajax based, open source, extendable, and provides a free version.

In addition to the fantastic interface, it is also a complete email server with industry level SPAM protection built-in. The email server supports IMAP and POP so users can continue using whatever desktop application they may prefer as an alternative to the web-based application.

With my general unhappiness with Outlook and most other web-based email solutions, I really wish I could use Zimbra. Go check out the hosted demo.

ajax, collaboration, email, web 2.0, webmail, zimbra

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13 Responses to “Zimbra”

  1. BorkWeb » Yahoo Acquires Zimbra says:
    September 17, 2007 at 8:12 pm

    [...] Zimbra announced today that they have been acquired by Yahoo!! Zimbra was bound to be acquired by someone [...]

  2. ig says:
    September 24, 2007 at 11:48 am

    Zimbra was never truly open source anyway. It’s just barely free enough to cover the licenses of the open source underpinnings to which they helped themselves (mysql, cyrus, etc.) without giving anything back (if you want Zimbra to be useful for anything other than a barebones mail server, you have to buy the commercial version).

    True open source collaboration, on the other hand, is available from Citadel — http://www.citadel.org — this is a community-built platform that is in the same league as Zimbra but is end-to-end GPL software. Give it a try.

  3. Seemly says:
    February 10, 2008 at 12:36 am

    You mentioned “you really wish you could use Zimbra,” why can’t you use it?

    Version 5 supports sync with Vista and Outlook 2007, Mac Tiger or Leopard, plus the Evolution client and already good integration with mail, calendaring and contact sharing on all platforms in Thunderbird, plus has a ton of new features like file-sharing and task-list sharing.

  4. Sutton Realtor says:
    May 19, 2008 at 11:29 am

    I am losing business, because I can’t get my Emails on time since my franchise (Sutton Group Realty) switched to this STUPID system. I am no computer person, but been working with them for over 25 years and I have NEVER seen anything this STUPID. Now I feel like a captive hostage because to switch my Email address means that I have to make new business cards, signs, flyers, pens, magnets, etc. ZIMBRA SUCKS the BIG ONE >:-(

  5. Common Sense says:
    July 21, 2008 at 9:14 am

    @ Sutton Realtor

    Do not spread your frustrations on Zimbra, but at the franchise/sysop. using CAPS STUPID only reflects back on you.

    Like any other program/platform Zimbra works great if you use it the way it is supposed to be used.

  6. Dale Lieneke says:
    July 29, 2008 at 1:56 pm

    I’m try to get Zimbra setup as my mail email and it won’t let me use (pop.att.yahoo.com) It keeps telling me that I need to use an Imap mail server. ??? I email Zimbra support and they told me they couldn’t help me and to contact my administrator.
    Didn’t the address (pop) tell them anything?

  7. Gray Relvsen says:
    August 7, 2008 at 12:13 am

    We tried to deploy Zimbra and it was a dismal failure. We’re a non profit and resources are tight, so we can only afford a single server at our hosting company, which is shared with Apache and a couple of other applications (fundraising tools etc). Zimbra was such a pig, it ate up the whole machine and still ran slow.

    One of my colleagues recommended Citadel, which was happy to live on the same machine with our other apps, and ran nice and fast, we’ve been using it ever since.

  8. Tripod client says:
    August 23, 2008 at 4:07 am

    I have to say I do not like zimbra at all.

    I have several email addressess attached to my tripod domain which used squirral mail and my mail never got purged or deleted because of too many.

    Zimbrat deletes email or will not upload it and constantly reminds me of being too full. You are annoying

    signed

    not pleased at all

  9. jlg74 says:
    August 31, 2008 at 11:29 pm

    Zimbra’s support for Outlook is terrible. It does synchronization, not a full store. They should have had Bynari write their Outlook connector.

  10. Matt says:
    September 29, 2008 at 11:45 am

    Anyone that is fedup with zimbra, Get a better server admin.

    We had some problems at first, but after a few hours of playing with the config, we now have zimbra running MUCH faster than outlook.

    Want to know the great part? If the internet connection in our office goes down, everyone can keep in contact via email still.

    Zimbra does use a lot of ram, but try using MS exchange, the new requriements of that are outragious!

    If anyone needs some help on getting zimbra setup as a real solution, let me know.

  11. Power Email User says:
    December 16, 2008 at 2:45 pm

    Our company transitioned from Exchange to Zimbra four weeks ago. What a nightmare. I consider myself a power Outlook07/Blackberry user. Zimbra is great for the Mac/iPhone user, but sucks for me. No Notes. No Tasks. No Out of Office assistant in Outlook. Terrible/inaccurate search functionality in the web and regular client. Bugs galore! I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. It seems like a very immature product with little testing.

  12. End IUser says:
    January 22, 2009 at 11:53 am

    Zimbra is a system intended for sysadmins, not end users. The functionality that it provides is fairly weak in the free version. The general appeal of Zimbra is that it is easy to maintain.

    It lacks good mobile integration, calendar integration is virtually non-existent, the search functionality is poor, the web filter is an also ran when compared to Outlook/Exchange rules, no desktop popup for calendar appointments.

    For business users who need and have become reliant on such features, zimbra is second rate.

    If you can’t afford Outlook/Exchange, then Zimbra may be the way to go. But it is simply not a replacement system. It just does not have the functionality.

  13. ZimbraUser2K8 says:
    January 28, 2009 at 9:22 pm

    For all those who have nothing but negatives to say about Zimbra, I would suggest you speak with you SysAdmin. Maybe you’re running an older version, maybe you simply don’t know what you’re doing or maybe both is true. I’ve been an Outlook user and Exchange admin for many years and Zimbra is a fresh and welcome change from the dreaded monopoly of the Exchange/Outlook duo. Zimbra does, in fact, provides notes and tasks for those the don’t think that it does. I’ve had my Zimbra syncing with my iPhone for many months now and it’s just as reliable as syncing with Exchange. The Web interface is miles ahead of Outlook Web Access (OWA). Zimbra is by certainly not a perfect application and yes it has it’s bugs, but all those that believe Exchange/Outlook is free from bugs is living in a fantasy world. I’ve been watching Zimbra mature for the past 18 months and it only gets better with each subsequent release. They are working out the bugs and adding new features and this takes time and resources. Exchange has been around a really long time and it’s only been in the past couple of years that Exchange/Outlook has really become a great product. As collaboration suites go, Zimbra is phenomenal at sharing information. Exchange/Outlook is too, it just takes more work than it does in Zimbra. As one user noted, the requirements for Exchange are absolutely ridiculous…Exchange 2007 now requires 64-bit processors, plus a full setup of Active Directory, which if done correct requires at a minimum 2 AD servers. You’re look at 10K for just the hardware alone for Exchange (virtualization aside). Zimbra’s hardware requirements are much more reasonable. I’ve been running my Zimbra install for about 18 months now and haven’t seen any spikes in CPU or “hogging” of the resources as one user indicated and I’m running about 100 users through this server. Now I setup Zimbra servers in addition to Exchange and my Zimbra clients absolutely love it. So, give it a fair chance. You can’t do a fair evaluation in a weekend or even a weeks time. It has taken me several months to get over my past my Microsoft-only obsession. There are other companies besides Microsoft that make good and usable products. And in a years time, Zimbra will be even better! I made the switch and don’t plan on switching back either.

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