| Exchange: Should I stay or should I go?
So, in light of the pros and cons of the alternatives laid out in this test, should I keep going with Exchange, or should I switch? How we tested the Exchange alternatives
We invited 13 mail server vendors to participate in this test, and announced our test through the Internet Mail Consortium, an industry group of mail vendors and users. CommuniGate Pro is speed king
In this evaluation, we quickly found that modern hardware — even within the VMware and SAN environment — offers very good performance for these messaging servers. Our performance tests stress the mail servers far beyond what any midsize business would see for incoming mail load, and even some large-sized ones. However, we did find that when on-board antispam and antivirus are in use, performance drops considerably and may affect how users perceive system response time. ALT-N's MDaemon offers easiest management
Management of a midsized e-mail system can be complicated. System performance has to be monitored to ensure reasonable response time for end users. Protocol engines, such as SMTP, POP and IMAP, have a host of configuration variables and options, many of which are obscure or idiosyncratic. Finding the best of the basic messaging feature sets
The set of basic features that comprise a business e-mail server today are simple e-mail access and full support for multiple delivery protocols, including SMTP, POP and IMAP. Additionally, because Exchange also includes contact management and calendaring tools in its basic bundle, we also considered those must-have features. Extended features stand out
Each product tested offers features beyond basic e-mail. For example, Zimbra Collaboration Suite and MDaemon both have integrated instant messaging servers, and MailSite Fusion has a short message service gateway. But we honed in on specific-business features: webmail, antispam and antivirus support, and unified communications tools because those are the types of tools shipped with Exchange. Zimbra Collaboration Suite, Professional Edition v5
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. MDaemon v10
As an SMTP receiver, MDaemon has as many features in the areas of security, SMTP transaction control and message routing. And, we were totally blown away at the level of visibility into message flow through the system for a product aimed at this market. MailSite Fusion v9
MailSite Fusion provides basic mail service on Windows platforms. We found several glitches with Windows 2008 support, and were also disappointed that it doesn't have a MAPI connector for Microsoft Outlook. Kerio MailServer v6.6.2
We found Kerio MailServer to be a great product, well-matched to this market. While the lack of scalability and technical support style will limit Kerio deployments to midsize enterprises with less than 1,000 mailboxes, we found Kerio MailServer an easy drop-in replacement for Exchange. CommuniGate Pro Internet Communications Platform v5.2.9
CommuniGate Pro, the company's flagship e-mail server, has evolved over the years into a modern messaging server with a focus on performance and scalability. Scalix Enterprise Edition v11.4
If you're looking for the best mail server in 2001, Scalix might well be it. The Enterprise Edition is certainly priced at a level reminiscent of 2001. But now that it's eight years later, we deserve better integration, lower prices and a stronger feature set from a product with this distinguished of a history. Kerio is tops for Mac support
With Outlook users taken care of in one manner or the other, we wondered how each of these products would deal with Macintosh users. Installation easier on Unix servers
We installed each product according to the manufacturer's directions. Where both Unix and Windows were supported as the base server operating system, we chose to use RedHat Linux 5 (RHEL5). If the product only supported Windows, we used Windows 2008 server. Zimbra offers elegant mobility links
We believe that compatibility with Microsoft Outlook is critical for any product in this marketplace. We also believe that most businesses will want a mobility solution, especially one based on Microsoft ActiveSync, for "push" e-mail, as well as synchronized contacts and calendaring. | 
Out of the more than 150 products tested, a baker's dozen rise to the top of the list.
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