8 Best Microsoft Outlook Alternatives
When a certain market is dominated for so long by one brand, other brands, regardless of their quality, have a peculiarly tough time to position in the market and win their share of the consumers. Microsoft Office 365 has been a synonym for an excellent email server, with Outlook as one of the most popular email clients for years. This powerful platform guarantees a very high level of security, office integrations, and additional extensibility, so it is no wonder that it is the first choice for such a large number of companies.
But not every company needs all the features Outlook can offer. A business needs to change and transform over time, especially in the online world. Some organizations may benefit more from a simpler solution than what Microsoft offers. Luckily, Outlook nowadays has healthy competition, and you can choose from a wide variety of Outlook alternatives.
In this article, we’ll have a closer look at some of the most promising Outlook alternatives. Stay tuned to read more about:
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The most common reason why the majority of companies look for an Outlook alternative is its price. A standalone license can be bought for $159.99 and can be used for only one device, which obviously is not the most practical or profitable solution for large enterprises or even small businesses.
Apart from the price, many users find a lot of room for improvement when it comes to Outlook’s admin interface. Too many options that the majority of users won’t need or use just make the whole experience unnecessarily complicated.
What’s maybe the most interesting part is that despite its stellar reputation, when it comes to reliability Outlook doesn’t get all As. It is prone to occasional sluggishness, unforeseen crushes, transfer errors, has complex password recovery, and lacks integration with Google Drive. If you experienced some of these issues, or have other reasons to look for an Outlook alternative, there are many great options to consider.
Mailbird is a free email client for Windows that features a contemporary and polished design. It originates from Palo Alto and all of its development takes place in the US. Mailbird’s simplicity of use and the ability to connect with your email accounts from other providers like Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, AIl, and Outlook are the features that are widely appreciated by its users.
Calendar, address book, and file-sharing features are all integrated so this email client can provide well-rounded support to your business organization. Its interface design might remind of Outlook’s style, while the user experience it provides feels more like Gmail. Thanks to Slack integration, Mailbird also includes chat capabilities. All the functionalities needed for a desktop client come with Mailbird and you can also count on compatibility with Mac and Linux, apart from Windows.
What’s particularly great is that despite the fact that it is free, some premium features like email delegation and multi-account support are included.
The traditional look of Thunderbird‘s interface made it a popular choice for all those who loved how Outlook Express looked before Windows XP was released. You will surely notice some influence of Gmail’s and Yahoo Mail’s design in some details as well.
This email client is another great, free, open-source alternative that works with all the popular operating systems. As for the technical features, Thunderbird supports POP and IMAP protocols for receiving mails as well as SSL/TLS encryption of the data. Thanks to the IMAP IDLE, synchronization of emails across devices is also possible. It also offers the option to create folders for storing emails. If you find message filters useful, this email client allows you to create filters and define specific actions for specific messages that match certain, defined criteria. This way you can, for example, separate your personal emails from the business ones. Address books and RSS feeds are also included so that you can easily organize your contacts.
For the moment, Thunderbird is only available for Windows and Linux, while for Mac it offers a separate version named Seamonkey.
The mighty Google offers two practical email service solutions – Gmail and Google Workspace. There’s hardly anyone who hasn’t had the chance to use Gmail in some way. This email service is free and persistently stays on top of the best free email clients. Depending on your needs, even Gmail can perfectly serve your business. But, Google also has a strictly business email called the Google Workspace.
Google Workspace allows you to create, delete and edit email accounts within your organization as an administrator. Both Gmail and Google Workspace can meet the needs of a large variety of businesses. But only with Google Workspace you have the possibility to create email addresses with a custom domain, like [email protected]. Another advantage that comes with Google Workspace is more storage space and shared drives. A calendar is also included which makes it easy to schedule meetings and communicate them across your company.
As both email clients are a part of the Google ecosystem, all the other Google features like Google Drive and Google Docs are also available for use for business purposes. Both Gmail and Google Workspace are web-based email clients and have no desktop version. Some of the features that are most popular include automatic email filters and categories, video meetings, intelligent writing suggestions, spam filters, and many more. As mentioned, Gmail is entirely free, while Google Workspace offers three plans with prices ranging from $6 – $18 per month per user. There’s also a possibility of creating custom plans.
Shift is a desktop email app that enjoys huge popularity among business users. It is easy to use and allows you to handle emails via keyboard shortcuts which is an amazing time-saver. This app is also a good solution for organizing business tasks as it includes a neat task panel where you can see all the tasks as they are delegated. It is responsive and includes mobile and tablet versions that work seamlessly and are just as practical as the desktop version. Compared to Outlook, Shift may even seem like a minimalistic solution, but don’t let that trick you as this app can support a large variety of business needs. What’s also important to know about Shift is that it is constantly updated and new useful features often emerge. As for compatibility, Shift supports Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.
You can download the iOS version of Shift from the App Store for free, but to use all of its features you’ll have to pay the subscription fee. Also, what’s important to know is that Google Workspace is not supported by Shift, only Gmail accounts are.
As for pricing, the basic plan that allows for up to two accounts (Gmail, GSuite, Outlook, Office 365) and up to one app account is free. There are advanced business plans that come at a price of $99.99 per year.
Polymail has an attractive design and comes with a versatile set of features that allow you to streamline your communication easily. Thanks to the email tracking feature you will immediately be informed when the receiver opens your message. You also have the option to send reminders to those who skip opening important emails for a long period of time. The snooze functionality allows you to easily prioritize your emails and leave those not so important for a later review.
Apart from the calendar, there are also many more functionalities that allow you to organize your business more effectively. A powerful search functionality lets you find the target message in just a few seconds. You can schedule the emails to be sent at a certain time, schedule meetings directly through the calendar, get push notifications together with reading receipts so that you never miss an email, and many more.
One of the most interesting advanced features is the option to create a custom emails logo. Integration with Slack and Salesforce is also supported so Polymail can also help you manage the workflow more easily. As for the pricing, there’s a free trial version with limited functionality, and three paid plans with prices ranging from $10 – $49 per user per month.
If you are dealing with a lot of confidential and sensitive information, ProtonMail is one of the best choices. The feature that ProtonMail is most famous for is its “Zero-Knowledge policy” which guarantees a very high level of security and confidentiality of your email correspondence. All the messages and data communicated via this platform are encrypted at all times and not even the company has the power to decrypt them in cases when law enforcement agencies demand so. Simply put, this email client provides you with an incredible level of control over the data exchanged via emails.
Compared to Outlook and some other email clients, ProtonMail’s interface may seem to be a lot less stylish. Nevertheless, the abundance of practical features like a Calendar and Drive easily make up for its shortcomings in terms of design. It also has the option to define an expiration date for emails, after which they are deleted from the recipient’s inbox. ProtonMail is very easy to use and also runs on mobile devices so you can safely work on the go. Thanks to the ProtonVPN that is included for free you can encrypt your internet connection when using public WiFi hotspots or browse the internet anonymously without jeopardizing your business ID or data.
As for the pricing, the basic plan is free, and paid plans range from €48 – €288 per year.
Spike offers a simple and user-friendly interface that many find very appealing and practical for business. If you don’t really need a variety of features and run a smaller business, the simplicity of this email client may be just enough. The interface only shows the email sender and subject as the concept of Spike’s design makes emails look like chat bubbles on your screen.
This platform allows you to send emails via SMS, create personalized replies and canned responses, create and manage email folders, organize contacts into groups, and many more features that help streamline business communication. There’s also the email tracking option with optional read receipts. You can also write notes, set tasks, and have video chats.
Spike is free for personal use, but there’s also a variety of business plans as well as the possibility to create customized plans for large enterprises. Prices start at $8 per account per month. What’s particularly good about Spike is that many features that are often considered premium, like shared notes and email snoozing, are included in the free plan.
Spark is compatible with Android, iOS, and Mac, but for the majority of users, it is an excellent Outlook alternative for the Mac. It comes with a clean design and intuitive interface. Thanks to the smart Inbox feature you can collect and automatically categorize emails from different accounts and also set templated responses with the Quick Replies feature. Just like Outlook, Spark also includes schedule delivery, email reminders, snooze, and task management functionalities.
The most popular reason why companies choose Spark as their email client lies in the power of its team collaboration features. This platform streamlines communication across multiple teams within a company. It allows you to create shared email drafts and let entire teams work on them at the same time, leave comments on emails for only your team members to see, and many more features useful for teamwork. It is also possible to forward emails to defined recipients, set deadlines, and get notifications when a task is complete.
The only downside to this may be Spark’s privacy practices. Spark stores your password on a server which enables automatic synchronization of accounts across different devices but also makes it vulnerable to hackers.
As for prices, the basic version is free and the prices for paid plans start from $6.39 per active user per month. There’s also the possibility of creating custom plans.
In Conclusion
All the Outlook alternatives in this list offer different advantages. Some, such as Spark, are more focused on collaboration features. Others focus on providing the safest possible user experience – ProtonMail is one of those. Spike, on the other hand, offers an interesting and unique user interface that looks more like chat and less like a business inbox.
In case you’re looking for a well-rounded alternative that can compete with Outlook in every sense, you’ll probably go with some of the propositions from the top of the list – Thunderbird or Mailbird. Almost all the email clients come with a free version, but when it comes to premium versions prices are very variable. It is up to you to analyze your needs and see which of the email clients meets your expectations best.
