Microsoft Exchange Server
Shares rank 6 of 9 mail servers by recommenders
Companies on Microsoft software use it for email and calendars because it integrates tightly with Office and Teams. Critics call it fragile and locking in customers.
Companies on Microsoft software use it for email and calendars because it integrates tightly with Office and Teams. Critics call it fragile and locking in customers.
40 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 14
- criticize it
- 26
- approval share
- 35%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 14 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 9 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Tight integration with Microsoft 365
“the tight integration with Exchange/M365”
Comment from 18 Jan 2026 in “Prediction: Microsoft Is Going to Do the Funniest Thing Imaginable” “gets you bundled Teams and Exchange”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices” “It becomes the 'foot in the door' (or trojan horse, YMMV) for the O365 suite, for Exchange...”
Comment from 27 Jul 2026 on Hacker News Only on-prem option for email
“So yeah, the only on prem solution is still Exchange.”
Comment from 19 Apr 2026 in “Swiss authorities want to reduce dependency on Microsoft” “Their email comes from Exchange.”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products” “you've got Exchange on-prem”
Comment from 9 Dec 2025 in “Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices” Works well and stays fixable
“I had some good experiences with Exchange years ago, but this is just my personal experience, since most people seem to hate it.”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “Oracle slashes 30k jobs with a cold 6 a.m. email” “Can actually work pretty well but the implementation had been successfully eroded over last decade or more.”
Comment from 3 Apr 2026 in “Artemis computer running two instances of MS outlook; they can't figure out why” “Exchange (on-prem) and Office are all still fixable and will last Microsoft a long time”
Comment from 8 Feb 2026 in “Billing can be bypassed using a combo of subagents with an agent definition” Calendar and mailbox use
“Exchange integration is the calendar, period. Nothing else.”
Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “France dumps Zoom and Teams as Europe seeks digital autonomy from the US” “I prefer using MS Exchange mailboxes for my message queue.”
Comment from 25 Jan 2026 in “Using PostgreSQL as a Dead Letter Queue for Event-Driven Systems”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Locks customers in, blocks rivals
“By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market.”
Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Thunderbird adds native Microsoft Exchange email support” “have your open source email client be 100% compatible with the proprietary Exchange protocol”
Comment from 31 May 2026 in “Microsoft degrades functionality of perpetually-licensed offline products” “Those customers are locked in and with no real alternative to migrate to.”
Comment from 9 Dec 2025 in “Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices” - Comment from 27 Jul 2026 on Hacker News
Unreliable, poorly run servers
“how poorly the Exchange server ran that there was a nix server for inbound email just to throttle the ingress”
Comment from 8 May 2026 in “Serving a Website on a Raspberry Pi Zero Running in RAM” “Can actually work pretty well but the implementation had been successfully eroded over last decade or more.”
Comment from 3 Apr 2026 in “Artemis computer running two instances of MS outlook; they can't figure out why” “instable af, the MS consultants could not keep it running even for 24 hours at a time”
Comment from 28 Nov 2025 in “Can Dutch universities do without Microsoft?” Complex, hard to integrate
“Trying to get free/busy working with an exchange hybrid setup is not my kind of entertainment”
Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “Copilot is 'for entertainment purposes only', per Microsoft's terms of use” “a maze of dark twisty integration passages which no single human has mapped fully”
Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “France dumps Zoom and Teams as Europe seeks digital autonomy from the US” “Hunting through 365, exchange, and azure to find policies that apply elsewhere.”
Comment from 31 Oct 2026 in “Azure's Weakest Link – Five Full Cross-Tenant Compromises”
Other mail servers people recommend
The four most recommended other mail servers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stalwart Mail Server | 27 | 4 | 87% | 10 | 3 mo3 owners | Approved |
| Postfix | 21 | 5 | 81% | 9 | 22 yrs4 owners | Approved |
| Dovecot | 18 | 1 | 95% | 11 | 15 yrs4 owners | Approved |
| qmail | 15 | 5 | 75% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Microsoft Exchange ServerThis page | 14 | 26 | 35% | 9 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 43 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Hunting through 365, exchange, and azure to find policies that apply elsewhere.”
“Completely unacceptable for a provider my company, a smaller one, pays six figures per year for services.”
“exchange didn't set a quota on that folder and by default would only get emptied by a manual emptying”
“the exchange server dropped support EWS forcing everyone to use their Graph API”
“I hate it but I can't do anything about it.”
“Smaller is, in fact, better, because it's easier to operate reliably.”
“the Exchange Server storage layer was a total dog's breakfast”
“Exchange Server was a complete PITA to upgrade”
“Move to Exchange and it's horrible single file mail storage solution”
“couldn't handle it very well”
“It becomes the 'foot in the door' (or trojan horse, YMMV) for the O365 suite, for Exchange...”
“No wonder Windows had it's lunch eaten in virtually every facet by Linux server applications.”
“running Exchange and massive SANs on-prem”
“Isn't sharepoint itself a cobbled together on top of Microsoft Exchange mailboxes?”
“have your open source email client be 100% compatible with the proprietary Exchange protocol”
“how poorly the Exchange server ran that there was a nix server for inbound email just to throttle the ingress”
“Migrating off windows, win server and exchange saved us a lot of money”
“But that leaves open CVE-2025-64667, CVE-2025-64666 and CVE-2026-21527.”
“So yeah, the only on prem solution is still Exchange.”
“Trying to get free/busy working with an exchange hybrid setup is not my kind of entertainment”
“Can't wait to see that happening again, this time affecting an Exchange server used by astronauts in space!”
“Can actually work pretty well but the implementation had been successfully eroded over last decade or more.”
“I had some good experiences with Exchange years ago, but this is just my personal experience, since most people seem to hate it.”
“both IMO technically not as good as Notes in many areas”
“Exchange (on-prem) and Office are all still fixable and will last Microsoft a long time”
“all of us had to use both Exchange and Lotus Notes”
“a maze of dark twisty integration passages which no single human has mapped fully”
“Exchange integration is the calendar, period. Nothing else.”
“I prefer using MS Exchange mailboxes for my message queue.”
“the tight integration with Exchange/M365”
“you've got Exchange on-prem”
“Those customers are locked in and with no real alternative to migrate to.”
“Their email comes from Exchange.”
“gets you bundled Teams and Exchange”
“my employer's Microsoft Exchange system kept sending my stuff to spam”
“instable af, the MS consultants could not keep it running even for 24 hours at a time”
“By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market.”
“You'll recall how horrendous on prem Exchange updates could be.”
“work switched to Exchange and it was very slow”
“It was literally just this year that on-prem exchange support ended for the one-time purchase license”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.