Outlook.com
Ranked 13 of 17 email services by recommenders
Recommended for a fast web interface with folders, rules, shared mailboxes and calendar. Common caveat: mail to its addresses is often blocked or delayed.
Recommended for a fast web interface with folders, rules, shared mailboxes and calendar. Common caveat: mail to its addresses is often blocked or delayed.
72 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 13
- criticize it
- 59
- approval share
- 18%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: not 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: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 15 years
Median of the 4 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 13 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 7 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
Good web interface that works well
“I exclusively used the web UI because it always ran faster for me”
Comment from 18 Jun 2026 in “Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly” “It does the job -- indeed I find it better than modern gmail.”
Comment from 9 Sep 2026 in “Lotus Notes and the dangers of starting from scratch” “The outlook webapp is quite decent.”
Comment from 27 Feb 2026 in “F-Droid Board of Directors nominations 2026” - Comment from 18 Jun 2026 in “Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly”
Folders, rules, shared mailboxes, calendar
“The web mail has folders, rules, shared mailbox support, integrated calendar, etc.”
Comment from 18 Jun 2026 in “Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly” “which can at least sync also calendar/contacts”
Comment from 2 Oct 2026 in “TimeLimit – offline local time limit parental control app without Google” Light and fast in browser
“I exclusively used the web UI because it always ran faster for me”
Comment from 18 Jun 2026 in “Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly” “the Outlook PWA uses 281kB. You still get notifications”
Comment from 6 Jan 2026 in “Why is the Gmail app 700 MB?”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Mail to its addresses gets blocked
“got so angry at certain messages never appearing that a couple of years ago I reversed the flow of forwarding and swapped to another account as my primary”
Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “Users fume over Outlook.com email 'carnage'” “I found it maddening that I couldn't whitelist a sender (MS Outlook web, Gmail); well I could, but they still blocked the messages.”
Comment from 12 Feb 2026 in “Email is tough: Major European Payment Processor's Emails aren't RFC-Compliant” “virtually impossible to run your own mailserver and have the mail delivered, consistently at Gmail and Outlook/Live/Hotmail”
Comment from 2 Jun 2026 in “Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left” - Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “Users fume over Outlook.com email 'carnage'”
- Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “Users fume over Outlook.com email 'carnage'”
- Comment from 12 Feb 2026 in “Email is tough: Major European Payment Processor's Emails aren't RFC-Compliant”
- Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “Users fume over Outlook.com email 'carnage'”
- Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “Users fume over Outlook.com email 'carnage'”
Browser navigation and clicking glitches
“The Outlook web app breaks browser navigation, I thought we had that figured out in SPAs like, more than a decade ago.”
Comment from 18 Jun 2026 in “Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly” “I often get the case where I aim for one icon, something will load in, create a new icon, and push my intended target out of the click.”
Comment from 6 Nov 2025 in “App Store web has exposed all its source code” “It makes searching on such "feed" pages with the browser's search function an utter pain in the ass”
Comment from 3 Sep 2026 in “The browser's main thread is expensive” Sign-in and access errors
“The "rate limiting" started two weeks ago, giving us a code that Microsoft's documentation doesn't even list. It remains unresolved.”
Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “Users fume over Outlook.com email 'carnage'” “In other browsers I regularly get stuck in an auth redirect loop between different Microsoft domains when I open the site.”
Comment from 20 Jun 2026 in “Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly” “rolled out passkeys with no recovery option and no option to sign in using username and password once enrolled”
Comment from 18 Sep 2026 in “I don't like passkeys” - Comment from 25 Feb 2026 in “Danish Gov agency to ditch Microsoft software in push for digital independence”
Support takes long to resolve
“The "rate limiting" started two weeks ago, giving us a code that Microsoft's documentation doesn't even list. It remains unresolved.”
Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “Users fume over Outlook.com email 'carnage'” “Had to supply MS support with proof of ownership of the IP. The whole process took about a week to resolve.”
Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “Users fume over Outlook.com email 'carnage'”
Other email services people recommend
The four most recommended other email services, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fastmail | 388 | 95 | 80% | 13 | 5 yrs90 owners | Approved |
| Gmail | 295 | 797 | 27% | 12 | 20 yrs58 owners | — |
| Proton Mail | 196 | 222 | 47% | 13 | 3 yrs29 owners | — |
| Tuta Mail | 49 | 17 | 74% | 13 | — | Approved |
| Outlook.comThis page | 13 | 59 | 18% | 7 | 15 yrs4 owners | — |
What people said
40 of the 79 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“which can at least sync also calendar/contacts”
“rolled out passkeys with no recovery option and no option to sign in using username and password once enrolled”
“I cannot access outlook email (the website one) without setting up and use passkey”
“It does the job -- indeed I find it better than modern gmail.”
“Outlook struggles keeping more than 30 in active memory. That's gotta be a joke.”
“It makes searching on such "feed" pages with the browser's search function an utter pain in the ass”
“Outlook.com also seems to routinely ignore DMARC (it will bounce emails with a DMARC that's report only)”
“In other browsers I regularly get stuck in an auth redirect loop between different Microsoft domains when I open the site.”
“The web mail has folders, rules, shared mailbox support, integrated calendar, etc.”
“I exclusively used the web UI because it always ran faster for me”
“Web version works just fine.”
“I have been living inside it for almost 7 years now and actually prefer it to any of the desktop clients”
“The Outlook web app breaks browser navigation, I thought we had that figured out in SPAs like, more than a decade ago.”
“virtually impossible to run your own mailserver and have the mail delivered, consistently at Gmail and Outlook/Live/Hotmail”
“does not support email addresses with IPv[46] literals required by self hosted SMTP servers”
“their mobile client doesn't even show the Sender email, but the self-disclosed name”
“Microsoft's "Web Outlook" client, available at outlook.live.com.”
“Confirmation emails from numerous services have been been unable to get through for me.”
“The "rate limiting" started two weeks ago, giving us a code that Microsoft's documentation doesn't even list. It remains unresolved.”
“Why are incoming emails to outlook.com so large? 15KB minimum for a text email with just a title.”
“Microsoft has banned an entire netblock, that our server just happens to be sitting in”
“Had to supply MS support with proof of ownership of the IP. The whole process took about a week to resolve.”
“We are completely unable to make anything happen with Microslop. It is infuriating.”
“Every other year some part of the system would break, deliverability, authentication or 2FA.”
“Outlook has a multi-stage set of email servers and the inside ones reject due to the edge (antispam) servers”
“Some of them just could not send a response back to me, so I am not using outlook anymore.”
“got so angry at certain messages never appearing that a couple of years ago I reversed the flow of forwarding and swapped to another account as my primary”
“Hotmail/Live/Outlook/whatever just made the messages disappear, no spam folder, no bounce, just disappear.”
“their service is extremely unreliable, my emails are either not delivered at all or end up in junk mail”
“It's only hotmail/outlook that we constantly have this issue with, Google etc. are all fine.”
“Outlook.com has always been a bit shitty, if you're trying to deliver email to them”
“Microsoft keeps blocking them. Every two months or so I have to ask them to unblock the IP again”
“The outlook webapp is quite decent.”
“The Quality is also Shit. I get some stupid Errors when trying to Access OWA every other day.”
“I found it maddening that I couldn't whitelist a sender (MS Outlook web, Gmail); well I could, but they still blocked the messages.”
“my own email under outlook.com is literally the only one of the MS systems I can't seem to deliver to”
“the Outlook PWA uses 281kB. You still get notifications”
“support for multiple email addresses on the same account which they made a fully first class feature”
“it just prevents the recipient from downloading it, so there's no indication of anything wrong”
“I often get the case where I aim for one icon, something will load in, create a new icon, and push my intended target out of the click.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.