Mozilla Thunderbird and Microsoft Outlook are two of the prominent email clients familiar to the digital world. Both of them have their inborn qualities, and some features of them are better than the other.
Basically, Mozilla Thunderbird and Microsoft Outlook 365 gives the same output and functionalities to the users. Plus, both of them have many similar features in their model, such as advanced security features such as firewalls and spam filters.
Many are there who support Mozilla Thunderbird and gives a high-five to go for it. Yet there another group who like Microsoft Office Outlook for its all-inclusive nature. However, the pros and cons of each of these email clients might be familiar with the experts, but a lot of businesses need to know which the best option.
Hence let's check which one is better over the other
Mozilla Thunderbird is an opensource email client with fantastic use cases. It got a lot of enticing features such as chat options, RSS feed reader, and newsgroup options. Plus, it offers better security and the provision to manage many email accounts seamlessly.
Developed by the Mozilla community, it is primarily available for Linux, but anyone can install and configure it across all the popular operating systems such as Windows and Mac machines. What makes it more user friendly is its stable version with streamlined functionality.
Mozilla Thunderbird has a whole lot of fan-base just because of its simplicity and graphical user interface. Besides, its ability to accommodate multiple accounts in the same thunderbird profile is exceptional. Users can customize and modify email accounts based on their requirements, as well.
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| • User can open multiple tabs for navigation | • No calendar and task list is available (users can add separately) |
| • Accommodate multiple email clients easily that supports different protocols such as IMAP, POP3, SMTP | • Outdated functionalities and old model user interface |
| • Fast and simple email archive by clicking the "A" button. | • Though focusing on stability and security modernization is at a slow pace |
| • Easy email management Fast search, filter, tags, and view of emails | • No drag and drop functionaries are available |
| • Users can use several extension with entended usability | Temporarily subject can disappear |
| • High-security protection for emails including spam filters, firewall, and antivirus | • Sporadic bugs such as clicking a subject line can land us on the wrong email |
| • Mozilla Thunderbird is very reliable and got a huge number of plugins | |
| • Users can send weighty files by the support of pCloud for Mozilla Thunderbird | |
| • Consistent in design yet got greater flexibility |
Microsoft Outlook is more like an information manager application with an incredible email system. Being a desktop-based email system, Microsoft Outlook allows the users to work on Microsoft Exchange server and SharePoint servers in an organization.
Unlike Mozilla Thunderbird, Microsoft Outlook has additional inbuilt features such as calendar, note, task, journal task management, and much more. In addition, Microsoft Outlook is accessible as a separate application and allows businesses to integrate MS Outlook with SharePoint and file sharing and team collaboration easy.
Apart from that, Microsoft Outlook offers few customization options for the users, such as in storage and appearance. Though the basic storage capacity of Outlook is 5Gb, users can upgrade it based on their needs. Besides, Microsoft Outlook gives the freedom to change the themes from the wide range of themes and track the status of sent emails and much more
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| • Powerful spam filtering and prevents phishing attacks | • Apart from Microsoft aliases, it does not support other mail aliases |
| • Smark Lookup" which is integrated with bing search for quick automatic search | • Users are not allowed to create rules, flags, and folders |
| • Supports IMAP, POP3, MSN, Hotmail | • Microsoft Outlook is complex to configure unlike Mozilla Thunderbird |
| • Email Attachments can directly be pinned with the help of cloud support | • Users need to purchase the license to use the application |
| • Based on the priority of incoming email users can filter it with feature "clutter | • As the mail folder size increases the chances to crash in high |
| • Fast multiple account configuration |
| Features | Mozilla Thunderbird | Microsoft Outlook |
|---|---|---|
| Cost Involved | Free (Open Source) | Paid (Proprietary ) |
| •Cross-Platform Availability | Windows, Linux, macOS, Unix, BSD | Windows, macOS |
| Add-on/extension ecosystem | Complex (over 1,200 valuable add-ons) | proprietary add-ins are available |
| Microsoft Exchange Server Protocol (MESP) | No (Support through ExQuill for MS Exchange) | Support |
| Deployment Method | On-premises | On-premises, SaaS (software as a service) |
| ActiveSync Support | No (Via TbSync addon) | Support |
| IDE (Integrated Development Environment) | Not Support | Supported with developer tab (in Ribbon) |
| NNTP (Network news transfer protocol) | Support | Not support |
| User Interface | XUL Interface | Third-part paid exertions (Ribbon UI/Classic UI) |
| Unicode Paths support | Not support | Support |
| PIM (personal information system) for mobile OS | No | Yes(Outlook app) |
| Email Module Features | ||
| Unified Inbox | Support (Multiple POP Inbox) | Not Support |
| Unified Folders | Support | Not Support |
| File Size | Local Folders- 4 GB POP3- 4 GB IMAP , maildir, mbox- available storage | Default space- 50 GB |
| Sending email later (delay) | No (with addon support) | Support |
| Email Tracking | Not support | Support |
| Email follow-up | Not Support | Support |
| Email Voting | Not Support | Support |
| Set permission on IMAP mailboxes | No (via ACL extension supported) | Not Support |
| Email Category | Not Supported | Support |
| Task and Contact Feature | ||
| Task | Support | Support |
| Chat (IM, VoIP) | Google Talk, AIM, Yahoo!, Skype, QQ, MSN, ICQ, Jabber, IRC | Skype, IM address |
| Add contacts to address book-automatically | Support | Not support (Via add-on) |
| Categories | No (via add-on) | Support |
| Notes | Plain text in default Address Book | Support formatting and pictures |
| Search | Name and email (more with CardBook add-on) | Name, email, telephone number, address, notes |
| Attach file (to contacts) | Not support | Support |
| Rich Text Editing | Not Support | Support |
| Displaying post from social networks in the address book | Not support | Support(Facebook, LinkedIn, Xing) |
| Phone Number Verification | Not support (via CardBook add-on) | Support |
| Support | Support | Support |
| Country-based address format | Not support | Support (with "check address") |
| Chat and Calendar Features | ||
| Chat networks | Facebook Chat, Internet Relay Chat(IRC), Yahoo, Google Talk, XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol | Skype for Business |
| Calendar extension to WebDAV | Support | No (via add-on) |
| Calendar to MS Exchange server | Not support (via add-on) | Support |
| Integration to Google Calander | No (Via add-on) | Support |
| Multi- calendar visibility | Not support | Support |
| Auto date detection from email | Support | Not support |
So we have got a glance over the major and minor differences between Mozilla Thunderbird and Microsoft Outlook. Both of them have their own identity and distinctive capability. Though both are email clients that are designed to facilitate seamless email communication between different parties, the feature it carries varies.
Based on the use cases, you can decide the best suiting email client for your business. Obviously, If events and tasks are a primary concern for your business, nothing can replace Microsoft Outlook. However, if the budget and the easiness to set up and handle goes in the priority, you can choose Mozilla thunderbird.
By the way, if you are confused about narrowing down your choice, please feel free to check expert advice from Medha Hosting. Not only for selecting the email clients, plus managing your mail servers, migrating email data from any server systems, and administering your IT infrastructure.
