Ask HN: Alternative to Exchange for Email Server System?

5 points by ttam 16y ago ↗ HN

Hi, I'm looking for recommendations for an email server system. I work with an institution that does alot of communication through email, and as such it's a crucial part of their tech infrastructure.

The requirements are the following:

- Availability is essential

- It doesn't have to be open source, as long as it's not outrageously expensive. Also, it can be windows or linux based.

- An API access for email retrieval would be good, but if there aren't, what's the best choice between POP and IMAP?

So far, we've glared into Zimbra that seems to be very recommended and looked into some other solutions such as mailenable and icewarp.

Thanks in advance.

3 comments

[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 18.1 ms ] thread

there 16y ago ↗

it depends on your needs. do you need a mapi-compliant server that works with outlook clients and does calendaring, delegation, etc.? or do you just need an smtp server with imap/pop3 access that works with everything?

ttam 16y ago ↗

Well the idea is to develop a web-based email client customized for their special needs (an alternative solution is also welcome). As such, MAPI is not a requirement.

Calendar and delegation are not a priority.

On another note, using gmail/google apps would be great if they offered some kind of API, but afaik nothing official is available.

profquail 16y ago ↗

One hosting provider I've used for a few sites offers SmarterMail for their webmail. They've got an enterprise version as well, which is supposed to have all the features of Exchange (like Blackberry support)...and they offer it for free if you have <= 10 users on your domain.