After using both tools for quite a while, I decided to write down my impressions on their respective strengths and weaknesses. Since the post ended up being longer than I thought, I posted it directly on my Web site.
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#1 by Uratsuki on April 26, 2004 - 6:55 am
Hi,
it seems that you do not talk about security aspect.
Due to its tight integration into windows outlook inherit from all security vulnerabilities. I think the thunderbird non tight integration is an advantage.
🙂
#2 by dolapo on April 26, 2004 - 7:32 am
Just a clarification: Thunderbird does support LDAP, though something I wish from both clients is the ability to directly update entries in LDAP.
#3 by Keith Lea on April 26, 2004 - 9:25 am
I don’t know if you realize, but Thunderbird supports the vertical 3-pane layout as well as blocking remote images. (You marked these as + features of Outlook but they’re in Thunderbird too.)
#4 by Marius on April 26, 2004 - 10:19 am
The equivalent of the Follow Up flag would be the Label. Not exactly the same thing (no due date), but very close.
#5 by Dan Diephouse on April 26, 2004 - 10:44 am
For me the big downside to Outlook is it’s IMAP support. You’re right, they both have less than stellar IMAP support, but to me, Outlook is less stellar. I need IMAP because I’m using multiple computers throughout the day. And, I don’t think I’ll be switching to exchange server anytime son…
#6 by R.J. on April 26, 2004 - 12:07 pm
I’m glad to hear that Thunderbird stood up as well as it did, especially considering its age (or lack there of). Since Outlook has been around in one form or another for over 10 years now, I think I am satisified that Thunderbird is learning so quickly from the mistakes and successes of others.
I’m looking forward to the 1.0 release!
#7 by Frank Bolander on April 26, 2004 - 2:56 pm
Resend in Thunderbird can be done by going to the bounced message in Sent folder. Right Click “Edit as new”. You can change anything you want from there.
Plus, have you tried the Calendar extension to Thunderbird. It’s not too bad.
#8 by Scott Farquhar on April 26, 2004 - 6:55 pm
You can block remote images in thunderbird.
Options -> Advanced -> Block loading of remote images in mail messages
#9 by Srinivasan Ranganathan on April 26, 2004 - 9:43 pm
Maybe you should update your write-up including the good points mentioned in these comments. It’s only fiar.
#10 by Robert Barksdale on April 27, 2004 - 6:46 am
One of the great things about the Mozilla Application Suite is the ability to extend the user experience.
Thunderbird takes advantage of this feature through the use of extenstions. In order to have access to Calendar functions in Thunderbird, Mozilla or Firefox, it is just a matter of downloading and installing the component.
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/download.html
Additionally, if warranted, one can set-up a WebDAV instance and share a calendar with others using standards available to all, without the expense of a M$ solution.
#11 by memcpy on May 8, 2004 - 5:13 am
c’mon, thunderbird is FREE and opensource, two important things for me.
#12 by Vahe on May 10, 2004 - 8:10 pm
My Outlook/IMAP woes continue…. even with 2003 🙁
#13 by Tristan Grimaux on May 12, 2004 - 6:03 am
Using LDAP with thunderbird is easy, and right now, I’m using it with M$ Exchange (we are moving to Domino, or Courier) Name:what you want, Hostname:youknow, Base DN:DC=yourdomain,DC=com Port Number:389 Bind DN:domain\user and presto!!! you got it.
#14 by b0b on May 13, 2004 - 11:52 am
Outlook has been around for much, much longer than Thunderbird – please do note that Thunderbird *is still in beta*
Outlook 2003 is not in beta. A
#15 by Branko Collin on June 9, 2004 - 5:47 am
Not having used both clients, just going by the blog comments, it would appear that all these features that Thunderbird apparently _does_ have, are hard to find.
Perhaps this is something the Thunderbird team need to work on for a next release.
#16 by tom on June 25, 2004 - 10:29 pm
Ximian (now Novell) Evolution comes closest to Outlook’s features. Yoi might want to check it out.
#17 by Johny Hobson on July 1, 2004 - 1:43 am
And this is my website.
Johny Hobson o
#18 by Joe on October 4, 2004 - 8:05 pm
Unfortunately, a lot of great Outlook 2003 features are disabled for IMAP accounts. 🙁 For IMAP users this is quite a disappointing tease!
Search Folders, for example, only work with POP3 and Exchange accounts (even though Advanced Find works fine with IMAP and Outlook does cache local copies of email in a PST). Desktop Notification is another example of this, and there are more.
However, now that 3rd party IMAP server software is available to provide sharing of calendar and contacts items with Outlook, I’m sure Microsoft won’t be motivated to provide the same features to IMAP users as Exchange users even when it’s entirely doable.
#19 by Dubi K on December 13, 2004 - 3:41 am
I’m looking for decision making aid now that TB 1.0 is out. Any thoughts on that one?
#20 by Will on January 13, 2005 - 8:52 am
I’ve been using TB since 0.6 with IMAP and generally I’ve been happy. A couple of times it has locked up but far less then when using Outlook 2003. Our company is currently rolling out eGroupWare and that with IMAP, webdav calendars and a fantastic PHP developer makes it all work and all we need 🙂
until Lightning…
#21 by Rob on January 15, 2005 - 10:17 am
The Mail app that comes w/the Mac is great and people sending meeting invites are single-clickable and they will be added to your calendar.
#22 by Mido on February 4, 2005 - 6:11 am
Outlook is better for its richer UI
#23 by Sarah Emily on February 7, 2005 - 3:09 am
Does anybody know why? I can
#24 by Bryan on May 13, 2005 - 9:25 am
Good comparison all-around, agree with all of the points except one. I’ll be keeping Thunderbird for the time being (my main complaint with Office anything is that it’s just too darned expensive).
My biggest minus for Thunderbird is actually one of your plusses….the spam filter. It works OK but not nearly as well as something like a SpamBayes plugin for Outlook. Takes it way too long to train for my taste and still lets the more slippery SPAM get through. I had much more luck with an old version of SpamBayes back when I was using an old version of Outlook than the latest and greatest TB. Just my .02. I really wish they’d tweak it at Mozilla. I am surprised people even like it. A friend of mine abandoned Thunderbird because of the poor Spam filtering alone.
For Calendaring, I use CalendarScope, a really nice little proggie that is almost identical to the Outlook calendar. You are right that the lack of integration stinks, tho. CalendarScope / ThunderBird don’t integrate. I understand the Mozilla team is going to add Calendaring at some point.
Like you, I also *loved* the old “flag for followup” in Outlook as well. Now I have to manually put a reminder into CalendarScope and paste the body of the email into it…a minor pain.
But, in spite of my frustrations with ThunderBird, I just can’t justify MS charging what they charge for Office. It’s darn good software, and the industry standard and all that, but it’s really hard to choke on the price tag with OpenOffice available. They’d probably make more money if they sold it for a reasonable price, because casual “pirates” might not make unauthorized copies nearly as much.
#25 by Bryan on May 13, 2005 - 9:29 am
oops…forgot to post a “tip” for using Thunderbird that I like. Don’t sort your inbox by date. Instead, sort by read/unread status. Any emails you need to follow-up on, simply mark as unread so they stay near the top. Trust me, you’ll get sick of seeing them up there and you will followup. Maybe not as nice as a calendar popup, but those can also be annoying in the middle of a game or whatever. Combine my method with the other user’s suggestion to color-code or “label” the mail that needs followup and it’s a pretty good deal.
#26 by buddyspencer on May 20, 2005 - 3:13 am
can outlook handle ical-files? i wanna use the gmail-webdav to store an ics-file on that gmail-server. is there a possibility, that outlook uses this file to work with? mozilla sunbird can handle such files
#27 by Mike Timme on May 29, 2005 - 8:17 pm
T-Bird Vs. Outlook 2003
I too have tried T-Bird and I have gone back to Outlook 2003. I like many feature in T-Bird and prefer to use the “underdog”, but Outlook 2003 has features that I really need.
The integrated Calendar in Outlook is great. Outlook’s note feature is also good since the notes data file is included in the Outlook .pst folder, unlike T-Birds notes extension, who’s data needs to be “back-up” separately (I have lost notes). The spell check via WORD in Outlook is much more reliable and I agree that the “e-mail reminder option” is great in Outlook. I do miss the ability in T-Bird to color and name emails that I need to follow-up on. I liked the fact that T-Bird allows “follow-up”, customization, where Outlook only provides colored flags. I will take a look at T-Bird it again when the new integrated Calendar for T-Bird, “Lightning”, is released mid-2005 per developers. The present T-Bird Calendar is just not “cut out for it”, right now. I have missed alarms since the T-Bird Calendar does not open at start-up and thus does not remind you unless you open it manually.
T-Bird is much fun and I will miss it, but I think for users that need reliability and good calendar/reminder integration; Unfortunately, you must succumb to Microsoft and Outlook, BUT I am still rooting for T-Bird! As for Firefox Vs. IE, Firefox, hands down… Keep it up Mozilla! For those of you still using Internet Explorer here is the link to obtain Firefox Brower by Mozilla…
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
Mike
#28 by Paul on June 18, 2005 - 10:39 am
Rules – you aren’t the only one with the problem that they switch off. I’ve been irritated by this for a long time now, and I only have 4 rules. I can do a ‘run now’ on unread message and they start working again for a few days then stop again. Frustrating because filters are part of an otherwise successful anti-spam strategy (combined with my own domain).
Any news on why the filters break?
#29 by Email recovery. Import dbx file. Outlook express problem. on June 22, 2005 - 3:15 am
I must admit to being more impressed for http://www.oemailrecovery.com : Email recovery. Import dbx file. Outlook express problem. I’ve even recommended it to all my friends.
#30 by Email recovery. Open dbx. Outlook express problems. on June 25, 2005 - 12:28 am
I have been using http://www.mail-repair.com. Outlook Express more stable and secure than other programs.
#31 by Dill on June 27, 2005 - 3:09 pm
All in all Outlook express is the best for the price. Thuderbird is losing a big battle. Unless it can more style like 2003 Outlook it won’t servive.
First off I think thunderbird needs to have like text to speech like windows xp outlook express has.
Second Outlook express should have better IMAP.
If Outlook express does not make any changes it will never be able to beat the likes of THunderBird or 2003 Outlook.
#32 by Prabhat on July 8, 2005 - 1:05 am
Hi All,
I am using Outlook Express 6 in Windows 2000 SP4 System.
I use 2 Identity. ONE for Office Emails and Other for my News Groups. Also I Use Different Store Folder for both Identity. The Email Identity uses
Password.
But My problem is: If somebody will enter the News Group Identity or Create a NEW Identity and Change the Store Folder fo that to My Email Store Folder then He can See all my emails. How Do I Prevent that.
Please Suggest the ways in OutLook Express or any other alternatives are avaialble like : MS Outlook or Thunderbird.
Please Suggest.
Thanks
Prabhat
#33 by Andrew on July 30, 2005 - 1:15 am
Outlook 2003 – Rules are flaky
I have some simple rules but i can’t get them to work. They are simply based on the subject line and ask them to move to an IMAP folder or delete.
Pretty simply but they just won’t work
#34 by Andrew on July 30, 2005 - 1:20 am
can you delete my email address from my last post i didn’t realise it would be visible for for email harvesting.
thanks
Andrew
#35 by l.cerini on August 11, 2005 - 7:36 am
I think that’s an unfair contest. Real competitors for outlook 2003 are evolution or kontact, not thunderbird.
Tb, which i use, is a simple mail-client and doesn’t seem to me very willing to jump in the groupware-client market. Maybe in the future.
#36 by amou on September 5, 2005 - 10:08 pm
notify of outlook 2003 is bad. When I move letters using rules, it doesn’t work well, but, there planty of softwares to fix this. Any way, it’s something not perfect.
And the rule is not so powerful as the opera-m2. All you can do is follow the guide.
#37 by Olmec Sinclair on September 23, 2005 - 10:00 pm
I like thunderbird… espescially since I use a dual boot system (windows Xp and Linux) and can share my emails between the two (by mounting the windows system in linux and specifying the email folder in thunderbird). Is a good solution with great potential but there are missing features. Calander controls is one thing I look forward to, also better import / export features for contacts and messages.
#38 by Alan on September 29, 2005 - 11:55 pm
LDAP does work in Thunderbird. I use it extensively (even simultaneously using my private address book with my company address book). You need get the tech admin people to tell you all the gory details on how to connect to the server (different to the mail server). Usually, you can leave the base DN and bind DN empty, but not always. Standard port is 389.
#39 by Debranjan on October 3, 2005 - 5:37 am
Dude…you forgot to mention the most imp thing. Thunderbird is FREE. You have to buy Outlook with Office. Besides when it comes to fair comparisons I think you ought to compare Thunderbird with Outlook Express which is bundled with Win. Outlook Express simply falls splat on it’s face then.
#40 by Yu Shen on October 9, 2005 - 5:58 am
To me, that there is one more important feature that Outlook 2003 has that that I don’t find in TB. It’s the customization of email sort order. With Outlook 2003, there is 3rd party plugg-in such as ClearView using the sort customization to do very amazing email sorting, threads operations.
This was the only reason that I stopped using TB 1.x. Could anyone showed me how to customize TB’s email sorting so that besides sorting by thread, I can add more sorting criterion to sort the threads further for example, by the sender, or even better by the importance of the senders, and operate on a thread rather individual emails in a thread?
Thanks,
Yu
#41 by robert on December 30, 2005 - 3:20 am
Thank you very much for the Outlook – Thunderbird review. It has influenced me to junk the Tbird for Outlook 03. I did find other wierdnesses with Tbird – renaming emails wrongly and downright disappearing them.
#42 by David on January 31, 2006 - 2:02 am
Have you tried the new Thunderbird 1.5? It seems that it has many of outlook’s merits, and fixes some of the faults.
#43 by David on January 31, 2006 - 2:02 am
Have you tried the new Thunderbird 1.5? It seems that it has many of outlook’s merits, and fixes some of the faults.
#44 by Luke on March 7, 2006 - 3:20 pm
Negative for Thunderbird – No support for public folders.
Wonder if public folders uses NNTP at all, then maybe support could be added… ;/
#45 by Faayil on March 13, 2006 - 7:37 am
I want to use Thunderbird with Exchange using the MAPI protocol;
I cannot use IMAP or POP3 because these protocols arent exposed;
#46 by Matt on April 28, 2006 - 2:20 pm
I run IMAP on outlook 2003 and take the laptop out on the road, and I want to view emails without a connection.
You cant have it save incoming emails to ur HD automatically with IMAP, i hear if you are running exchange server you can tho.
That sucks
#47 by Tal on May 2, 2006 - 8:39 pm
IMAP will not work for me at all. I have check all passwords etc. Any ideas?
#48 by Free Email Tutorials on May 5, 2006 - 9:51 pm
It sounds like Thunderbird has answered most of your grievances. A year later, quite a few disappointments have been added by current version 1.5…
As for calendar, here’s a (relatively) new project, still in early development stage:
http://www.freeemailtutorials.com/mozillaThunderbird/lightningCalendar.cwd
#49 by Olmec Sinclair on May 18, 2006 - 12:11 am
Thunderbird is a mature application and a viable business alternative to outlook. With inline spell checking the new version brings a bunch of new features. I have been using thunderbird as a business tool for several years and I find it a very useful and reliable tool.
Olmec Sinclair
Creative Director
Cleanweb Business Inernet Solutions
Wellington
New Zealand
#50 by kieren on May 18, 2006 - 7:21 am
great review. I changed from Thunderbird to Outlook 2003 for the intergrated calendar and reminders system. If only Outlook had cleaner HTML that didn’t look crap on other clients but I’ll live.
#51 by Skype on May 25, 2006 - 2:59 pm
I cannot believe that there is still no ‘mark for follow-up’ extension for Thunderbird… This is the main reason why I haven’t switched from Outlook yet.
#52 by WilliamG on June 13, 2006 - 1:40 pm
I switched to Thunderbird and the Mozilla Calendar as a temporary solution while waiting for MS Office to be delivered. Needless to say that was over a year ago, there is no way I’d switch back.
I use Thunderbird with the Quicktext function and template function that wipes the board with my colleagues and their outlook. We have a lot of repeat questions, so with Quicktext 2 clicks and a personalised reply is sent winging it’s way.
The calendar is shared without the need of expensive M$ Exchange, and we have about 6 sunbird users also online now. And the calendars are viewable over the intranet with phpiCalendar. All so simple and logical to use the same file formats etc.
With Thunderbird I can reply to an email, move the email to a folder, and the next email pops up.. if i want to save replying till later, I can simply click the flag next to the email to remind me I haven’t replied…
Yes it took me 2 months of thinking, do I want to stick with it, but knowing that I was going to have to learn Outl..k 2003 rather than 97 that I had been using, it seemed just as easy to learn Thunderbird instead.
And yes I use Firefox too…
#53 by WilliamG on June 13, 2006 - 1:41 pm
I switched to Thunderbird and the Mozilla Calendar as a temporary solution while waiting for MS Office to be delivered. Needless to say that was over a year ago, there is no way I would switch back.
I use Thunderbird with the Quicktext function and template function that wipes the board with my colleagues and their outlook. We have a lot of repeat questions, so with Quicktext 2 clicks and a personalised reply is sent winging it’s way.
The calendar is shared without the need of expensive M$ Exchange, and we have about 6 sunbird users also online now. And the calendars are viewable over the intranet with phpiCalendar. All so simple and logical to use the same file formats etc.
With Thunderbird I can reply to an email, move the email to a folder, and the next email pops up.. if i want to save replying till later, I can simply click the flag next to the email to remind me I haven’t replied…
Yes it took me 2 months of thinking, do I want to stick with it, but knowing that I was going to have to learn Outl..k 2003 rather than 97 that I had been using, it seemed just as easy to learn Thunderbird instead.
And yes I use Firefox too…
#54 by WilliamG on June 13, 2006 - 1:42 pm
I switched to Thunderbird and the Mozilla Calendar as a temporary solution while waiting for MS Office to be delivered. Needless to say that was over a year ago, there is no way I would switch back.
I use Thunderbird with the Quicktext function and template function that wipes the board with my colleagues and their outlook. We have a lot of repeat questions, so with Quicktext 2 clicks and a personalised reply is sent winging its way.
The calendar is shared without the need of expensive M$ Exchange, and we have about 6 sunbird users also online now. And the calendars are viewable over the intranet with phpiCalendar. All so simple and logical to use the same file formats etc.
With Thunderbird I can reply to an email, move the email to a folder, and the next email pops up.. if i want to save replying till later, I can simply click the flag next to the email to remind me I have not replied…
Yes it took me 2 months of thinking, do I want to stick with it, but knowing that I was going to have to learn Outl..k 2003 rather than 97 that I had been using, it seemed just as easy to learn Thunderbird instead.
And yes I use Firefox too…
#55 by Frankie on July 6, 2006 - 5:34 am
I Currently use Mozilla Thunderbird to receive my exchange email. I use an IMAP setup to the exchange server as long as the account is made on the server you should be able to send and receive your email. It’s one step closer to being better than outlook. The best thing about Thunderbird is that you can customize it to your liking.
#56 by benjamin pokorny on July 20, 2006 - 12:42 pm
Reading your “Outlook 2003 – Thunderbird Smack Down” today, I for the first time was able to find resolution to a recent Outlook problem, where my rules stopped auto-running. Your step-by-step approach to find the offending rule was helpful in me getting my rules to work again. Thanks for posting that (“rules are flaky”). Nobody else on the web seemed to have figured that out. ~Benjamin
#57 by Kersmudgen on August 10, 2006 - 4:17 pm
Ok… just installed t-boyd. As opposed to Outlook:
1. Install should offer mail storage option ONLY
2. No address entry type-ahead
3. Calendar & Tasks… ok it’s been mentioned
4. Not very intuitive (everyday features not obviously available)
5. Exchange (is there an extension? POP3 ONLY loses)
And there are a number of other lil annoyances – that, hopefully, will most likely be settled once I’ve digested navigation a bit longer…
I’d love to ditch Outlook… but the Exchange issues are huge (unless there is some extention out there I’m not aware of).
Am I to be locked into m$oft forever… help!!
#58 by acier on August 22, 2006 - 9:20 am
After having used various email packages (corp standard is Outlook), the overall ease of use and reliability of Thunderbird (v1.5.0.5) moved me to it. Sure Outlook has all manner of functionality (when it works), but as in typical office suites, most folks will use less than 10% of the bloated feature set. IMAP configuration is flawless, and the LDAP functionality extremely quick.
#59 by Talon on August 23, 2006 - 11:22 pm
I am an IT manager, I work for a company with over 700 employees. Our company policy is outlook and IE only. Since implementing my new courier TLS IMAPD outlook performs very badly.
Just to look at a few of the problems I have noticed in outlook that never occur in tb
SSL caching in MS outlook wtf?
Send and receive complete no errors with mail still in the outbox
Outlook gives up trying to connect to server no errors in any maillog tcpdump proves it never even attempted to connect to the server it just gives up and reports a successful send and receive.
Message filters not working or intermittent
I have contacted MS support with these issues and after paying out over 300 dollars to billy boy
#60 by KB on August 25, 2006 - 3:55 pm
Two notes:
(1) MS Outlook does not support NNTP protocol. I heard that newer version of Outlook will run outlook express to coomunicate with newsgroup. This way Outlook doesn’t support nntp natively but at least users can read/post news in outlook. But I have no personal experience for this, nor am I interested in.
(2) Outlook use MAPI to communicate with Exchange server for group collabration (calender/tasks/contacts/etc). But MAPI is not open standard, not even a protocol — it is only a set of API that only Micro$oft can make full use of.
By all means I’ll go with thunderbird/sunbird for open source software / open standards.
#61 by Ashok on September 20, 2006 - 2:57 am
Outlook is true PIM and Mail client.
For me the most important is to have emails, contacts and calendar in one place…all i need to do is copy my PST and go away.
Only outlook gives me this…plus I need to sync my N80 and iPAQ’s for contacts and Calendar…Outlook is always there for Sync.
#62 by Anonymous on September 29, 2006 - 12:10 pm
I used Thunderbird for about a half a year. Now I am migrating back to Outlook, only because of two reasons – 1) Synchornization with Windows Mobile PDA via ActiveSync, 2) Direct inclusion of meeting request from the mail to the calendar. As soom as Thunderbird adds these features I’ll be more than happy to use it again.
#63 by Anonymous on October 31, 2006 - 3:12 pm
A very good source of info for configuring LDAP (focused on M$ Exchange) in Thunderbird is:
http://movingparts.net/2006/05/05/ldap-microsoft-exchange-and-kaddressbook-or-thunderbird/
#64 by iago on November 6, 2006 - 4:03 pm
thanks to cedric and everybody else. it’s amazing how sick of outlook i’ve become, only to be reminded by all your comments of a few features i’d hate to be without. i guess i’ll stick with outlook for the next little while.
#65 by Matee Moshkovits on November 22, 2006 - 9:20 pm
As I read your Pros and Cons of Thunderbird I thought to myself “what version did he evaluate?”
just goes to show you how fast things change in the IT world … with Thunderbird 1.5.8 most of the CONS are addressed … even the integrated calendar and task list … its called “lighting” and its an extension of Thunderbird … it acts just like the Outlook Calendar except for Outlooks Slowness to load the Calendar if you have more then 10 tasks in one day
—
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact our office.
Thank You
Matee Moshkovits
Chief Technology Officer
AffordHost Inc.
http://www.affordhost.com
#66 by Matee Moshkovits on November 22, 2006 - 9:21 pm
As I read your Pros and Cons of Thunderbird I thought to myself “what version did he evaluate?”
just goes to show you how fast things change in the IT world … with Thunderbird 1.5.8 most of the CONS are addressed … even the integrated calendar and task list … its called “lighting” and its an extension of Thunderbird … it acts just like the Outlook Calendar except for Outlooks Slowness to load the Calendar if you have more then 10 tasks in one day
—
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact our office.
Thank You
Matee Moshkovits
Chief Technology Officer
AffordHost Inc.
http://www.affordhost.com
#67 by Jol on April 30, 2007 - 2:43 pm
This Folrin C. seems to have paraphrased, plagiarized and summarized your entire article
http://news.helpero.com/article/Mozilla-Thunderbird-vs-Outlook-2003_29.html
#68 by cyberpinoy on May 1, 2007 - 4:23 am
one possibly important aspect to consider:
If you have, say, 1 PC on Win98 and another on WinXP…you can’t install Outlook (2003 and up at least) on both PCs. You have to upgrade your Win98 PC into XP.
With Thunderbird, it installs across both Win versions.
check it out.
#69 by Massimiliano Adamo on June 5, 2007 - 2:43 pm
Hi.
I think 95% of the stuff you mentioned about outlook, (as all people is telling you) does work with thunderbird as well… and remaining 5% will work by using thunderbird extensions 😉
In addiction, in thunderbird, nowaday, you have more then hundred extensions.
I think you’ll never have in outlook all functionalities offered by those hundreds of extensions.
You have lost! 🙂
—
Massimiliano
#70 by Raphael on August 30, 2007 - 12:14 pm
How come no one’s mentioned the biggest -ve in my book for Outlook? The single .pst file and it’s associate file size restrictions?
My Thunderbird mail folders are something around 7.3Gb in size. Nothing that Outlook could even come close to.
Although I hear the latest version goes some way to fixing that?
#71 by Will on September 27, 2007 - 1:04 pm
I’m looking for same answer as Raphael. I’ve spent much of last night and today reorganizing emails because the Inbox1.pst file was over 6 Gig. It’s the Prez’s Laptop and she keeps all emails sent or received. After moving/removing email folders, I’m now COMPACTING. It’s been going for 4 hours now!
#72 by msk on October 4, 2007 - 4:33 am
I will like to enlighten one very important and main thing and that is you pay over $100 for outlook and Thunder bird is available to you for no chanrge. This is a huge difference. Should not be a complainer when getting something that does not cost at all and still does most of the task. Plus Thunder bird is still in beta mode. How come outlook can be compared VS thunderbird? Calender is also integrated in thunderbird not only that now you can even synch thunderbird with your mobile devise and even that is for no charge. How come you can even compare outlook VS thunderbird. There is not even a match. Compare something that is in a same stream line. Thunderbird is way far ahead then outlook especially when it comes on spending. You also have forgotten lots of feature in thunderbird that you did not mentioned more then 95% of the features you mention for outlook are available in thunderbird. I use both the Thunderbird and outlook for exchange server. The day thunder bird will allow to synch exchange server that will be last day of me using outlook.
#73 by Ralph G on January 29, 2008 - 2:25 pm
Been trying to get beyond MSN/Outlook 2003 SMTP relay issue. Spent days working on it, and 1 hour with M$ tech support. Nothing would work. Dumped Outlook for TB. Surprise, surprise, everything in TB works the first time and no connection issues with my six email accounts from 5 different servers.
#74 by Fletch on February 15, 2008 - 1:39 pm
LDAP suport:
Thunderbird works fine (for reading) with openldap.
Outlook “lies” and says the no name found..basically it doesn’t work yet it tells you the person doesn’t exist when in fact they do. No excuse for no *working* ldap support in 2008.
#75 by George on February 22, 2008 - 12:13 am
I just found this and would like to comment….Outlook with IMAP is soooooo sloooooow. I have probably about 600 folders and probably about 1.5 million messages on my IMAP server. Outlook tries to check all of my folders for new mail — a task which is never finishes… slow my dual core 2.1 gig AMD to crawl and shoots memory usage way up — using 500 plus megs of memory — mostly page file which slows the system down more. Thunderbird is up and waiting for me in less the 3 minutes with 5 IMAP accounts and 4 POP3 accounts. OUTLOOK is bad for security and bad for IMAP accounts.
#76 by Sudheer on July 2, 2008 - 10:29 am
Hi,
Thanks for letting me know the advantages and disadvantages both in Thunderbird and Outlook. can you please send the good and bad options in both of them. Please mail me soon. TY.
#77 by I'm not stupid like someone......... on July 10, 2008 - 5:19 am
Learn how to use Outlook properly and i think you’ll find that most of your ‘-‘s will actually be ‘+’s.
BAWBAG
#78 by bilal on January 21, 2009 - 11:18 pm
outlook is expensive. Mozilla Thunderbird is free,open source and runs much faster. cleaner interface, availability of add-ons, security make it better than outlook by a large margin.
#79 by jubma on February 8, 2009 - 9:50 am
Thunderbird has one feature that is very important to me that Outlook doesn’t have.
In case of slow internet connection, if we need to read an email which also contains a large attachment, Outlook will not show you the email until it also finishes downloading the attachment and this could take a long time. the interface will be frozen. But Thunderbird will show u the email text quicky, and an icon for the attachment leaving the option to us whether or not to download that attachment.
Very sensible feature indeed.
#80 by Samuel on May 15, 2009 - 10:45 am
You say Search Folders are a plus for Outlook 2003? I also prefer Outlook and not Thunderbird but not because of the search folders. I think the search integrated in Outlook is a big minus for Outlook. Unless you have a good and reliable search tool like lookeen (www.lookeen.com) or other add-ons. Outlook may be good but there are a lot of things that still have to be improved.
#81 by regan on June 2, 2009 - 12:19 pm
Hi, nice comparison.
However the Mozilla tools are good because they have free addons; and now you can completly replace your Microsoft Exchange + Microsoft Outlook with http://www.scalableogo.org and Thunderbird.
Inverse (SOGo developpers) are contributor to the http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/lightning/ plugin.