November 2026 • Comparison

This page rests on vendor documentation, vendor price pages and Microsoft Learn pages that we read on 7 November 2026. Prices, requirements and dates are as of November 2026 and can change; check the vendor before you buy. Where a vendor does not publish a figure, we say so instead of estimating it. The sources are listed at the end.

If you need an Exchange alternative, three options come up often for small and mid-size organisations: Mailcow (open source, self-hosted), SmarterMail (commercial, self-hosted) and Microsoft's own products, which are Exchange Server Subscription Edition (on your own server) and Exchange Online (hosted by Microsoft). They differ in licence model, in what they need to run, and in how well they work with Outlook.

No option is the right one for every organisation. Exchange has real strengths, mainly its integration with Outlook, Active Directory and the wider Microsoft ecosystem. Mailcow and SmarterMail follow different licence models, and they differ from Exchange in places that matter to some teams. The table below gives the facts first. The sections after it explain each product, and the last sections describe our own email add-on, which is based on Mailcow, including what it does not do.

Mailcow vs Exchange vs SmarterMail at a glance

Topic Mailcow Microsoft Exchange (Server SE and Online) SmarterMail
Licence model Open source. The core project is released under GPL-3.0. No licence fee. Server SE: a server licence for each server plus client access licences (CALs) for users or devices. Online: a per-user annual subscription. Commercial. A licence priced by mailbox count, with optional paid add-ons. A Free edition exists (one domain, up to 10 users).
Price as published No licence price. Optional paid support through Servercow: price not checked for this page. Server SE price: not published on the Microsoft pages we read. Online: Plan 1 $4.00 and Plan 2 $8.00 per user per month, paid yearly. Enterprise from $700 (50 mailboxes) to $3,200 (unlimited). Professional from $550 to $2,500. Add-ons priced separately. See the price table below.
Platform Docker on Linux (x86_64 and ARM64). Debian, Ubuntu, AlmaLinux and Rocky are listed as fully compatible. Server SE: Windows Server 2025, 2022 or 2019, with Active Directory. Online: hosted by Microsoft. Windows Server, Debian-based or Red Hat-based Linux, or Docker.
Published minimum hardware 6 GiB RAM plus 1 GiB swap, 20 GiB disk without mail data. Microsoft lists 128 GB RAM as the recommended minimum for a mailbox server (page covers Exchange 2019 and SE together). 2 CPU cores, 6 GB RAM, 1 GB disk for the installation without mail data.
Webmail Yes, SOGo. Yes, Outlook on the web. Yes, browser-based webmail.
Mobile sync (ActiveSync) Yes, through SOGo. Yes, Exchange ActiveSync is Microsoft's own protocol. Optional paid add-on in Enterprise. Not listed for Professional.
CalDAV and CardDAV Yes, through SOGo. Not named in the Microsoft pages we read. Check before you rely on it. Yes, listed for Professional and Enterprise.
Outlook desktop integration Through IMAP. Server-side rules, search indexing and public folders are limited, according to a Mailcow partner. Native. Outlook 2016 to 2024 and Microsoft 365 Apps are listed as supported. Optional paid MAPI and EWS add-on in Enterprise.
Anti-spam and antivirus Rspamd for spam, ClamAV for antivirus (optional), Olefy for Office documents. Server: built-in anti-spam transport agents and an anti-malware agent. Online: see Microsoft's Defender for Office 365 documentation for filtering. SpamAssassin built in, Rspamd as an option. ClamAV included. Cyren and Message Sniffer are paid add-ons.
Two-factor login TOTP, WebAuthn and Yubico OTP. Server: comes from the identity provider through Hybrid Modern Authentication. Online: not checked for this page. Two-step authentication is listed by the vendor. The methods are not listed on the vendor pages we read.
Update model A release each month (YYYY-MM), applied with the update.sh script. One to two cumulative updates a year, plus security updates. Microsoft states there is no fixed end of support if you stay current. Updates need active Maintenance and Support, 12 months included with a new licence.
Typically run by Teams with a Docker-capable admin, and hosting providers. Organisations built around Active Directory and Outlook. Small businesses, larger organisations and hosting providers, according to the vendor.

Sources: Mailcow documentation and GitHub, Microsoft Learn and Microsoft price pages, SmarterTools help and price pages, as listed at the end. Read November 2026.

Mailcow: open source, self-hosted, no licence fee

Mailcow is a mail server suite that runs in Docker containers. The documentation lists Postfix for mail transfer, Dovecot for IMAP and POP, SOGo for webmail with CalDAV and CardDAV, Rspamd for spam filtering and ClamAV for optional antivirus. A web interface creates domains and mailboxes. The project's own page states that its code is released under the GNU General Public License, version 3, and that the third-party components it uses have their own licences.

What Mailcow needs

The documentation lists 6 GiB of RAM plus 1 GiB of swap as the default minimum, and 20 GiB of disk without mail data. It suggests 8 GiB for about 5 to 10 users. It supports full virtualisation such as KVM, ESX and Hyper-V, but not OpenVZ, LXC or other container platforms. A low-memory option exists that switches off ClamAV and full-text search.

Strengths and limits

  • No licence fee, and the code is open for inspection.
  • Monthly releases through a single update script; stable and nightly branches exist.
  • Two-factor login with TOTP, WebAuthn and Yubico OTP, and optional forced enrolment.
  • Limits named by a Mailcow partner: no organisation-wide global address list in SOGo, no direct public-folder equivalent, and no high availability by default.
  • Support: the project lists a community forum and Telegram. Paid support is sold through Servercow.

The same partner describes typical users as companies of about 25 to 150 staff with a dedicated IT person, law and tax firms, and hosting providers. It describes very small teams without IT skills, and large Active Directory-centred organisations, as a weaker fit. This is one vendor-side view, not a measurement.

Microsoft Exchange: integration with Outlook and Active Directory

Exchange Server Subscription Edition (SE) became generally available on 1 July 2025. Microsoft states that SE support has no fixed end date as long as customers keep their systems up to date, and that Microsoft has committed to support for at least 2035. Exchange Server 2016 and 2019 reached the end of support on 14 October 2025. Exchange Online is the hosted version, sold as a per-user subscription.

Licence and price

For Server SE, Microsoft's licensing overview describes a server licence for each server instance, in Standard and Enterprise editions, and client access licences for each user or device. The Enterprise CAL is an add-on to the Standard CAL and adds archive, hold and search features. We did not find a price for Server SE on the Microsoft pages we read. A Microsoft Exchange team post says pricing varies with the licence agreement, user profile and deployment. A trade publication reported that Microsoft raised prices of on-premises Office servers by 10 percent from 1 July 2025, with the Core CAL suite up 15 percent and the Enterprise CAL suite up 20 percent. That article gives no absolute amounts.

For Exchange Online, the Microsoft price page lists Plan 1 at $4.00 and Plan 2 at $8.00 per user per month, paid yearly. It is an annual subscription that renews automatically. The page shows the currency sign only and does not name the currency.

Requirements

Server SE runs on Windows Server 2025, 2022 or 2019 as a member server in an Active Directory forest. The supported forest functional levels are Windows Server 2016 or 2012 R2. Microsoft's system requirements page, which covers Exchange 2019 and SE together, recommends at least 128 GB of RAM for a mailbox server and 30 GB of free disk space for the installation. This is a much larger footprint than the other two products.

Where Exchange is strong

  • Native integration with Outlook on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android, and with Microsoft 365 Apps.
  • Active Directory integration and a hybrid configuration with Exchange Online.
  • Compliance features in the Enterprise CAL, such as In-Place Hold, archive and multi-mailbox search.
  • A vendor commitment to support Exchange Server for at least 2035, as stated by Microsoft.

Two-factor login for Exchange Server is not a feature of the server alone. Microsoft's Hybrid Modern Authentication guide says the sign-in method depends on the identity provider, and it lists prerequisites such as users in Microsoft Entra ID. Anti-spam on the server comes from built-in transport agents, enabled by default on Edge Transport servers.

SmarterMail: commercial, runs on Windows or Linux

SmarterMail describes itself as a self-hosted server for email, calendaring, collaboration and group chat, and it positions itself as an alternative to Exchange. It runs on Windows Server, Debian-based and Red Hat-based Linux, and Docker. The vendor lists 2 CPU cores, 6 GB of RAM and 1 GB of disk for the installation as the minimum. It also states that ClamAV alone uses over 1 GB of RAM and that MAPI and EWS need more memory.

Editions and published prices

The Enterprise edition adds meetings, chat, basic failover, LDAP and Active Directory login, and archiving, and it can take add-ons for MAPI and EWS (Outlook) and Exchange ActiveSync (mobile). Professional targets smaller users who mainly use webmail and supports IMAP, POP, CalDAV and CardDAV. A High Availability product for clusters is priced monthly per hub and node. The vendor's price page shows base prices by mailbox count in dollars:

Mailboxes Enterprise base price Professional base price
50 $700 $550
250 $1,200 $950
500 $1,500 $1,200
1,000 $1,800 $1,500
2,000 $2,200 $1,800
Unlimited $3,200 $2,500

Source: SmarterTools price page, read November 2026. Add-ons are priced separately, for example MAPI and EWS from $325 for 50 mailboxes. The price page does not state taxes or whether prices include VAT.

SmarterTools' licensing article states that purchased licences are perpetual and include 12 months of Maintenance and Support. Renewal is 50 percent of the new product price for another 12 months. If you let it lapse, the software keeps running at its licensed version, but you get no later releases or free support, and paid add-ons expire. Reinstating costs 80 percent of the new product price.

Security features

The vendor lists built-in anti-spam with greylisting and SPF, DKIM and DMARC checks, twelve block lists enabled by default, ClamAV, intrusion detection on Windows and Linux, and two-step authentication. SpamAssassin is built in, and Rspamd can be used instead.

Mailcow vs Exchange and SmarterMail vs Exchange: how to choose

  • Choose Exchange when Outlook, shared calendars across the company, Active Directory and compliance tooling are central, and you have the budget and staff for the servers or the per-user subscription.
  • Choose Mailcow when you want no licence fee, standard protocols, ActiveSync, CalDAV and CardDAV, and you have someone who can update Docker-based software each month and test restores.
  • Choose SmarterMail when you want a commercial product with vendor support, a Windows or Linux install, and optional MAPI and EWS for Outlook, and a one-time licence with yearly maintenance suits your budget.
  • In all three cases, plan DNS records, reverse DNS and backups. These do not come from the mail software.

For a mailcow vs Exchange decision, the biggest practical differences are the Outlook experience and the operating effort. For a SmarterMail vs Exchange decision, they are the licence cost model and the size of the server. If you only need mailboxes for a few users and no one to run a server, a hosted mailbox may serve you better than any of the three self-hosted options.

Our email add-on: a separate Mailcow server

Our Managed Web Server does not include email. Email is a separate add-on that runs on a separate Mailcow server in Vilnius, Lithuania. It is priced by storage, in euros per month excluding VAT: 25 GB at €4, 50 GB at €7, 100 GB at €10, and each extra 100 GB at €10 more. Domains and mailboxes are unlimited. Mail domains are managed from the panel. Because mail runs apart from the web server, web traffic spikes or code errors on a site do not interrupt mail. Outbound mail is rate-limited and sent through relays.

Where PFHW fits, and where it does not

The add-on fits agencies, freelancers and small businesses that host websites with us and want mail on separate infrastructure in the EU, at a price based on storage and not on the number of mailboxes. It is not a replacement for Exchange in an Outlook-centred company. The gaps are:

  • Webmail is the Mailcow server's, not part of the PFHW panel.
  • There are no mailing lists. The importer reports cPanel mailing lists as not imported.
  • Autoresponders, email filters and spam-filter settings are not in the PFHW portal and are not imported. Whatever Mailcow offers is on the mail server's own pages.
  • Some email functions are provided by Mailcow itself, so read the Mailcow limits described above before you decide.

If you want to see how it works, request a demo through info@cloudacropolis.com. After the demo, a trial server can be set up.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good Exchange alternative for a small company?

It depends on what you need. Mailcow and SmarterMail both provide webmail, calendar and contact sync, and each can serve many mailboxes. Mailcow has no licence fee but needs a Docker-capable admin. SmarterMail is commercial and publishes prices by mailbox count. If Outlook integration is essential, test it first.

Is Mailcow free?

The software is open source under GPL-3.0, so there is no licence fee. You pay for the server, the admin time and any paid support you choose. Paid support is sold through Servercow; we did not check its price.

Does Mailcow work with Outlook?

Outlook can connect through IMAP and SMTP. A Mailcow partner notes that server-side rules, search indexing and public folders are limited compared with Exchange. Test your own Outlook workflow before you commit.

How much does Exchange Server cost?

Microsoft does not publish a price for Exchange Server Subscription Edition on the pages we read, and says pricing varies by agreement. Exchange Online lists $4.00 (Plan 1) and $8.00 (Plan 2) per user per month, paid yearly, as of November 2026.

Does your Managed Web Server include email?

No. Email is a separate add-on on a separate Mailcow server in Vilnius, priced from €4 per month for 25 GB, excluding VAT. It has no mailing lists, and autoresponders and filters are managed on the mail server's own pages.

Can I use SmarterMail instead of Exchange for ActiveSync?

SmarterMail lists Exchange ActiveSync as an optional paid add-on for the Enterprise edition. It is not listed for Professional. The add-on requires active Maintenance and Support.

Related resources

Sources

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