On-Premises Exchange vs Office 365 – Which One Should You Choose?

• Tim Perl
• June 27, 2020
• Exchange

Are you trying to choose between Microsoft Exchange On-Premise and Office 365 for your business? Looking for an On-Premises Exchange vs Office 365 comparison to determine which one suits you best?

If your answer to these questions is “Yes” then, this article is just meant to you. Here we will help you decide between On-Premises Exchange vs Office 365 by contrasting the main features offered by these services. So, stay tuned and keep reading the article.

On-Premises Exchange vs Office 365 – What Are They?

On-Premises Exchange is a dedicated virtual or physical server(s) to run within an organization. Businesses who want to roll out updates/patches manually as per their schedule or need a platform just for mailing and calendaring use Exchange Server On-Premise.

Microsoft Office 365 is an application and service suite that allows to create, access, and share, Excel, Word, OneNote, and PowerPoint documents over the Internet connection. These lifelong Office and the latest collaboration tools make information accessible from any authorized device, all over the world.

Also Read: How to repair your corrupted PST files with free Download Scanpst.exe Tool

On-Premises Exchange is Best…

1. If you want to integrate a groupware solution within your IT infrastructure and ensure a confidential communication within the company.
2. If you want to make fine adjustments to the virus/spam protection and want to protect your crucial business database from unauthorized access.
3. If you are handing a large organization where you need to manage a lot of email traffic and various email addresses of employees.
4. If you want to control the email communication of your business or want it to be secured and checked within a network, both inside and outside of the company.
5. If you want to keep a track of your appointments, calendars, emails, and want them synchronized with your local machine along with all the employees.
6. If you want the automatic deployment and synchronization of your users’ profiles to avoid having manually intervened on your computer workstations.
7. If you want high information availability (around 99.95%) and 24*7 monitoring to deal with the slightest incident as quickly as possible even without encountering a downtime.

Microsoft Office 365 is Best…

1. If you want to work in cloud or in the combination with your own servers and want to increase your profitability or competitiveness.
2. If you want to access your data anytime from anywhere. Or, if you want to work on the respective presentation at the same time.
3. If you want to jump from one application to another like a chimp without any interruption. For example, Skype to Yammer, Word to Newsfeed, Project to Forums, and so on.
4. If you want to be 99.9% financially secured, strong protection against malware and unauthorized access as Office 365 complies with the EU standard contractual clauses.
5. If you want 24*7 technical support, instructions, or full help from experts as Microsoft ensures super-fast, qualitative, and personal support to keep your business alive.
6. If you want to free yourself from subscription renewal headache and want your license to be flexibly adjustable monthly as required.
7. If you want to do enormous savings as your organization grows because O365 allows to simply add additional licenses and once employees leave your company, you can cut down unnecessary additional licensing costs.

Both On-Premises Exchange and Office 365 are prominent Email-Server platforms, full of handy features. However, still there are some big differences between their features and services. Below is a quick comparison of Microsoft Exchange On-Premise vs Office 365.

On-Premises Exchange vs Office 365 – A Quick Roundup

Dial Parameter	On-Premise Exchange	Office 365
Security	Lack of control might lead your business to a great risk	Single Sign-On, Multi-Factor Authentication. Granular control over data and services.
Server Maintenance	Requires high-level maintenance to ensure it is running properly, and protected from security threats.	The in-house server can be continued efficiently without worrying maintenance or hardware costs.
User Experience	Might experience a slight delay in email delivery and receiving.	Reduced on-site expenditures and improved end-user experience.
Hardware and Licensing	Hardware devices, power, and backup costs will be associated with On-Premise Exchange Server.	Microsoft Exchange takes that hardware along with it and cuts it down with a monthly charge.
ActiveSync	Does not provide high-level data synchronization support without extra charging. Charges can be highly variable.	Allow clients to synchronize emails, documentation, and other data items quickly across multiple devices without any extra charge.
Software and Services	Allow you to access Emails, Contacts, and Calendars and share them with your organization.	Allow access to various essential plans and services along with Emails, Contacts, and Calendars. Like OneDrive for Business. Skype for Business, etc.
Pricing	Physical equipment can be expensive and there are also ongoing variable costs associated to maintain the equipment.	Office 365 data will be saved in the cloud so no physical equipment cost. Affordable to choose the desired SaaS model of Office 365.

That’s all!

The Verdict

After considering all the features and other variants, you might have picked the best solution for your business from On-Premises Exchange vs Office 365. In case if you are already using Exchange Server and now thinking to ramp up your business, then moving to Office 365 will be a great idea. You can use Exchange Server to Office 365 Migrator tool to move all your Exchange Server data to Office 365 simply without any data loss.