What Are the Benefits of Office 365 Over Exchange On-Premise –Explanation Guide

This article will let you know the possible benefits of Office 365 over Exchange, if you are in a dilemma of choosing the right one then just read this article and you will get all the advantages and disadvantages of using both platforms. Let’s get started!

Nowadays, people ask these questions very often, if they should consider online hosted email solutions like Office 365 instead of conventional, or on-premise Microsoft Exchange servers. Massive advertisements are floating around lately, introducing the benefits of Office 365, whether from partner companies, or directly from Microsoft. So, what are the benefits of Office 365 over Exchange? Is it worth taking this decision?

Hence, in this write up we are going to provide you with complete and detailed information about the benefits of Exchange online vs on-premise, in order to help you figure out whether Office 365 is the right choice for you.

Table of Content

• Brief Intro to Office 365
• Advantages of Office 365
• Disadvantages of Office 365
• Brief Intro to Exchange on-premise
• Advantages of Exchange on-premise
• Disadvantages of Exchange on-premise

Brief Intro to Office 365

Office 365 is a cloud-based platform, subscription model of Microsoft’s popular productivity suite Microsoft Office. There is n number of different subscription packages available, according to the different needs of users, such as Office 365 Home, Office 365 Personal, Office 365 Business, and Office 365 Education. You can also get different essential services like Exchange Server, Skype for Business, OneDrive for Business, SharePoint, Skype, etc.

Advantages of Office 365 Over Exchange On-Premise

The following list is the major benefits of Office 365 over Exchange.

• Microsoft offers its users a guaranteed uptime of 99%. You will get all the services there any time when you need them.
• Users can easily predict the monthly expenditure on their email services as Exchange online is a subscription service and it has a low up-front cost.
• Users do not need to buy or maintain their own servers, which can greatly save their time and money
• Being a cloud service, users do not have to worry about future updates for Exchange online. Microsoft would provide all the future updates to their users.
• Users can easily set up new mailboxes in Exchange Online. If an organization is growing quickly or its staff turnover is high, then this flexibility could be invaluable.
• Multi-factor authentication is only available in Exchange online, which is a necessary facility in terms of security purposes.

Disadvantages of Office 365 Over Exchange On-Premise

• Inescapably, the user needs to give up some control to Microsoft when using their cloud service of any kind. Users cannot determine that where their data is stored or on which hardware for example.
• Sometimes, it can be more expensive than the on-premise server, depending on the size of the organization, as it comes with an ongoing subscription charge.
• In situations when user’s business is related to national security then, they might need to check if Exchange Online complies with any restrictions that are placed on them.

Brief Intro to Exchange On-Premise

As evident from its name, On-premise is keeping the Exchange server at its own premises within the organization. Users need sufficient hardware with installed Exchange.

Benefits of Exchange On-Premise Over Office 365

• Once the user deploys Microsoft Exchange On-Premise, it’s installed on their own hardware and they can configure it according to themselves. They get full control over it, where it is hosted when it is updated, everything.
• As users are not relying on Microsoft’s hardware, emails can be stored and served locally. In this way, it becomes much faster than the Online one.
• Users having full control means, they have the freedom to customize their Exchange. They can even modify its behavior with third-party plug-ins if they want.
• Once the Exchange On-Premise infrastructure is set up, after that there are no subscription fees to pay.

Disadvantages of Exchange On-Premise Over Office 365

• With a site server, users are responsible for the configuration and hardware of software. They can experience downtime if anything goes wrong.
• Users need to keep the email server and their copy of Exchange up to date, in order to avoid downtime.
• The organization needs to hire a housing specialist someone who is capable of monitoring and operating their servers.
• As, servers are pretty costly. It can easily cost several pounds to buy one and to keep in working conditions.
• Servers can be big in size, and in order to run it, it needs to be powered. Which will indirectly add to the user’s expenses.

Putting It All Together

After having a detailed comparison between Office 365 vs Exchange on-premise, we have found that both have their benefits and limitations, now users can easily choose, what is best for them.

Moreover, there can be circumstances, when organizations need to migrate their data from Exchange on-premise to Office 365 or vice versa. In these situations, they can use Exchange to Office 365 Migration Tool, an error-free and reliable tool that can easily migrate data for the same.

Also Read: How To Combine Two Microsoft 365 Email Accounts? Get Your Query Answered