Let's start with these basic facts:
1. I love Zentyal.
2. It still has a lot of problems. Therefore, it is nowhere near as polished, reliable, or featured as a pure Microsoft solution.
I have been using Zentyal Community edition for a while now, and I liked it enough, but also had enough problems, that I thought about paying for the supported version of Zentyal to help me iron out the wrinkles.
When I contacted Sales and requested a quote, I was given a price of about 4500 Euro or $5,600 USD PER YEAR.
This price seems excessive to me, for what you get. What exactly is this a quote for?
Zentyal Premium (for 75+ Users) with 4 "satellite" nodes.
One of my problems here is that I don't actually have 75+ Users, at least not in the sense which I think of it, which is that a "User" is a real person. Due to limitations in the email system, I DO have almost 100 defined user names in Zentyal (and will probably have more soon). But I only have about 50 real human users. The rest are departments.
For example, I have a user
John.Doe@domain.com and
Sally.Smith@domain.com. But both of these people work in the accounting department and I want then to be able to send and receive email from a shared account called
Accounting@domain.com. In Zentyal, I have to create a new, separate user for that. And that inflates my user count and means I have to pay for Zentyal Premium (75+ users) instead of the cheaper Zentyal Professional (less than 75 users).
Microsoft on the other hand, has the perfect solution for this, shared mailboxes:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj150498%28v=exchg.150%29.aspx And shared mailboxes DO NOT require a separate CAL.
I basically have the following in terms of locations and users:
Office1: 10 users
Office2: 15 users
Office3: 15 users
Office4: 5 users
Office5: 5 users
So from there come my totals: 5 offices (1 main and 4 branches), 50 real human users, and 100 "users" counting departmental or similar emails.
Now, looking at a Microsoft solution, I would be paying (approximately):
5 copies of Windows Server 2012 Standard = $700 x 5 = $3,500 USD
50 Windows Server 2012 User CALs = $1,500
1 copy of of Exchange Server 2013 Standard = $1000
50 Exchange Server User CALs = $2,000
Total Cost: $8,000
So, since Microsoft licenses per actual human, and Zentyal licenses per username in the server, we are talking $8,000 one time payment and I own the software for life, or $5,600 PER YEAR and I have to keep paying for life.
I mean, if I wanted to, Microsoft even offers hosted Exchange 2013 from their own servers for $4/user/month, which for 50 users would come out to $2,400/year, which would be cheaper and better than Zentyal's offering.
As much as I hate to give Microsoft more money, I'm really struggling to see the value of Zentyal's offering over a pure Microsoft offering.