Thunderbird vs. Outlook: Email App Showdown!
Posted Sunday, June 22nd, 2008 10:05 pm by Dave Moyer
I use Gmail. I love the online access, it’s speed, ease of use, oh what the heck- go read my post on the subject. However, lots of people just aren’t ready to take the plunge to an all-web app yet.
The two biggest desktop email applications right now are Microsoft Outlook, a favorite of business, and the open-source Mozilla Thunderbird. And it can be quite a conundrum to pick between the two! To help expel the confusion, misconception and fear about these apps, and help you make a good choice, it’s time for…
E-mail App Showdown!
Today, we’re throwing two desktop email clients into the ring to duke it out to the death. There will be five rounds of bloodthirsty mayhem, so get comfortable as we enter the first round of our fight:
Price
If your company isn’t supplying you with a client, you’ll always need to factor in affordability. Outlook costs $109.95 standalone, or it can be purchased as a part of Microsoft Office, $499 for the 2007 Edition on Windows.
Thunderbird, on the other hand, is open-souce. Therefore, it’s free. I don’t think there’s any way to beat that price. Plus, it would take a Tesla Roadster to make Outlook look cheap. Therefore, for this round, I’m giving Outlook a score of 2 out of 5, and Thunderbird a 5.
TOTALS: Thunderbird: 5 | Outlook: 2
It’s time for round two…
Features
Outlook has a built-in calendar application, as well as a to-do list, making it the only application you’ll ever need for organization in most cases. Thunderbird doesn’t include anything but email out of the box, but it can be integrated with Mozilla’s Lightning add-on. However, the fact that Thunderbird supports extensions like Lightning or those from third parties makes its’ feature repertoire ostensibly unlimited
Therefore, I’m making this round a tie, giving both apps a 4.
TOTALS: Thunderbird: 9 | Outlook: 6
You want your email fast! That’s why we should sprint into our third round…
Speed
This is obviously open to interpretation, and speed really depends on the system you’re using these apps on, what you’re using them with, and how you’re using them. However, in all of my experience with these programs and the vast majority of benchmarks around the web, you’ll see that Outlook tends to be a bit sluggish compared to Thunderbird. I’m giving Outlook a 3, and Thunderbird a 4.
TOTALS: Thunderbird: 13 | Outlook: 9
Thunderbird’s pulling ahead, beating Outlook by 4 points! Can Redmond’s gold envelope catch up? It’s time for our penultimate round…
Security
A Tweet I received today from jayhmt pretty much sums up this round:
a) Thunderbird not ripe for virus exploits/attacks b) see: a
This is pretty much true! Because Outlook has a lot more users in the business environment and with not-so-tech-savvy folks who just use what was at the top of their Start menu when they got their computer, most of the email app vulnerabilities will be found in Outlook!Also, Thunderbird is open-source, which usually gives it a big advantage in developing and releasing patches. Microsoft tends to have a cycle of releasing patches, which can also attribute to their programs’ security flaws. In this round, I’m giving Outlook a 3, and Thunderbird another 4.
TOTALS: Thunderbird: 17 | Outlook: 12
Thunderbird’s building up distance with 5 points on Outlook! It looks grim for Microsoft’s champ- can it pull ahead in our fifth, and final round…
Interface
Both clients, in my opinion, have a fairly good-looking and easy to use interface. However, Thunderbird’s is a bit simpler and streamlined compared to all of the flashy effects, colors and “start pages” that Outlook has. I find the Thunderbird interface a bit easier and efficient to work. Mozilla’s 3rd party extension support gives Thunderbird theming capabilities, but the app lacks a bit of the flexibility that Outlook has in viewing options (3 vertical columns, horizontal split, etc).
In the final round, I’m giving both of these applications a 4, leaving the final totals to be:
FINAL TOTALS: Thunderbird: 21 | Outlook: 16
Looks like Thunderbird has emerged victorious in our epic battle, leaving Outlook to head back to Washington empty-handed… If you liked this post, or you want to tell me what a Microsoft hater I am, be sure to comment (click that handy button down there), and subscribe to my RSS feed.
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Oh, yeah! Mozilla pwns Microsoft!
This “showdown” is a complete joke. As much as I like Thunderbird… it’s obvious you are incredibly biased towards it.
Thanks for the comment, Steve! I think you may be right there, so I’d love to see you write a showdown in this department that would crown Outlook the winner! Maybe I missed some points.
Also, just for the record, I don’t use either Outlook or Thunderbird, and I would say that it would be much more unfair if I used one or the other regularly.
Again, thanks for the comment, and let me know if you come up with something to counter my argument! I’d appreciate it. For now, I’d like to hold onto my “complete joke” as a balanced article.
- Dave
It may be balanced, but it’s balanced in its ignorance. I currently use Outlook 2007 and noticed that Mozilla had its own e-mail client, so I wanted to see some comparisons. However, a comparison between the two by someone who has not used either client seems a little silly. The facts and evidence you provided for comparison stopped at prices and vague feature references.
It looks like you spent more time on formatting the text and pulling images than researching and writing this. Oh well, I suppose you have better articles somewhere…
Very nice and balance (*wink) article. Sometimes less is more and that concept ties in with this comparison very well. To be honest, that’s why I haven’t switched over to vista from xp.
Very good point- the simplicity completely justifies using Linux, it is really starting to become a usable system. I personally think that in the Windows front, Vista beats out XP even if only for security, but either way simplicity is important.
[REPLY TO MIKE T'S COMMENT- REPLIES DON'T NEST FAR ENOUGH TO CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION ON THIS THREAD.]
Thanks for your comment, Mike- I’m glad you read the post and thanks for the feedback.
Let’s start from the beginning! First, the phrase “balanced in its’ ignorance” really isn’t clear and doesn’t make much sense. Am I ignorant enough to make the post balanced? Or am I equally ignorant on both sides to make things balanced. Or maybe my readers have to be ignorant to see the balance? Hmm…
Also, let’s check out a quote from my comment that you’ve referenced, shall we?
Did I say that I have never used either client? Nope. What I DID say is that I do not use either regularly as my personal email client to check my email. Does that mean I have no knowledge of either program? Absolutely not! Do you think the editors at CNET’s Download.com use every single program they review? Does Roger Ebert watch the same movie every day? Of course not! But does that mean their reviews cannot be trusted?
Also, I do agree with you that the rationale used in this article only scrapes the surface; you’re correct there. However, you’ll notice that this piece is extremely long as it is. I really only have enough time and space to go over each feature quickly, not give an in-depth tutorial with screenshots on each. That would make something that would take me days to write, and hours to read. Who wants that?
As for the assumption that formatting the text and finding pictures for the post was the majority of the work, I guess that’s possible. However, looking at the times between when the draft of this post was started and when it was published would mean that I would either have to type really really fast or have someone do the writing for me, and I don’t really think that it would take anyone that long to add pictures.
Plus, if you want to really get this technical, the majority of the design elements you see are formatted and added in automatically through multiple stylesheets that form the layout of this whole website. Also, I use a WordPress plugin called PhotoDropper to search for pictures and add them in easily so I don’t have to spend much time at all working on that sort of thing. But it’s an interesting idea!
Again, thanks for your comment, and I appreciate the feedback, even though it didn’t really do much besides flame my writing and make superfluous and erroneous statements. I hope you’ll keep reading my blog, and maybe someday I’ll write something that you’ll like.
thumbs up for the pretty good comparison
Thumbs up for the pretty good comparison - i am a huge fan of thunderbird!
Thunderbird is all well and good….until you need to use various e-mail templates and stationery. I had to switch to Outlook 2007 today because Thunderbird doesn’t support it and the 3rd Party Addons for it don’t work.
I tried thunderbird and I agree on you on EVERY aspect, but I went back to outlook… why? Because it coordinates with MS word (I can email from MS word to outlook), I can go in excel and email immediately from inside that program via outlook. Also, all my addresses, birthdays, etc. etc. are in outlook and it coordinates with allt he other programs like access. Also, I use YNAB that coordinates with Excel, so its all interwined within each other. When I use thunderbird, I find myself going in and out the program a lot to do basic stuff.
Hope thats something to consider
Julie Ann
Excellent Article! I have been an Outlook user since it came out, but each six months or so, we format and reinstall everything just to keep our systems running at top speed and efficiency. And each time, it takes me several hours to reinstall and setup everything in Outlook. This is Outlook 2003 I’m writing about - Office 2007 has so many bugs in it, I actually uninstalled it and went back to 2003.
Last night I downloaded and tried Thunderbird on one of my client’s recommendations, and I was up and running in about 15 minutes. It imported all of my Outlook files and settings seamlessly and after a few minor tweaks, I was ready to go.
One has so much more flexibility with Thunderbird, especially with folder organization. It’s excellent and I won’t be going back to Outlook anytime soon. Thank you Mozilla, for simplifying my life once again!!!