Premium Email Services Compared - cPanel hosting vs Google Workspace vs Office 365

Email is a large part of our web hosting services. Most business clients consider email hosting far more critical than their website. When you rely on email for your daily communications, it can affect operations if there are any problems. Let's compare cPanel hosting vs G Suite vs Office 365.

We run cPanel servers, which means you get your email functionality built in. Use IMAP, POP, and SMTP on either the standard or, preferably, the SSL/TLS ports. Dovecot and Exim power the services on our CloudLinux servers. Many clients also use the inbuilt webmail services, with RoundCube being the most popular interface. Webmail is also very useful for troubleshooting since it shows precisely what is on the server.

Unless you have a busy e-commerce shop, if your website is down for maintenance,e you probably aren't losing much sleet. But your email? That can affect your business – most of our support tickets are about email and deliverability questions.

But as robust as our inbuilt cPanel email service is, we often get asked about alternatives. We've set up G Suite and Office 365 for clients, which could be ideally suited to your needs. But their services go way beyond email, and you have to consider your office and file-sharing software, too, since each service aims to lock you into its ecosystem.

The two leading premium email services are Google's Workspace vs O365 from Microsoft.

Google Workspace

The most popular and one of the best email providers out there. The web interface is excellent (the same as Gmail), almost every email application has an option for easy setup, and deliverability is the best you can get if configured right. As part of the subscription, you also get full access to Docs, Sheets, Drive, Contacts, and Calendar. Between these, they cover almost all of your business and collaboration needs.

But that comes at a price. The Google Workspace service will cost you £5 per user per month, which can add up fast if you have a lot of users. The main reason for people opting for our cPanel-based email is the ability to create a large number of accounts without per-user charges.

Even Google is susceptible to the occasional downtime; just last month, services were widely inaccessible for half a day. But generally, they are as good as you'll get – though that comes at a price.

Office 365

This is Microsoft's answer to Google Workspace. The higher price tiers get you hosted email and fully licenced Microsoft Office software, plus 1TB of OneDrive for file storage as part of the deal. Package costs are outlined here:

We find this a good option if you already have an Office software licence for each team member and fully embrace the Microsoft Office ecosystem.

cPanel Email Hosting

Sometimes it's best to stick with cPanel email hosting. It often works out more cost-effective for clients that need to manage many users due to our 'all-in-one pricing and storage – not per-user account. For example, ten users on Google Workspace will cost you £50 per month, but you can have those same ten email users on our web hosting account for just £42 a year. You also only have to deal with one provider, and billing is more straightforward; it doesn't require modifying your billing whenever you create a new email account.