*Update:* The 5-mailbox limit on the community edition applies to user mailboxes (people and service accounts), but not shared/equipment mailboxes. Grommunio has updated their website to reflect this. Grommunio has also clarified that the "Gromox" component does not derive from Kopano, although other components of Grommunio do. While there are claims made to the contrary, the primary source referenced by the majority of these claims has since been deleted by the author, so I am inclined to believe Grommunio's account.
Even if it was derived from Kopano, who cares, Kopano closed up the source, told everyone they're only focusing on their paying customers and not giving a fuck anymore. Their development seemed to have ceased over the pandemic as well.
Cheers. It's worth a look. I'm still getting the occasional wonky update (from the community repo, at least) but I'm interested to see how it continues to develop.
I hadn't heard of this one yet. Thanks for sharing. Definitely one to watch. Completely agree, they need to build the community to help it grow into a polished and trusted product. Then it will be that community that takes it into business as a trusted solution. I've been an exchange engineer for years too (since exchange 2000), I have been looking for something like this for years. MS have had no competition and it really shows these days. Thanks for the really well explained video.
Thanks! I hope this one gains traction because it has a lot of promise if they keep heading in the direction they've been going, and some of the places they don't directly follow Exchange Server (like using OIDC for SSO rather than WS-Fed, or porting Graph to on-prem) are an improvement on it.
@@ProTechShow I will definitely spin this up in my lab and give it a go. The 5 mailbox limit made me think it wasn't worth trying but very pleased that can be worked around! This sort of thing has to be run for a while in the real world to see if it's got legs. And your right, 5 doesn't give you enough to put it into use in a "non critical" use case. I really don't understand their thinking here. They need to get the IT pros using it for personal use, then we are the people that will take it into production and that's where it will be licenced for full support. Let's hope they see this soon as they have potential for such a great product here. They have done the hard work building on all the great exchange protocols.
Absolutely agree with you that the 5 user limit is stupid. This is the reason I’ve never installed it to try it out in the last year because it feels so very limiting. And that is even though 5 is probably even enough for me 😂
Exchange is NOT an Email server - It's a messaging server that has had email badly tacked into it ... But it does make it a very good Business messaging service, that integrates well into other Microsoft systems ...
Nice video. I'll definitely check this out. Been running exchange at home for my small business for 21 years and was planning to move to the cloud in October next year when support for Exchange 2016 ends. This project might keep it in the homelab.
Worth a look indeed, and if you're on a budget it requires significantly fewer resources than a full Exchange server. My lab was starting to stretch at the seams and replacing Exchange with this gave me some space back to play with.
It's definitely a step up from the usual approach of slapping a web UI on top of Postfix + Dovecot and calling it done. There are some gaps, but being able to swap out the backend and keep the same familiar apps on the frontend makes it a lot more viable for me.
I have been out of the Exchange and Outlook world since 2020 and when I heard Cache mode, broken OSTs and public folders I got vietnam flashbacks. I hate email so much.
10:00 _"The code is free, as in speech" So I'm allowed to fork, modify and redistribute the code? E.g. remove the user limit? That's neat. The Limit is the biggest pain point I had while looking at their product tiers.
Unfortunately, no one wants to administer an email server...In fact, at this point I'd actually recommend against it. I'm just not sure why any business would ever take a chance on this. Don't get me wrong, I'd like for it to succeed, but I just don't see how it's possible...
I think the difficulty of managing an email server is largely overestimated these days because we have a generation of IT folks who've only ever seen it in the cloud and therefore view on-prem as a scary unknown. It's really not that bad. I've been doing it for years though, since back when it was the normal thing; so perhaps I'm just used to it. In general I would agree with you though; because email is such a low-cost commodity service and typically bundled with something else it's not worth the hassle for most people to build a server and manage it themselves. Almost all of the mailboxes we manage moved to the cloud years ago for the same reasons. That said, there are organisations that are simply not allowed to use a public cloud service for whom on-prem options such as this are a necessity. Personally, I would like to see more options than the typical Microsoft/Google duopoly so I'm in favour of anyone trying to bring an alternative to market that isn't just another Postfix + Dovecot wrapper.
@@ProTechShow and then you have old timers like me (oh god did I just say that?) who cut their teeth on on-prem.. and still believe in it on some level, at least when it comes to ownership of the software itself. You can put this in the cloud in a IAAS setup. It's actually a bit fun administering it. It also lowers your attack surface area. Right now 365 is a security nightmare that needs a million third parties to properly secure and it feels like the bad parts of the old days. When people think of on-prem email they think exchange and they have every right to cringe at that thought. Exchange is hilariously awful and manages to take something as simple as email and turn it into a complete shit show of complexity. If your databases get corrupted because they ran out of space... good luck getting anything back.
@@shadowpillar2483 I've been called to a fair few database recoveries in my time. Always managed to get the data back, but it could take a long time. In some cases days. I've always found Exchange to be a bit too easy for people to break by accident, but very difficult for them to actually destroy in a way that can't be recovered.
@@ProTechShow I have been able to recover data too. Just a slow painful process. Especially when people are screaming bloody murder at you the entire time.
I want to administer email servers. It's not that bad - we have just arrived to a time when new IT guys would rather rent a responsibility to someone else for the convenience of washing their hands of it at the peril of their clients security profile. Remember folks, the United States Government has been hacked through Microsoft multiple times at multiple levels, not to mention countless private companies and individuals.
exchange would be much better if it didn't rely on the terrible client outlook is also Android doesn't support it for some reason, you need a third party app to access more than mail (like the another awful outlook)
I've been using Android with multiple Exchange accounts for years without any issues. I'm just using the default native app (currently on Samsung), not Outlook.
@@ProTechShow Samsung ships with exchange support, I think Sony did too, but that's not an integral part of Android neither Exchange nor Outlook accounts work in the generic case, specific ones may obviously you can handle emails using IMAP, but that's it also there are other apps that handle these, some made only for sync relying on the OS to expose data to other apps, but in my experience these were pretty unreliable
@@ProTechShow Gmail isn't a system provider but a 3p app and it doesn't seem to handle anything except mail, at least for personal accounts, even though they use the same protocol
@@Z4KIUS I just added an account to the app and it asked if I wanted to sync email, contacts, calendar, and tasks. Looks like the calendar opens in the Google Calendar app rather than Gmail itself, but it's all linked. I've honestly never come across a case of an Android phone not supporting ActiveSync out of the box, and we're talking tens of thousands of users - many doing BYoD. I'm sure if you get a raw de-Googlified Android image it could be a thing, but in terms of devices people actually use in the real world it's got to be pretty niche.
Of all the things Gromox is, it's not a fork of Kopano sw. If anything, grommunio-web and grommunio-sync are. "5 mailboxes" is an oversight; the software actually checks for 5 users (active ones at that).
By "oversight", do you mean it was a bug? If this was not intentional I will re-test and pin a comment to that effect. On the Kopano/Gromox front the relationship between the different components seems to be somewhat obscured by time, name changes, and deleted articles, so I will take your word for it. I found multiple sources referring to Grommunio (at the time "grammm") as a fork of Kopano, and several references to Kopano making an accusation about stolen (proprietary) code by Grommunio/grammm. Most of the latter then linked to a statement by Grommunio refuting the accusation and stating that only free code was forked. The rebuttal by Grommunio largely concentrated on the number of changes to the Gromox component since a fork took place. As Grommunio chose to concentrate on Gromox in the rebuttal I believed this to be the component under contention; but articles provided for context by various sources have now been deleted along with the original accusation, so I can accept that some nuance has been lost to me.
@@michaellangfermann5299 Yes, I can see the pricing page has been updated. I seem to recall having to get rid of a couple of shared mailboxes I used as personal archives because they pushed it over the limit, but I will check again and pin an update.
Confirmed and pinned a comment. Let me also take the opportunity to say thanks to you both and the rest of the team at Grommunio for the work you've put into this. I hope to see the project continue to grow and be a success.
*Update:* The 5-mailbox limit on the community edition applies to user mailboxes (people and service accounts), but not shared/equipment mailboxes. Grommunio has updated their website to reflect this.
Grommunio has also clarified that the "Gromox" component does not derive from Kopano, although other components of Grommunio do. While there are claims made to the contrary, the primary source referenced by the majority of these claims has since been deleted by the author, so I am inclined to believe Grommunio's account.
Even if it was derived from Kopano, who cares, Kopano closed up the source, told everyone they're only focusing on their paying customers and not giving a fuck anymore. Their development seemed to have ceased over the pandemic as well.
Thanks for this ... Its my first time to hear about Grommunio ...I will check it out
Cheers. It's worth a look. I'm still getting the occasional wonky update (from the community repo, at least) but I'm interested to see how it continues to develop.
I hadn't heard of this one yet. Thanks for sharing. Definitely one to watch. Completely agree, they need to build the community to help it grow into a polished and trusted product. Then it will be that community that takes it into business as a trusted solution.
I've been an exchange engineer for years too (since exchange 2000), I have been looking for something like this for years. MS have had no competition and it really shows these days.
Thanks for the really well explained video.
Thanks! I hope this one gains traction because it has a lot of promise if they keep heading in the direction they've been going, and some of the places they don't directly follow Exchange Server (like using OIDC for SSO rather than WS-Fed, or porting Graph to on-prem) are an improvement on it.
@@ProTechShow I will definitely spin this up in my lab and give it a go. The 5 mailbox limit made me think it wasn't worth trying but very pleased that can be worked around! This sort of thing has to be run for a while in the real world to see if it's got legs. And your right, 5 doesn't give you enough to put it into use in a "non critical" use case. I really don't understand their thinking here. They need to get the IT pros using it for personal use, then we are the people that will take it into production and that's where it will be licenced for full support.
Let's hope they see this soon as they have potential for such a great product here. They have done the hard work building on all the great exchange protocols.
Absolutely agree with you that the 5 user limit is stupid. This is the reason I’ve never installed it to try it out in the last year because it feels so very limiting. And that is even though 5 is probably even enough for me 😂
It's an own goal from where I'm sitting
Exchange is NOT an Email server - It's a messaging server that has had email badly tacked into it ... But it does make it a very good Business messaging service, that integrates well into other Microsoft systems ...
Exchange is an Email server w/ contacts and calendar tacked and has good sync options.
Fantastic video! Quite an eye opener and a great help to decide on what to do in the near future.
Thank you so very much and greetings from Portugal.
Thanks 🙂
Nice video. I'll definitely check this out.
Been running exchange at home for my small business for 21 years and was planning to move to the cloud in October next year when support for Exchange 2016 ends. This project might keep it in the homelab.
Worth a look indeed, and if you're on a budget it requires significantly fewer resources than a full Exchange server. My lab was starting to stretch at the seams and replacing Exchange with this gave me some space back to play with.
Never heard of this! Will be taking a look for sure!
It's definitely a step up from the usual approach of slapping a web UI on top of Postfix + Dovecot and calling it done. There are some gaps, but being able to swap out the backend and keep the same familiar apps on the frontend makes it a lot more viable for me.
Well explained. Thank you.
Thanks!
I have been out of the Exchange and Outlook world since 2020 and when I heard Cache mode, broken OSTs and public folders I got vietnam flashbacks. I hate email so much.
At least the 2GB limit is a thing of the past 😬
What a pain that was!
Another alternativo is Zambra server that works just fine. You pay a license for all Outlook accounts only.
There is no alternative called Zambra.
I guess it's called Zimbra 🫢
10:00 _"The code is free, as in speech"
So I'm allowed to fork, modify and redistribute the code? E.g. remove the user limit? That's neat. The Limit is the biggest pain point I had while looking at their product tiers.
It's licensed using the AGPL, so as long as you abide by its rules and don't expect commercial support, you can fork away.
Unfortunately, no one wants to administer an email server...In fact, at this point I'd actually recommend against it. I'm just not sure why any business would ever take a chance on this. Don't get me wrong, I'd like for it to succeed, but I just don't see how it's possible...
I think the difficulty of managing an email server is largely overestimated these days because we have a generation of IT folks who've only ever seen it in the cloud and therefore view on-prem as a scary unknown. It's really not that bad. I've been doing it for years though, since back when it was the normal thing; so perhaps I'm just used to it. In general I would agree with you though; because email is such a low-cost commodity service and typically bundled with something else it's not worth the hassle for most people to build a server and manage it themselves. Almost all of the mailboxes we manage moved to the cloud years ago for the same reasons. That said, there are organisations that are simply not allowed to use a public cloud service for whom on-prem options such as this are a necessity.
Personally, I would like to see more options than the typical Microsoft/Google duopoly so I'm in favour of anyone trying to bring an alternative to market that isn't just another Postfix + Dovecot wrapper.
@@ProTechShow and then you have old timers like me (oh god did I just say that?) who cut their teeth on on-prem.. and still believe in it on some level, at least when it comes to ownership of the software itself. You can put this in the cloud in a IAAS setup. It's actually a bit fun administering it. It also lowers your attack surface area. Right now 365 is a security nightmare that needs a million third parties to properly secure and it feels like the bad parts of the old days. When people think of on-prem email they think exchange and they have every right to cringe at that thought. Exchange is hilariously awful and manages to take something as simple as email and turn it into a complete shit show of complexity. If your databases get corrupted because they ran out of space... good luck getting anything back.
@@shadowpillar2483 I've been called to a fair few database recoveries in my time. Always managed to get the data back, but it could take a long time. In some cases days.
I've always found Exchange to be a bit too easy for people to break by accident, but very difficult for them to actually destroy in a way that can't be recovered.
@@ProTechShow I have been able to recover data too. Just a slow painful process. Especially when people are screaming bloody murder at you the entire time.
I want to administer email servers. It's not that bad - we have just arrived to a time when new IT guys would rather rent a responsibility to someone else for the convenience of washing their hands of it at the peril of their clients security profile.
Remember folks, the United States Government has been hacked through Microsoft multiple times at multiple levels, not to mention countless private companies and individuals.
+1
exchange would be much better if it didn't rely on the terrible client outlook is
also Android doesn't support it for some reason, you need a third party app to access more than mail (like the another awful outlook)
I've been using Android with multiple Exchange accounts for years without any issues. I'm just using the default native app (currently on Samsung), not Outlook.
@@ProTechShow Samsung ships with exchange support, I think Sony did too, but that's not an integral part of Android
neither Exchange nor Outlook accounts work in the generic case, specific ones may
obviously you can handle emails using IMAP, but that's it
also there are other apps that handle these, some made only for sync relying on the OS to expose data to other apps, but in my experience these were pretty unreliable
@@Z4KIUS Every non-Samsung Android device I've seen in years comes with the Gmail app as standard, which supports Exchange out-of-the-box
@@ProTechShow Gmail isn't a system provider but a 3p app and it doesn't seem to handle anything except mail, at least for personal accounts, even though they use the same protocol
@@Z4KIUS I just added an account to the app and it asked if I wanted to sync email, contacts, calendar, and tasks. Looks like the calendar opens in the Google Calendar app rather than Gmail itself, but it's all linked.
I've honestly never come across a case of an Android phone not supporting ActiveSync out of the box, and we're talking tens of thousands of users - many doing BYoD. I'm sure if you get a raw de-Googlified Android image it could be a thing, but in terms of devices people actually use in the real world it's got to be pretty niche.
bro after 3 minutes you have still not said which software. wtf is wrong with you!
Umm.... it's in the title of the video...
@@ProTechShow Right😂
Of all the things Gromox is, it's not a fork of Kopano sw. If anything, grommunio-web and grommunio-sync are. "5 mailboxes" is an oversight; the software actually checks for 5 users (active ones at that).
By "oversight", do you mean it was a bug?
If this was not intentional I will re-test and pin a comment to that effect.
On the Kopano/Gromox front the relationship between the different components seems to be somewhat obscured by time, name changes, and deleted articles, so I will take your word for it. I found multiple sources referring to Grommunio (at the time "grammm") as a fork of Kopano, and several references to Kopano making an accusation about stolen (proprietary) code by Grommunio/grammm. Most of the latter then linked to a statement by Grommunio refuting the accusation and stating that only free code was forked. The rebuttal by Grommunio largely concentrated on the number of changes to the Gromox component since a fork took place. As Grommunio chose to concentrate on Gromox in the rebuttal I believed this to be the component under contention; but articles provided for context by various sources have now been deleted along with the original accusation, so I can accept that some nuance has been lost to me.
@@ProTechShow It was not a "bug", the oversight was more of an editorial error. The pricing site has now been updated.
@@michaellangfermann5299 Yes, I can see the pricing page has been updated.
I seem to recall having to get rid of a couple of shared mailboxes I used as personal archives because they pushed it over the limit, but I will check again and pin an update.
Confirmed and pinned a comment. Let me also take the opportunity to say thanks to you both and the rest of the team at Grommunio for the work you've put into this. I hope to see the project continue to grow and be a success.