The Windows Live team announced today that they’re rebranding their new email beta to Windows Live Hotmail. We haven’t written about the application for some time, and this is as good an excuse as any to compare the current release to Gmail and the new Yahoo mail beta.
The three applications, along with AOL mail, make up the vast majority of the 500 million or so webmail users around the world (see chart included in this post). Most of these users are still using the old, tedious, Ajax-free Yahoo Mail and Hotmail user interfaces, requiring page refreshes for every click. The new applications, along with Gmail, offer a much richer experience, much like Outlook or Mac mail. When these webmail clients are performing well, their speed and ease of use is easily as good as a desktop client.
Overall we prefer Gmail over all other webmail applications because performance (speed) is consistently fast, and emails can be tagged making search much more effective. They also offer more storage and other features, and it’s free. However, Yahoo and Live Hotmail offer more mainstream Outlook-like user interfaces (although Live Hotmail does not allow you to access other email accounts from their application), whereas Gmail takes some time to get used to. If you are looking for speed and tagging is important, Gmail is for you. If you are looking for the closest thing to Outlook online, go with Yahoo Mail.
The following chart compares the services on a feature-by-feature basis. Note that the user numbers for Yahoo and Hotmail include legacy users still on the old platforms.
Gmail
Gmail groups emails in a thread into a single line in the inbox. Some users love this, others hate it. It’s not my favorite feature, but I’ve gotten used to it. The best Gmail feature in my opinion is the ability to tag emails for better organization and search. None of the other services offer this. Gmail also has integrated Gtalk into the GMail interface, and continues to add other functionality as well (such as integration with Docs & Spreadsheets). Gmail is consistently fast, offers the most storage and free POP-in and POP-out, meaning you can use Gmail to access your other email accounts, or access GMail from whatever email client you use. It’s a near-perfect piece of software, and has only occasional hiccups. The fact that Google is paired with Google Calendar, the best online Calendar application, doesn’t hurt, either.
Windows Live Hotmail
The new Windows Live Hotmail will be a welcome change to Microsoft’s 228 million webmail users, but it falls short of the Yahoo and Gmail offerings. They offer 2 GB of storage, better than Yahoo, but there are no POP-in or POP-out features at all. If you want to access your account outside of the web site, you have to do it via Outlook or Outlook Express. It remains the slowest among the three in our tests.
Yahoo Mail
Yahoo Mail is very good, allowing users to access other email accounts (POP-in), but only offering POP-out access for an additional fee. This is probably due to the legacy users who are already paying for this feature - Yahoo may not want to give up this revenue stream. Storage is on the low side - only 1 GB, which is less than half of what Gmail offers. Still, Yahoo Mail has recently been running very fast and offers an intuitive, Outlook-like interface. Instant Messaging and RSS integration is awesome.
Gmail does not have 51 million users.
Its way less than that. Especially active users.
All we really have is the comscore data, which says 51m worldwide, 10m U.S. as of late 2006. I’ll get the more recent comscore numbers later today and update.
With “Google Apps for your Domain” … I have to say that GMail “kicks @$$.”
I just signed up a couple days ago, and I’m in heaven. I love having my own domain as the root and I love the POP in / out cause I’m lost without Entourage.
(I’ve been using Yahoo for the past 4 years, but with no POP access, I had to find another solution - at least without having to PAY for it. My prior e-mail got dropped about a week ago - through which I had been using Entourage - and so I had to find another service … THANX TechCrunch for the heads up on Google Apps for your Domain a couple days ago. Too bad for Yahoo, if they had free POP access, I wouldn’t have switched.)
I use both Gmail and Yahoo. I have stuck with Yahoo though Gmails Fetch will allow me to make the change when and if I decide to jump ship completely.
I agree that if you want something new go with Gmail but if you don’t want to learn something new stick with Yahoo.
Your chart is wrong. Live Mail does integrate with IM contacts, as does Yahoo Mail.
Live Mail does have forwarding, for a fee…it’s just a continuation of MSN.
It also does POP in, though the feature is still in beta, and POP out (for paid accounts).
As to speed, I can only assume a lower score is better, as Google is insanely slow in my part of the woods.
Who prepared this chart, Google?
agreed man come on
I also like the part of the article that equates multiple day- and hours-long system crashes as “hiccups.”
A minute or two, maybe even an hour, once a month is okay. GMail’s stability is not.
I really dislike the Outlook-style web mail clients. I see how it would make the transition easier for people who are used to Outlook, but people need to open their eyes and try something new. I didn’t think Gmail was anything special at first, but having used it for over 2 years now, I could never, ever use anything else. I don’t care about the tagging that much, but the integrated messaging, free POP, free forwarding, google search, and best of all, support for multiple email addresses from other domains, has changed the way I use email forever.
I have a Yahoo account and have access to the mail beta (isn’t it over a year old at this point?), but I think it really sucks, hard. First, wow, it is sooo slow. I don’t have the world’s fastest computer, but it’s less than 2 years old so it’s not bad by any means. I play with it and it just seems like they’re trying almost too hard to make it behave 100% like a normal software program. Like the drag and drop for example, or the multiple tabs. It just doesn’t seem right, nor is it that fun to use, and I wonder how many people actually use those features. I never hear any buzz about the Yahoo beta, other than when it was first announced… does anyone even really use it?
And who uses Hotmail anyways?
GMAIL does not currently offer Pop-In for all accounts =(. Can’t wait for them to open it up to everyone, but no one seems to know when that will happen.
As I’ve learned with the recent Gmail hiccups, I rely on it a great deal. It has become the “killer app” that makes me the most productive that i’ve ever been. It’s a lifeline, its a management tool, its an environment in and of itself. Yahoo and Microsoft never “did it” for me.
I’ve been using Gmail to support my corporate email address. The reason isn’t for the email app itself, but for the add-ons like tight integration with Google Alerts, Google homepage and my Adwords / Analytics accounts.
Gmail through GAFYD is really-really good. What I’m missing is Mail Fetcher - it seems to be available now for most regular gmail accounts, but not for GAFYD.
As for the table - well if it’s correct, MS might as well call it Windows Dead Hotmail.
I have gmail and have never used it much, the original yahoo mail works fine for me and I have had the address forever. I keep trying the beta and switching back.
I think a lot of people have gmail because you have to have it for other google services, but it is not their main mail account. I have about 10 friends in my gmail, and all of them correspond with me through hotmail and yahoo instead.
I did use gmail for a google checkout purchase and I had to remember to check my gmail account for the shipping info.
email sucks. 1 in 5 legitimate outgoing emails won’t reach it’s destination, no matter which snazzy webmail interface you use.
Why does Microsoft suck at everything they do on the web. Mybe they should stick with OS. But hey, there are too many suckers in this world I guess.
I’m somewhat ambivalent about the benefits of Gmail. For all it’s ‘Ajaxiness’ it still suffers from latency with just about every click.
As for tagging and threading, i dont think many people have a good grasp of these concepts esp the former, which seems like an unintuitive method of categorization for most. Also, curious why Gmail forces users click on the ‘All Mail’ link to view current messages vs just displaying them upon login…
Having used Eudora since ‘92, my email program of choice is Thunderbird portable configured to access all my pop accts including Yahoo. For calendering, i also prefer Planzo over Google as it is bare-bones simple and has an integrated Todo. Don’t know how Google overlooked such obvious functionality…
Michael,
If you, or any other ‘industry insiders,’ wants to ’sneak preview’ scoop my new service, Litepost, sometime soon, just drop me a line. It’s not quite ready to go yet (our current website is so stealth it hurts), but it’s almost there, and I can promise you it’s ‘mindblowing’ (well, at least as far as email goes!). Otherwise, I will be in touch shortly through the ‘other’ appropriate channels.
btw, if anyone has a Scrybe beta acct they’d like to sell please let me know.
I have a suggestion for litepost, ditch the font that looks like Russian!
Gmail is most irritating email interface I have ever encountered.
I would get “Ooopps Server Failure” “Something is wrong” … message every now and then with Gmail.
-Yahoo mail’s & Gmail’s speed score should be lower.
-I’m not sure if Tagging should be listed as a benefit. Searching is just as good. Users may forget to tag an e-mail too.
-There has to be more 228MM hotmail users. When MSFT bought Hotmail, they had 200MM users then.
-Amit
Gmail does not have RSS, but they have ATOM feeds. So I guess
this checkbox should be “yes”.
Those ‘user numbers’ are all seriously inflated. I personally have at least 3 hotmail accounts at this very moment — none of which i use. Yes, i know they clear them out occasionally, but for whatever reason i occasionally end up creating them for one-time use. Personally, I use and prefer gmail as my main account. I maintain a yahoo account solely for spam signups (my previous main account pre-gmail.)
yahoo is the best; i wanna like gmail….but they go off the beaten path with simple stuff…and its like learning a whole new language just to do email. I never have used MS email; probably never will.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that probably about 95% of webmail users don’t give a rat’s ass about features like RSS integration and tagging. I’m not saying that such features are useless, but it’s simply not somthing your average user cares about today.
@Rishi I don’t really give a rat’s ass and have tried them all (and many more) and am still sticking w/ (old) yahoo mail
rebranding ‘bloatware’ is what MSFT does best !
I’ve used all three applications, but I have to put my vote in for Yahoo’s New Mail (formerly beta). Its integration of contacts, calendar and email into a very visually aesthetic interface with lots of interactive features makes it, IMHO, the best of class. Although, the Windows Live platform seems to have duplicated many of Yahoo’s features, I still believe Yahoo’s app is still a better, more intuitive interface. I absolutely despised gmail.
i think hotmail and gmail will be the key players here, pretty much hovering next to each other for the most part
with windows live mail trailing in a sizable diff.
I’m going to have to agree with webonics here, the new Yahoo Mail is excellent, and is definitely the most usable IMO. It really is all a matter of what a person is used to/likes using/taste/etc…
I also like the search on the new Yahoo mail much more than the search through Gmail–the tabbed search is excellent–very very convenient. Definitely would switch their grades on search if I was judging.
All in all, it’s great to have choices, much MUCH better than the choices a few years ago. I’ll thank Google for shaking up the business, the extra space provided by all the webmail hosts is great, that’s for sure. A little healthy competition never hurt anyone!
Michael - why not include AOL’s webmail in your analysis? It’s got a slick UI and pretty hefty storage?
I support Gmail all the way. I even use their Google Apps services as my Email exchange services for my own domain.
No one likes the conversation style in Gmail? I use gmail just because of that and also the “data” is arranged in a nice way. I’ve never thought the ads were intrusive. Not so for the others.
I prefer YahooMail’s new look over Live mail’s.
I’ll just stick with outlook.
GMail does have RSS integration. They call it Web Clips and it is above the inbox.
Of the three you discussed, I would say gmail is the best. The reason being the tagging. My favorite though is http://www.inbox.com/ which I have been using for a couple months now. The free version has 5 gig storage. Inbox included file storage, calendar, address book, notes, and photos in addition to email. If they added a bookmarking or tagging tab, it would make the perfect individual portal.
Spot on comparison. But Yahoo integration is the best. GMail is fast and so is the search but I still like Yahoo’s interface.
I have Yahoo & Gmail web mail accounts. I rarely use Yahoo these days as it is just filled with spam. Though they are doing a better job of identifying most of it. And their UI has gotten better also.
I just don’t know about Gmail. I use it but the UI is pretty weird. You can’t create your own folders and therefore, organization of the huge amount of mail that they can hold is difficult. Also, there really doesn’t appear to be any way to contact anyone at Gmail via email these days. There used to be a contact form (after going through some help screens) but that seems to have been removed or buried so deep that it is near impossible to find. Everything gets channeled to a user forum where users have to provide their own support. For a company with the $$$ that Google has, it is damm criminal to refuse to provide email support. There are many questions that the user community just doesn’t have the answers for.
Don’t forget about ability to actually display mail properly. Windows Live Mail and Gmail both have shocking CSS support, whereas the new Yahoo beta displays emails perfectly:
http://www.campaignmonitor.com....._yaho.html
Readability and standards compliance are both important issues too. Nothing worse than receiving a HTML newsletter you’ve subscribed to and it gets garbled by the webmail client. Top points to Yahoo for getting this right.
I’d like it if Microsoft would think of some longer, more awkward product names. Maybe Ultra Special Windows Live In Action Now Steaming Hotmail Version One Mark II. Yeah, perfect.
One thing you should have identified is the filters.
Hotmail and Yahoo filters are from the past century, but Gmail UI is from another planet.
Some points regarding comparison:
1) Gmail has less than 51 m.
2) Hotmail is integrated with IM:
It is just IM is integrated into OS and Hotmail is integrated into IM
3) Gmail is still beta, while Yahoo is not.
4) Yahoo is the best among all following SMTP protocol standards - 100% while Hotmail and Gmail do not follow standards 100%.
A very solid day for TC. Great analysis, strong reviews of new products and a handy starting point for Yahoo Pipes (before they got clogged anyway). Thank you. I know how much work goes into each article like this one, and I wanted to give the team props for outstanding output. Maybe now that there is some snow in Tahoo you should shut things down for a ski weekend.
I’m sure a lot of Hotmail’s accounts came from people making throw-away accounts… especially spammers. I know I made a few back in the day to sign up at websites.
I use gmail and thunderbird.
My one beef with all web-based email: I can’t log into two accounts from the same email provider at once. Since most people have more than one account these days, wouldn’t it be great to provide a way to toggle/link accounts?
If someone’s wise to a way to manage this already, I’d love to hear it!
- Lucas
http://www.lucasmcdonnell.com
Yahoo mail seems to be down at the moment. At least for me.
Spam filtering ability is a feature I consider very important in a webmail application. For this category, GMail is the best among the three that I’ve tried - the occasional spam does get through, but probably only once a fortnight or so.
Shilo M - Don’t know thunderbird - sends me to a realtor site! Tell me more.
You can try easy.la too (and get a better address there if you want).
Also, for registrations you can use 10minutemail.
You missed one important category if you’re going to include “tagging”…. how about folders?
Gmail: no
Yahoo: yes
Live Hotmail: yes
I HATE gmails organizational system.
Live Mail accounts do not work with Outlook 2007. You need Outlook Connector for Live Mail. No good downloading it. It is a paid subscription. Duh!
Alpesh
I wish I could edit my comment to add this, sorry guys.
@Steve Yu
You can’t really be serious? I have 5x the number of spam slip through Gmail’s spam filter as I see slip through on either Yahoo or Live Hotmail. Gmail’s spam filter is mediocre at best.