Comparing Zoho Mail vs Tuta

Key differences between Tuta & Zoho Mail

Encryption

Zoho encrypts your emails at rest, whereas Tuta offers end-to-end encryption of all data. This means that Tuta encrypts your subject line, content and all attachments of an email, your address book, your inbox rules / filters, the search index, as well as all of your calendar data.

On top both services use TLS for transport encryption. Zoho Mail uses TLS for all communications from POP/IMAP/SMTP clients to their servers. To encrypt the message end-to-end, Zoho uses S/MIME. In May 2018, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) announced critical vulnerabilities in S/MIME, together with an obsolete form of OpenPGP that is still used in many email clients. Dubbed EFAIL, the bug required significant coordinated effort by many email client vendors to fix this vulnerability. However, to date, it is not clear whether all email services actually did fix the issue.

Tuta, on the other hand, enables you to to easily encrypt emails end-to-end, even if sent to people not using Tuta: just type in a password and share it with the recipient. The code to execute the encryption is published as open source so that everybody can verify that no security vulnerability exists and it has been reviewed extensively.

Unlike Zoho Mail, to ensure your security, Tuta does not offer the option to use standard mail clients via IMAP/Pop as Tuta’s built-in encryption would not work. Besides, the emails stored in these mail clients would be stored in plain text (unless you encrypt your local hard drive yourself).

Instead, Tuta has developed open source email clients as the most secure option to use emails, calendars and contacts.

Tuta uses standard algorithms also being used by PGP (AES and RSA or ECC) for encrypting the entire mailbox. In addition, Tutanota already uses post-quantum-cryptography (Kyber) for quantum safe accounts, which is still a work in progress for PGP. Tuta Mail does not use an implementation of PGP itself because PGP lacks important requirements that Tuta is meant to fix, like not encrypting the subject line, no option for Perfect Forward Secrecy, and difficulty in upgrading algorithms.

In Tuta the algorithms can be updated much easier, and Tuta is already working on a research project to replace the current algorithms with quantum secure ones. The flexibility of Tuta enables us to integrate an encrypted calendar, encrypted contacts and many more features much easier and faster than it would have been possible with an implementation of PGP. All of these make Tuta the most secure email service on the market.

Security

On top of the most secure and comprehensive type of encryption currently used by any email provider, Tuta offers additional security features that Zoho Mail does not provide, like a no-log policy, no third-party captcha, the fact that all Tuta clients are open-source, and all servers are based in Europe.

Tuta has the highest level of security which makes it the best email service for businesses that deal with sensitive data.

Business features and usability

Zoho Mail is primarily focused on business email features, including tasks, notes and instant chat, and integrations with other enterprise tools from Zoho, like CRM, HR, finance, marketing and IT management systems.

While Zoho Mail offers more out-of-the-box integrations, Tuta’s business packages include all of the features that most SMEs would need, like custom domains, alias email addresses, the option to customize Tuta with your branding, multi-user support, calendars, plus an exclusive feature that lacks from Zoho’s offer, Secure Connect, an end-to-end encrypted contact form for your website or intranet, which doubles as a whistleblower system, helping your business comply with new EU legislation.

Sustainability

All your data is stored on our own secure servers powered with 100% renewable energy. Our offices' electricity comes from a renewable energy provider that actively invests into building new facilities for producing renewable energy.

Pricing

Both Tuta and Zoho Mail offer low-cost price plans and free options. Zoho Mail’s free plan does not include IMAP/ POP/ Active Sync.

Zoho Mail vs Tuta Summary

While Zoho Mail leads in terms of integrations with enterprise tools, Tuta leads in terms of security and privacy.

Tuta has better and more extensive encryption and all our email clients are open source. We want everyone to have the opportunity to look at the code because it means that any possible flaws will be quickly detected and fixed. It also means that we can’t hide any backdoors, so you can trust us to protect your data. Zoho’s applications are closed-source and rely on integrations with closed-source third-party tools that don’t prioritize your privacy and security.

And while Zoho’s data centers are distributed across the US, Europe, China, India and Australia, we own our infrastructure, our secure servers are located in Germany and powered with 100% renewable electricity.