The 3 choices
With a cpanel account there are 3 different mail choices offered: Horde, SquirrelMail, and RoundCube. I am going to explain the major differences between the 3 of them and hopefully that will allow you to pick the best for your own use.
All the programs come with a basic array of features: Forwarding, Replying, Address Book, Folders, Junk mail, etc… I will not be explaining these features as these are a base for all types of e-mail programs and are irrelevant to the topic.
SquirrelMail
The most basic of these choices is SquirrelMail. It has the most basic of all interfaces.
As you can see in the photo above, it is a very basic and just lists your mail. There isn’t much to be said about this save for its simplicity.
ROUNDCUBE
The next is Roundcube. This has a more jazzed up interface using Ajax, this allows smoother selection of e-mail. There is no box checking, you can just click on the e-mail and use the options above the box to deal with the mail. As with SqurrielMail this is a simple interface just used for checking mail.
The is a good choice if you want a cleaner / smoother looking webmail program.
HORDE
Horde is different than the other 2 webmail programs. This is a full featured e-mail program, it has similar features to Outlook.
It has a list of options (in the upper right hand corner and on the left hand side) for you to choose from: Mail, News, Calendar, Notes, Tasks. It also has the feature Layout where you can change how the home page is displayed for you when you log in to your mail.
News- Setup Subscriptions to receive mail from different sources (Sports news, Electronics, Religion, etc…)
Calendar- Allows you to setup important dates and meetings (These can be imported from other programs)
Notes- Write notes or other information down and store it for later.
Tasks- You can schedule tasks that need to be completed and keep track of their progress.
Options- Customize how the time is displayed, how the color scheme of Horde appears, along with many other settings.
In the end it really comes down to what you need: SquirrelMail for simplicity, Horde for the large amount of features, and RoundCube for the aesthetic appearance.
Yes, it is very useful.
I love RounCube as it is easy and the look wise it is pretty clean
I have not tried using Rouncube besides Horde and SqurrelMail. Is better than the two?
Thanks – perfect!
I chose to use Horde as it is what I am used to.
Very interesting article. You guys always deliver useful content. Awesome post. Keep posting more articles. Thanks for sharing useful info.
Thank you – exactly what I needed !!
[...] Horde, SquirrelMail, and RoundCube [...]
Ihave squirrel mail for my business and i can not get on to my web mail so i can get in touch with my customers
I’m not sure what this is referring to. Please send us a support request if you hold an account through us so we can better assist you.
Thank you for the advice. I am just setting my webmail up, so I am going to choose Horde
I hate Horde. It is the worst experience I have ever had with webmail. As the end user, and someone that has been utilizing computers for 20 years, I hope any of you considering it will reconsider. It takes 5 minutes to access the login page, doesn’t delete unless you follow a 2 step process and changing screens or opening Horde mail takes up to 30 minutes easily.
Squirrelmail is the fastest webmail and we suggest that you use Squirrelmail if Horde is not working properly for you.
Our agency uses Horde (because that’s what our service provider has set up) and we all absolutely hate it. We are so frustrated that we are considering changing service providers entirely or doing whatever it takes to get something that functions dependably. I see in the explanation above that Horde supposed to have features similar to Outlook. It does pretend to offer those features… if only they functioned consistently and properly. At the end of the day, I suppose we’re all just spoiled to Gmail and YahooMail, etc.
Please note that Arvixe offers 3 different types of webmail with our linux hosting (Horde, Squirrelmail and Roundcube). Each has its own specific purpose for different customers. I personally would recommend Squirrelmail due to its simplicity and speed. All of my family members have switched over to using Squirrelmail from Yahoo, AT&T, Gmail type webmails as they prefer the simplistic and quick response as well as the ability to manage their own emails on their own space.
I like your post & I will always be coming frequently to read more of your post. Thank you very much for your post once more.
Thanks very much for this information. I didn’t realise each of the three options is essentially a different method to check your emails. I was looking for an icon called ‘access your emails’. It is so confusing when you are presented with these strange sounding names; horde, squirrel, roundcube and not one of them is an obvious choice.