Email Archiving for Small Business: What You Actually Need
SMB archiving is search, restore, and a copy independent of mailboxes—not an enterprise supervision suite. How to size on-prem options without buying Proofpoint.
SMBs archive for restore, not for a trading-floor supervisor
The search is email archiving for small business, not FINRA surveillance. You need: a copy users cannot empty, search that finds last year’s invoice, export for a lawyer or a Subject Access Request, and storage that does not live only in Outlook.
Enterprise suites (Proofpoint, Mimecast supervision) are the wrong category. Cloud retention (Purview) is right only if you accept Microsoft as record keeper.
Product map: on-premise archiving software. Competitor-specific: MailStore Server alternatives.
Minimum viable archive
- Journal or SMTP-copy as mail flows, not only a nightly mailbox crawl.
- PST ingest for the mess already on laptops.
- Web search + restore/redeliver.
- Retention/expiry you can explain.
- Backup of the archive disk.
That is Hexamail Vault or MailStore Server for most SMBs. Barracuda appliance if you want a box. Not Enterprise Vault.
SMB shortlist
Hexamail Vault
On-prem, no required SQL license, PST + SMTP + Exchange + POP/IMAP, web search, redelivery, rule-based policies. Trial with one shared mailbox and one PST. If the only mail is Microsoft 365, read M365 archiving first.
app cta