Mailbox Taxi vs Cloudiway — desktop IMAP tool vs cloud matrix

Cloudiway and Mailbox Taxi sit at opposite ends of the migration-tool spectrum. Cloudiway is a cloud-based service with one of the broader source/destination matrices in the market — it will happily connect to Lotus Notes, GroupWise, Zimbra and other older platforms that most modern tools have stopped supporting. Mailbox Taxi is a desktop IMAP tool with deliberate scope: standard IMAP providers, no legacy connectors, every byte of mail on hardware you control. Choosing between them is mostly a question of which source platforms you have and where you want the data to live during the move.

TL;DR — when to pick which#

Side-by-side comparison#

Where Mailbox Taxi wins#

Mailbox Taxi has a narrower scope than Cloudiway, and that narrower scope is the source of its advantages. It does fewer things and does them with less ceremony.

Data stays local#

Mailbox Taxi runs on your laptop or a server you own. Mail content goes directly from source IMAP to destination IMAP over a connection you control. Cloudiway is a cloud service, so mail bodies and attachments transit their infrastructure during the move. For data-residency-sensitive work — legal, healthcare, regulated finance — the local model is much easier to defend in a DPIA.

Faster to set up for standard IMAP work#

A Gmail-to-Office-365 migration in Cloudiway requires creating a project in their portal, configuring OAuth grants, defining the migration plan, and waiting for the cloud to process. The same job in Mailbox Taxi is: install the app, paste two sets of credentials, hit start. For straightforward IMAP work, the setup time gap is real.

Flat license cost#

Per-mailbox pricing is fine for a one-off migration. For an MSP running a steady book of mailbox moves, the per-seat cost is a recurring drag on margin. Mailbox Taxi's planned per-engineer model means the license cost is fixed regardless of mailbox count. Our cloud vs desktop migration tools piece walks through the cost math in detail.

Per-IP throttling budget#

Cloudiway's cloud hits Microsoft Graph and Gmail endpoints from Cloudiway IP ranges, which means you share a throttle budget with other Cloudiway customers in your region. Mailbox Taxi runs from your IP, so the throttle is yours alone. On a Friday-night migration, the local tool tends to push faster simply because nobody else's job is competing.

Where Cloudiway wins#

Cloudiway is a serious tool and the broad source matrix is the real differentiator.

Legacy and unusual source platforms#

If your source is Lotus Notes, Novell GroupWise, Zimbra, or a similar platform that does not expose clean IMAP, Mailbox Taxi is simply not a candidate. Cloudiway has connectors for these. For an MSP doing an acquisition migration where the acquired business is on a 2009 Notes server, Cloudiway is often the only practical choice. We talk through these edge platforms in our office 365 migration guide.

Document workloads alongside mail#

Cloudiway will move Google Drive content, OneDrive, SharePoint and Box alongside the mailbox. Mailbox Taxi is mail-only. If your scope includes documents, Cloudiway covers more of the project in one tool.

Calendar and contacts#

A legitimate gap on the Mailbox Taxi side today. Cloudiway moves calendar items and contact lists as part of a standard project. Mailbox Taxi does not. For any migration where users expect their meeting history to follow them, Cloudiway is the more complete tool.

Multi-engineer cloud orchestration#

If you have three engineers running a 1,000-mailbox migration across time zones, having the project state in the cloud is a feature. Everyone sees the same queue, the same throttle budget, the same report. Mailbox Taxi is a single-machine tool today; coordinating multiple engineers requires more wrapping.

Pricing comparison#

Cloudiway

• Mail migration license: roughly $10–$15 per mailbox for standard IMAP/M365 work.
• Full suite (mail + calendar + contacts + documents): roughly $15–$20 per mailbox.
• Legacy source connectors (Notes, GroupWise) typically priced at the higher end.
• Volume discounts and partner pricing available.

Mailbox Taxi

• One-time desktop license, pricing not yet announced.
• Per-engineer or per-machine, not per-mailbox.
• No subscription required to keep using a migrated mailbox.
• Join the waitlist to be notified when pricing goes live.

For a one-off 50-mailbox project on standard IMAP, both options land in roughly the same cost ballpark. For an MSP running 200+ mailboxes a year, the desktop-license model is structurally cheaper. For a one-off Notes-to-M365 project, the question is moot because Mailbox Taxi cannot connect to Notes.

Decision framework — which fits which reader#

The acquisition migration with a legacy source#

The acquired business is on Lotus Notes from 2011, or a Zimbra server, or GroupWise. Cloudiway is the only practical choice; Mailbox Taxi does not have connectors for these platforms. If you also need to move the documents on a SharePoint server at the same time, that reinforces the call.

The mixed-provider IMAP consolidation#

Four small companies, four different IMAP hosts, one M365 destination. Mailbox Taxi fits this shape well because every source is standard IMAP and the flat license cost makes the math friendly. Cloudiway would also work but you would be paying per-seat for jobs Mailbox Taxi handles for a flat fee.

The compliance-bound migration#

Healthcare or legal estate. DPO says mail body cannot pass through any third-party cloud during the move. Mailbox Taxi is the easier sell because the architecture is "directly between your two IMAP endpoints, on hardware you control." Cloudiway's cloud model is harder to defend in this context.

The full-suite cutover with documents#

The customer wants mail, calendar, contacts and OneDrive moved on the same weekend. Cloudiway because it covers all four workloads. Mailbox Taxi handles mail only, so you would need a second tool for the rest of the scope.

Migration mechanics: what to know before you commit#

Auth flows#

Both tools handle OAuth 2.0 for Gmail and Microsoft endpoints, and both fall back to app passwords where the provider still allows it. Cloudiway runs OAuth through its own cloud app, so you grant their app permission on the source. Mailbox Taxi runs OAuth locally and stores the token on your machine. Same primitive, different trust placement.

Throttling#

Cloudiway shares throttle budgets with other Cloudiway projects in the same region. Mailbox Taxi uses your IP only. On large migrations where the destination throttles aggressively, this is usually a small advantage to the local tool, though the difference is rarely the determining factor.

Error inspection#

Both tools log the messy 5% — Message too large for destination, Folder UTF-7 conversion error, OAuth2 token expired, Too many simultaneous connections, STARTTLS handshake failed. The inspection loop on Mailbox Taxi is faster simply because the logs are local; you can grep and re-run a single mailbox. Cloudiway's portal-based view is fine but slower to iterate on. See our complete email migration guide for what these errors actually mean.

Resumability#

Both tools pause and resume jobs without losing progress. Mailbox Taxi keeps state on disk and resumes cleanly through laptop sleep, network drops and reboots; if your machine dies mid-job, the state is recoverable. Cloudiway keeps state in their cloud; if your laptop dies, the job carries on.

Using both on the same project#

Hybrid is reasonable. Cloudiway for the Notes mailboxes and the SharePoint content. Mailbox Taxi for the rest of the IMAP mailboxes where the per-seat license is hard to justify. Treat them as complementary on projects with mixed source platforms; the cost saving on the IMAP majority can offset Cloudiway's price on the legacy minority.

FAQ#