1. General take
2. Is it any less creepy than surveillance capitalist giants?
3. How does Zoho stand up against some of the more independent, pro-privacy platforms you're into?
4. Anything else you wanna share...
Personally I switched from fastmail to zoho because I host emails for part of my family and zoho offers exchange compatibility so the setup is just as easy as setting up a google mail account on iphone and androids. No fiddling around with cal and carddav.
Zoho user for 5+ years here.
So for less than $400 US a year I use: - Website (comparable to weebly)
- CRM (not salesforce level, but more than I need for small business, and it is customizable and you can code to it)
- Email (comparable to Gmail, but feels more like fastmail)
- Paid Appointments (Similar to VCita, but totally integrates with CRM)
- Bookkeeping (Similar to Quickbooks, but integrated with CRM)
- Webforms (similar to formspree but...)
- Web meetings (Similar to Zoom, but not quite as good)
- Webinars
- Help Desk software
- E-Signatures (Similar to Docusign)
- Email Marketing (like mailchimp)
- Project management
There is way more, lots of stuff I don't need yet, like HR, transactional email, remote support, Augmented Reality support, recruiting, a no-code platform, contract management... just tons.
So, yeah, I'm a fan. I don't know how they compare to anyone else with respect to your 2) and 3), but I'd be hard pressed to imagine they're any worse.
Zoto's logo was created by an ad agency which is now located in New Braunfels, Texas. Ironically, the owner just emailed me a few days ago when the news hit that Zoho was opening an office in New Braunfels.
I decided not to pursue litigation, but it may be worth mentioning regarding trusting them, or not! It was certainly irritating at the time!