When comparing Mozilla Thunderbird vs Opera Mail, the Slant community recommends Mozilla Thunderbird for most people. In the question“What are the best e-mail clients for Windows?” Mozilla Thunderbird is ranked 1st while Opera Mail is ranked 13th.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Free (as in freedom and beer)
Pro Available on Linux, OS X and Windows
Pro Good filtering system
Mozilla Thunderbird offers a flexible filtering system with the ability to set flags and read/unread, as well as sort/assign to new mail directories. There are also numerous plugins available to assist in the filtering.
Pro Very reliable
Version after version, Mozilla Thunderbird works as expected.
Pro Large assortment of plugins available
Mozilla Thunderbird offers a huge amount of extensions to expand the usability and options of the client.
Pro Great flexibility
More options and extended settings than most power users could dream of. Get it working how YOU want.
Pro Tabs for navigation
Pro Lightning Calendar and Address Book integration
Pro Consistent and involving a moderate learning curve
The app design of Mozilla Thunderbird has not changed significantly since its beginning, making its learning curve almost non-existent.
Pro Send large files easy
Install pCloud plugin for Thunderbird and your files (upto 20 GB free storage included) will be received as download links
Pro Intuitive user interface
The design of the UI in Opera Mail is clean and intuitive, making for an easy to use client.
Pro Very efficient search
Be it the subject or the sender, it is very fast and accurate.
Pro Opera Mail CAN BE set as default email client in Windows 8 & 10
Pro Automagic smart filtering
After a bit of use Opera learns what e-mail belongs in what folder just by previous usage. This makes for a convenient way to have e-mails filtered without having to manually mange every e-mail.
Pro Free and based on Mozilla code
Opera Mail is completely free to download and use and it is based on Mozilla's code, which is what makes it a bit similar to Thunderbird in looks and function.
Cons
Con Development slowed to only focus on stability and security
Mozilla Thunderbird has slowed down its development of features to only focus resources on security and stability.
Con Outdated interface
Thunderbird's interface is very outdated and unpleasant. It feels more like a Windows XP application than like a modern MacOS one.
Con Terrible integration with macOS
Simple things - drag/dropping pictures doesn't work, for instance.
Con Subject lines can (temporarily) disappear from the list
This is sporadic behavior.
Con Serious bugs
Clicking on a subject line can bring up the wrong email.
Con Being discontinued
Opera Mail will be end of lifed per Opera website
Con Very limited feature set
Compared to Thunderbird.
Con Sync is slow
Opera tends to be slower on e-mail sync when compared to other popular clients.