Your Guide to Google Workspace vs Microsoft Office 365: Which Is More Suitable for You?

Your business is now ready to transition to cloud computing because you want to have a better working experience. You’ve realized that your on-premise servers are losing their advantages. Perhaps you now know that there is no other way to keep up with the times but to go either with Google Workspace (formerly GSuite) or Microsoft Office 365.

Both tools are your best choices when it comes to cloud computing. These two suites help you and your employers to communicate internally and externally. These two may look the same on the surface, but if you check them out closely, you’d notice there’s quite a difference between the two. That being said, this article gives you insight into the similarities and what is the difference between Microsoft Office 365 and Google Workspace.

Is Your Company Ready for Cloud Productivity Tools?

Productivity tools and cloud productivity suites are very much the same. These are your go-to tools for emailing, presentations, spreadsheets, and the likes. But, unlike your productivity tools that run on company servers, cloud productivity suites like Google Workspace and Microsoft Office 365 are managed by an offsite provider. Cloud productivity suites offer better data manageability and collaboration. Here are some more advantages of using these tools:

Cost-Effective

These don’t take up physical space in your business office; it doesn’t even need maintenance either. No longer would you have to pay for an IT professional to manage your servers. Since all files are handled by software and an offsite server, the files and applications can be accessed and stored in one place.

Collaborative

There’s no need for your employees to be at the office to accomplish their tasks. Cloud productivity tools are mobile and accessible at all times.

Google Workspace vs Microsoft Office 365

Before we dig deeper into the similarities and distinctions between Google Workspace and Microsoft Office 365, let’s discuss their similarities and features. Both Microsoft Office 365 and Google Workspace have subscription options, depending on the number of users per business. Both are web-based, but Microsoft Office 365 is inspired by the Microsoft Office, its desktop software version. Both can work in most browsers, operating systems, aside from having apps of their own.

Microsoft Office 365 and Google Workspace have similar basic core applications. Both offer basic features that include the following:

  • Calendar
  • Business email
  • Cloud storage
  • Collaboration apps
  • Communication tools
  • Management tools
  • Security

What Is Microsoft Office 365?

Microsoft 365 is based on the Office franchise. This is Microsoft’s offer when companies want to migrate from on-premise servers to cloud storage.

What Is Google Workspace?

Google Workspace is a set of productivity tools offered by Google set to help business owners and users to collaborate, communicate, and be generally productive. Workspace is a purely web-based productivity tool without a desktop app.

Security Tools: Workspace vs. Office 365

Security is a major concern when working online. Here is a comparison of how Google Workspace and Office 365 fare.

Google Workspace Security Features

Workspace uses the same security as that of Google. As the Workspace admin, you can customize user account accessibility. Google also provides Two-Factor Authentication as an additional level of protection. You can also set keywords that can block outgoing communication. Google Workspace also has built-in spam, malware, and virus detection whenever you add attachments and documents to your email.

Office 365 Security Features

Office 365 uses AI to identify user work habits and flag suspicious activities. You can also enable multiple-factor authentication to secure user passwords. You won’t have to think about data loss because Office 365 has a tool that prevents this from happening. Office 365 can also prevent access to company-issued devices. Similar to Google Workspace, Office 365 also has an integral tool that scans documents and other attachments of malware and viruses.

Ease of Use: Google Workspace vs. Office 365

Google Workspace is more streamlined, with fewer features compared to Microsoft 365. However, Workspace provides effortless use when several people are working on the same project or document. The online version of Office 365 is the slim-down version of the offline program, albeit still familiar to those used to it.

Offline Capabilities: Google Workspace v.s Office 365

Google Workspace is designed for online work, but it also has offline capacity. Files and documents are fully synced and stored via Google Drive. You can use Gmail and Docs offline as long it’s on Chrome, and you got the offline feature enabled. Take note that the emails are only sent once you get online.

On the other hand, Office 365 has offline full versions of the Microsoft tools you need. The OneDrive folder is also available offline and syncs upon going online. Just make sure that the online version is synced before working offline.

Google Workspace vs Office 365: A Comparison

Each company puts more emphasis on some apps. For example, Company A might prefer its productivity suite to be more email-oriented, while Company B chooses a more powerful spreadsheet app. That being said, we’ve compared the major apps found in Workspace and Office 365 to help you identify which among them would be suited to your company’s goals.

Email: Gmail vs. Outlook

Gmail is more streamlined and less cluttered compared to Microsoft Outlook. Gmail has auto-word suggestions powered by AI. It can also notify you about messages that may have been buried under tons of emails. If you want to delay the coming of messages, Gmail has an option to turn this off. When you have a domain name, you can use that for email accounts. Take note that you are allowed to create 30 email aliases per user.

Outlook, on the other hand, offers powerful features such as the Focused Inbox, which allows you to respond to more urgent messages. When the message threads are already long, Outlook has the Clean Up feature that shortens these messages.

The key takeaway here is that Outlook has integrated its contacts and calendar functions, whereas Gmail has separate apps for those, something that can be cumbersome for some users. Similar to Gmail, Google Outlook allows you to create email accounts, with 400 user aliases.

Gmail has an edge in terms of mobility because the web and mobile apps are easy to navigate. On the other hand, Outlook’s desktop client has garnered raves. Microsoft 365 has more generous plans in terms of email storage size.

Collaboration: Google Meet and Hangouts vs. Microsoft Teams

Your team members won’t have a hard time sharing conversations, content, and tasks in one space. It has the Microsoft Teams for Microsoft, while for Google, it has the Google Meet and Hangouts.

Google Meet targets larger groups that can handle up to 100 participants in one call. On the other hand, Google Hangouts can only have up to 10 people per video call. However, there is a tendency for Google Meet to freeze up when you have low bandwidth.

Both suites have apps for task keeping that are intuitive and integrated with their respective calendars. However, Microsoft 365 took it a notch higher by having One note, an app for note-taking.

Microsoft Teams is chat-based, but it can be used to link all content that has been shared with the team. Then, the teams can do their tasks directly in the workspace. You can have threads for particular projects and private messages to keep track of progress. Overall, integrating other Microsoft 365 tools with Microsoft Teams is smooth, making this tool multipurpose.

Presentations: Slides vs PowerPoint

If you are focused on collaboration, choose Google Slide as this has fewer features. But if that aspect isn’t your priority, choose PowerPoint. PowerPoint goes beyond providing you with templates. It can guide you through the entire process with its QuickStarter feature. PowerPoint also has a more comprehensive collection of animations and multimedia. It also has the Rehearse Timings feature that offers the length of time you spend on each slide.

Spreadsheets: Sheets vs Excel

Collaboration is still the primary factor determining which between Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel is a better option. If your goal is for your workers to work alone on a spreadsheet, Excel is the better choice. Why? Many template options might overwhelm the user. In comparison, users only have to choose one among the three for Google Sheets.

The latter rides are high on the collaboration factor. That being said, Sheets is better used when tasks are highly collaborative or done in real-time. This is valuable when editing or commenting on the spreadsheets.

As for the charts and functionality, Excel outshines Sheets. You can choose from the 17 kinds of charts in Excel, including more complex designs such as histograms, radar and box, and whisker. Google Sheets, on the other hand, only has seven kinds of charts. Excel has sleek and advanced number-crunching features.

Word Processing: Google Docs vs Microsoft Word

It’s a matter of choosing between having a great tool with collaboration or something with broader and more powerful features. If you want to have a more collaborative tool, choose Google Docs. But if you prefer superior features, select Microsoft Word.

Whether that is a report, resume, or simple documentation, Word has 50 templates to get you going. On the other hand, Google Docs has collaboration built into the system- working on a document with many users becomes seamless. Offline editing and commenting awards go to Word. Google can still follow suit if it fine-tunes its features.

File Sharing and Storage: Google Drive vs Microsoft OneDrive

The great thing about these two suites’ storage sizes is that their storage capacities depend on how much data needs to be kept on the cloud. Top-tier accounts for Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive offer unlimited storage.

Google Drive offers 30GB for the Basic account but can have unlimited data storage if you prefer the other but more expensive Business plan. The Microsoft 365 Business Basic provides 1TB of cloud storage for $5 a month per user. Both tools connect live to the files stored in the device and cloud.

You can assign accessibility to both tools. For Google Docs, you can work offline. On the other hand, OneDrive has the OneDrive Files on Demand, allowing admins to assign which files or folders to put on particular devices. Microsoft also has SharePoint Online that adds more value to files stored on the cloud. This is free and able to manage documents.

Other Tools

Aside from the tools mentioned above, Google Workspaces and Microsoft 365 also provide other unique applications. Most of these are smaller apps that are aimed to make any business owner’s productivity better.

Workspace

  • Google Forms

Perhaps this is the most important tool among the Workspace add-ons. This is incredibly helpful to Sheets. You can create order forms, time-of ff requests, and so much more.

  • Google Sites

This allows you to create smaller websites for individual events and smaller marketing campaigns.

  • Google Keep

This is Google’s app as an alternative for Microsoft OneNote.

Microsoft Office 365

  • Access

Access can create business applications, either by scratch or using a template. This is aimed at users who have coding knowledge but not really into hardcore programming. This is available for PC only and Microsoft 365 Business Standard and Microsoft 365 Business Premium.

  • Forms

This is an app that creates quizzes, surveys, and polls.

  • Planner

This helps you and your team create plans and allocate tasks that you can integrate with Microsoft Teams.

  • Power Automate

Formerly called Microsoft Flow, this app allows you to automate repetitive tasks that you can include in your workflow.

  • OneNote

OneNote is the note-taking app that is now part of Microsoft 365. The downloadable version is more powerful than the web version, though.

Pricing: Microsoft Office 365 vs Google Workspace

Both Microsoft Office 365 and Google Workspace have free versions. But as business owners, it’s a good practice to check out the paid versions for both sets of tools. Workspace is more suitable for businesses that use contractors or those that have high turnovers. Microsoft 365 Business plans are capped at 300 users but if your company has more than that number, use Microsoft Enterprise plans.

Workspace Pricing Options

Workspace can be bought monthly. It provides a 14-day free trial and has three pricing options:

  • Basic Plan – $4.20 per user a month
  • Business Plan – $9.60 per user a month
  • Enterprise Plan – $25 per user a month

Microsoft 365 Pricing Options

Users can choose between Microsoft 365 for business and Microsoft 365 for the enterprise. These two have annual commitments.

  1. Microsoft 365 for Business
  • Microsoft 365 Business Basic – $ 5.00 per user a month
  • Microsoft 365 Business Standard – $12.50 per user a month with a one-month free trial
  • Microsoft 365 Business Premium – $20.00 per user a month with a one-month free trial
  1. Microsoft 365 for Enterprise
  • Microsoft 365 E3 $32.00 per user a month
  • Microsoft 365 E5 $57.00 per user a month
  • Microsoft 365 F3 $10.00 per user a month

Most Suitable Office 365 Users

If you want more features in a productivity tool that can fully collaborate, Office 365 is your best bet. Also, if you prefer to self-host your server for your email, choose Microsoft 365. If much of your company devices use Microsoft desktop apps, it’s logical to integrate Office 365 into your system.

Most Suitable Users for Workspace

For Google Workspace, the best users would be those who collaborate in real-time for most of the time. If collaboration is embedded in the company’s values and design, then Google Workspace is the right choice for you. Also, if your company does not need sophisticated trimmings or uses different kinds of computers and systems, then this is just right up your alley.

Why You Should Choose Microsoft 365

  • Microsoft is more flexible since there are desktop versions
  • MS Office exclusivity
  • The apps have more features
  • Storage is more generous
  • Easy to manage Outlook
  • More video participants
  • More varied phone call management options

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WIbqcmSB_E

Why You Should Choose Google Workspace

  • File storage is at a better value
  • Highly scalable
  • Focuses on real-time collaboration
  • Fast loading
  • Everything is cloud-based

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE31y5HbukA

Learning Curve

With the complexity and extent of Microsoft 365, beginners should expect to experience some learning curve. Microsoft 365 apps sometimes don’t integrate well together. But Microsoft 365 apps are often compatible with other third-party apps while the Workspace ones aren’t. It’s not without saying that there isn’t any learning curve for Workspace. Because of its simplicity, users who are new to online collaboration are the ones who’d experience that gentle learning curve.

To Conclude

Cloud productivity is suitable for any website or business owner because this saves you from the overhead costs of maintaining physical servers and expensive IT tech. Cloud storage makes your data more accessible to you and your employees. As a digital marketing firm, for our own business needs here at ITDwebdesign.com, we have used Google Workspace as the cloud productivity suite of choice for many years. It has proven to be more reliable for our business than Microsoft Office 365.

Which do you prefer having? Google Suite or Microsoft Office 365? Tell us in the comments below!