Google Workspace vs Microsoft 365 Business comparison

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1,721 views|1,496 comparisons
95% willing to recommend
Microsoft Logo
863 views|400 comparisons
97% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Jul 30, 2023

We compared Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 Business based on our users reviews in six parameters. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:

  • Ease of Deployment

    Users generally find the initial setup for both Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 Business to be easy and straightforward. Google Workspace is a cloud-based solution that does not require installation, while Microsoft 365 Business can be installed with just one click and takes less than 40 minutes. However, some users find Google Workspace setup to be slightly more complicated compared to platforms like Outlook. On the other hand, Microsoft 365 Business users appreciate the advantage of having the necessary skills or IT department to handle the implementation.

  • Features

    Google Workspace is highly regarded for its user-friendly interface, smooth collaboration, and seamless integration across its components. Users appreciate its stability, scalability, security features, and video capabilities. Conversely, Microsoft 365 Business is praised for its ease of use, stability, cloud-based accessibility, collaboration tools, and integration with various Microsoft products.

  • Room for Improvement

    Both Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 Business have areas that require improvement. Google Workspace needs to address pricing concerns, resolve email quota issues, enhance functionality in Google Meet, simplify administration and user interface. On the other hand, Microsoft 365 Business should focus on improving seamless integration with Macs, scalability and stability, service management, and offering more affordable pricing.

  • Pricing

    The cost of setting up Google Workspace can differ based on individual situations and comparisons to alternative options. Some users find it reasonably priced, while others find it expensive and inflexible. In contrast, Microsoft 365 Business pricing is viewed as competitive, although some users think it could be lower. In general, both products have distinct pricing structures and levels of affordability.

  • ROI

    Google Workspace users have reported positive outcomes in terms of ROI, such as time savings, decreased support expenses, and enhanced productivity. Despite some users finding it expensive, they consider it a valuable investment. Conversely, Microsoft 365 Business has proven to be cost-effective by eliminating the requirement for infrastructure and physical servers. Additionally, it offers ROI through simplified compliance policy management.

  • Service and Support

    The opinions on customer service and support for Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 Business vary. Some users find Google Workspace's customer service average or satisfactory, while others think it needs improvement. Similarly, Microsoft 365 Business receives mixed reviews, with some users finding the basic support lacking and others having positive experiences with responsive and helpful support.

Comparison Results

Google and Microsoft 365 Business have their own strengths and weaknesses. Google Workspace is praised for its user-friendly setup, intuitive interface, collaboration capabilities, and security features. However, it faces criticism for its pricing, limited functionality in Google Meet, complicated administration, and compatibility issues. On the other hand, Microsoft 365 Business is commended for its ease of use, stability, cloud-based nature, and integration with other Microsoft products. Areas for improvement include Mac integration, pricing, support, security features, and user-friendliness. In summary, Google Workspace excels in collaboration and simplicity, while Microsoft 365 Business offers comprehensive solutions and ease of use.

To learn more, read our detailed Google Workspace vs. Microsoft 365 Business Report (Updated: March 2024).
768,857 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The solution is easy to use, and you don't need a lot of knowledge for it.""It is quite a useful tool. It allows many people to work on a document. You can actually provide review comments and tag anybody to make the comment changes. You can also attach a document in Google Chat.""Google Mail lets you link a task to a specific email and add a reminder. That's helpful for reviewing your schedule. It's based on Slack, so you don't have these folders like in Microsoft mail. Using Slack instead of folders is a bit more intuitive. It's easier to find again a specific email than using Microsoft Suite. If you misplace things, it's much easier to find them because of Google's search capability.""I like the capabilities for collaboration on any platform. For example, I might be on an iPad whereas the person next to me is on a laptop and the person next to them is on their phone. We can all collaborate together and update documentation in real-time.""Convenient to share and collaborate documents.""Valuable features of the solution are that it's simple and effective.""All the Microsoft Office features are available in Google Workspace.""The security and privacy policies of G Suite make it efficient, and the organizational data is secure."

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"My favorite feature is the collaboration.""The stability and reliability are great.""It works as expected.""It is a standard and powerful tool. Because it is a standard tool, everybody uses it.""It's available online as well as via desktop applications when deployed in the cloud.""Both stability and performance are valuable features. The user experience is pretty good on all this.""The packages provided in the solution enable my company's team members to carry out their daily tasks.""The two biggest value adds of the solution are having the ability to outsource the email and not having to manage the email server. It's just seamless. Having the most current versions all around and having things updating frequently by themselves ensures that everybody's got access to the same software."

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Cons
"I am not a big fan of how Gmail organizes the mail. I find it complicated to see which mail from which users send at which date. Especially if there is a lot.""If you use a name with a special character like a slash in the folder, it will crash the migration, with no warning. There is no pre-warning or anything to tell you that if you use characters in a file name that it will crash the migration.""It would be nice to have additional software, such as Microsoft Teams, since our basic edition, Google Meet, cannot record video.""I found that there is no desktop application for this solution, and that's a major fault of this application.""The solution could improve by having more frequent updates.""Less customizations than there used to be.""Google Mail's spam filter needs improvement. If I'm sending mail to another email user, sometimes it goes to the spam folder, and they won't know unless they check because they aren't seeing it in the primary inbox. They may miss important emails. At the same time, I'm receiving spam that shouldn't go to my inbox.""I have had issues with my Google Address Book. I have an address book and it is available to everyone, but I cannot add additional users. In Microsoft Outlook, I could easily share certain contacts with other members of my team, but I cannot do so on G Suite."

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"Their technical support could be faster. The admin portal, report generation, and other things could also be much simpler. We can't do columns adjustment at this time. The desktop app of Teams had lots of issues recently. The web version worked fine. We had to do a lot of things in terms of infrastructure and networking. It could have been better. It is quite new, so we got to bear and go with that, and then we'll see.""Flow and Form components can be improved individually, but it would be nice to see the product take the next step and operate as a unit rather than separate modules.""This solution could be more secure.""The only problem with 365 nowadays is that it expires.""In a future release, I would like to see what more Microsoft can do in terms of integration with other solutions.""The latest update has got a lot of bugs and it is causing us problems.""The management could be a bit better.""The technical support need to improve, I have had bad experiences."

More Microsoft 365 Business Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "G Suite and Microsoft Office 365 offer products with similar functionality at several different price points. Zoho offer a more extensive range of products and attempts to provide all the applications required to run most small and medium-sized businesses."
  • "Careful consideration should be given to the different licensing options and provisions should be made for additional applications that may be required for your particular business."
  • "Traffic management tools may be required for larger setups and should be included in any pricing calculations."
  • "There are several areas where a G Suite implementation can reduce costs: lower license fees than some competing products, reduced hardware, and IT support costs."
  • "There are benefits that can provide a competitive advantage, e.g., improved productivity (with appropriate training), increased collaboration (with correct use of tools), flexible working - work from home or remote locations, easy to scale - fast onboarding of new employees, and ability to add and remove licenses, as required."
  • "We receive value for the price that we pay."
  • "The pricing is a bit on the higher side than normal. For a basic Google account it costs $100, but Enterprise is %150."
  • "The price per client within the business is too high."
  • More Google Workspace Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Depending on which plan you purchase, there are a plethora of applications available to you."
  • "Compared to buying a license, it is much cheaper and a good buy."
  • "We do monthly billing, however, I'm not sure what the exact costs are. We may pay around $1,000/month. We started using the Microsoft Teams and we've started doing the conference call feature, so that's another $4 an account and we have a few accounts using that right now."
  • "USD $1,250 annually for the standard package."
  • "Pricing can vary a lot due to fluctuations in exchange rates and that is not favorable for planning."
  • "Now you can select different licenses, for example, if somebody doesn't need all of the features, it would cost $8 USD per month and if they didn't need the email application then it would cost $6 USD per month."
  • "It works out to be $12.50 per user per month."
  • "Microsoft 365 Business will be good to have if you have a large organization where you have more than 3000 employees. Other cheaper solutions, like Gmail, are easily available in the market."
  • More Microsoft 365 Business Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Easy-to-build forms are allowing me to get feedback and information from my internal teams as well as from the customers very efficiently with the result data in structured manner.
    Top Answer:The cost is distributed among the hospitals. We pay annually. We receive corporate discounts. The pricing is reasonable.
    Top Answer:The solution could improve in a variety of ways, including: 1. If you don't have internet access then only you can access the end-to-end functionalities of the tool otherwise only limited… more »
    Top Answer:The product's initial setup phase was straightforward.
    Top Answer:My company places emphasis on the different licenses purchased. The company has P1 and P2 licenses from Microsoft. For certain tasks, you need a Microsoft license. There are additional costs attached… more »
    Top Answer:The solution's technical support team takes time to respond to users, making it an area of the tool's shortcomings where improvements are required.
    Ranking
    Views
    1,721
    Comparisons
    1,496
    Reviews
    26
    Average Words per Review
    406
    Rating
    8.1
    Views
    863
    Comparisons
    400
    Reviews
    30
    Average Words per Review
    304
    Rating
    8.3
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    G-Suite Enterprise, G-Suite, Google Apps for Business, G Suite Basic, G Suite Business, G-Suite Basic, G-Suite Business, Google Vault
    Microsoft 365 E3, Microsoft 365 E5, Microsoft 365 F1, MS 365 Business
    Learn More
    Overview

    Similar to G Suite, all Google Workspace plans provide a custom email for your business and include collaboration tools like Gmail, Calendar, Meet, Chat, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Sites, and more.

    As we’ve evolved G Suite into a more integrated experience across our communication and collaboration tools, we’ve rebranded to Google Workspace to more accurately represent the product vision.

    Microsoft 365 Business is an integrated solution, bringing together the best-in-class productivity of Office 365 with advanced security and device management capabilities to help safeguard your business.

    Sample Customers
    There are over five million businesses that use Google Apps for Business worldwide. Some key customers include The Roche Group, National Geographic, American Red Cross, City of Los Angeles, Flight Centre, and Konica Minolta.
    Urban Agriculture Co., The Detroit Wallpaper Co., TransBlue Facility Management, Garner Food Company
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company30%
    Manufacturing Company13%
    University8%
    Marketing Services Firm5%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company15%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Government7%
    Comms Service Provider6%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company14%
    Comms Service Provider11%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company13%
    Government7%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Healthcare Company6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business62%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise25%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business32%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise51%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business44%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise39%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business36%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise48%
    Buyer's Guide
    Google Workspace vs. Microsoft 365 Business
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Google Workspace vs. Microsoft 365 Business and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    768,857 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Google Workspace is ranked 5th in Content Collaboration Platforms with 92 reviews while Microsoft 365 Business is ranked 8th in Content Collaboration Platforms with 240 reviews. Google Workspace is rated 8.2, while Microsoft 365 Business is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Google Workspace writes "If you misplace things, it's much easier to find them because of the search capability. ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft 365 Business writes "Improves productivity and allows team collaboration in organizations". Google Workspace is most compared with Microsoft Exchange Online, Amazon WorkMail, IceWarp, Google Cloud Storage and Zoho Mail, whereas Microsoft 365 Business is most compared with Microsoft Intune, ManageEngine Endpoint Central, Windows Autopilot, Datto Workplace and Jamf Pro. See our Google Workspace vs. Microsoft 365 Business report.

    See our list of best Content Collaboration Platforms vendors.

    We monitor all Content Collaboration Platforms reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.