During the late 90s and early 2000s, business technology industry had one sole ruler, Microsoft Office. Then, came Google with its Sheets and Docs and soon became a major competitor of Microsoft Office. No doubt, Google shortly became a worthy substitute for several enterprises. Since then, both platforms have rebranded themselves with several new functionalities, usability, and apps. However, this has made it really tough for companies to choose between Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace (G Suite). Selecting the accurate platform for team management and enhanced productivity highly depends on work preference. Both Office 365 and Google Workspace (G Suite) provide excellent cloud-based apps and offline tools. But their functionalities have certain limits too; that’s why it becomes important to figure out your work requirements.
Today, we will provide you a detailed comparison between Microsoft Office 365 and Google Workspace (G Suite) that will further help you to figure out which one is best for you. So, let’s get started.
Feature comparison between Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace
Office 365 and Google Workspace (G Suite) have some similar features and functionalities including a number of business applications, file sharing and cloud storage option, various collaboration tools such as video calls, audio calls, and chat platforms, and business email that can be set up with the enterprise’s customized domain name. Now let’s go into in depth comparison.
Cloud Storage
As compared to Google Drive which offers 30GB storage space for starter plans, Microsoft 365 OneDrive provides 1TB of storage space. Moreover, the Google Drive storage is shared with the cloud storage for email storage and files storage. In other words, if you have a starter subscription plan with 30GB storage space, and your emails occupy 5GB of the space, then you are left with only 25GB for file storage. However, Google Workspace have several flexible options to purchase more storage space.
File Sharing
Both Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace offers the functionality of file sharing among users within an enterprise (with full capabilities) and outside the enterprise (with limited capabilities). But here lies the difference; unlike Microsoft which has Microsoft SharePoint Online, a part of 265 Suite, Google doesn’t have any such equivalent. SharePoint Online extends its additional file sharing features and highly collaborative tools while using other Microsoft 365 apps. Google offers Team Drives, which is based on Google Drive folders, to share and manage files by multiple users. In contrast to SharePoint, Google Team Drives has no further integration with various intranet sites.
Both Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace offers the functionality Microsoft 365 has a powerful email platform known as Microsoft Outlook that can be installed on macOS and Windows machines, though contacts and calendars can be managed on both Google and Microsoft, contacts and calendars are a part of the Outlook whereas in Google Workspace, Google Contacts and Calendar are separate apps and may require some more efforts. As compared to Google Workspace, Microsoft Exchange Online offers many other options for email configuration within an enterprise.
Conferencing Tools
As a conferencing platform, Microsoft Teams has numerous functionalities including video conferencing, group chat, customized workspaces, share team file repositories, and team meeting. As compared to Google Hangout, the overall conferencing capabilities of Microsoft Teams are much advanced. Also, Microsoft Teams is integrated with many other apps such as SharePoint, Outlook, and OneDrive for Business. Working on similar lines with Microsoft Teams, Google has its own set of conferencing apps in the form of Hangouts Meet and Hangouts Chat for videoconferencing and messaging respectively. Though these tools are in integration with rest of Workspace apps, the functionalities are limited as compared to Microsoft 365.
Editor Tools
When it comes to editing tools, the list isn’t complete without Microsoft Word. With a wide range of features and options including templates and formatting options, this is a great tool to edit text rich documents. If you are looking for infinite capabilities to work on documents with an application that can be utilized offline as well, then Microsoft Word is the right pick. In contrast to Microsoft Word, Google has an amazing functionality in the form of Google Docs where multiple users can collaborate and edit one single document in the real time.
Security
Any comparison between Office 365 and G Suite is incomplete without considering the security aspect. Both these platforms are highly concerned about the client and data security; thus all their tools and apps come with complete security features. Both platforms have multi-factor authentication to reduce the risk of an account being hacked. For higher subscription plans, there are several advanced security features. Some of the security capabilities common to both Office 365 and G Suite include role-based access control, real-time security audits, and complete data encryption.
Selection between Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace on the Basis of Business Requirements
Both Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace are excellent enterprise suites to augment team’s productivity and efficiency. They offer ease of collaboration, remote working, storage, and management of work files. But they may not be suitable for all business types. Talking about giant corporate houses and large enterprises with several departments and hundreds of employees, Microsoft 365 is a better pick due to its various functionalities and features along with advanced security measures.
For SMBs and companies with remote operations, Google Workspace is a perfect fit as it has plethora of apps and strong features that make real time collaborations between team a cake walk. Also, deployment of Google Workspace in small businesses is quite straightforward.
WIPL as Email Migration Expert
With that being said, it is now easy for you to choose the right solution for your business. But there’s another question: how would you migrate from the legacy hosting platform to Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 or from Microsoft 365 to Google Workspace and vice versa? The answer is WIPL. With an experience of over 35,000 successful migrations, we ensure easy email migration with zero downtime and no loss of mails. If you are stuck between choices, you can always take advice from experts of WIPL to select the best solution which is in sync with your business goals.
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