Amazon WorkSpaces vs. Microsoft 365

For our use case, we found Amazon WorkSpaces well suited to remote work and other "work from home" and "work on the road" situations where the end user did not need to consume HD media (notably 4K) and did not need to produce any multimedia (audio, video, etc), but rather needed to perform more typical tasks such as web-browsing our corporate intranet and internal online apps, accessing files and using them through office productivity suites (Office - both online and desktop, and LibreOffice are under testing), etc.

Incentivized

Microsoft 365 would be well suited for medium to large enterprises. This is where there are several hundreds or thousands of people. Since most everyone has used one of the applications the learning curve would be reduced. Another reason would be the ability to implement security measures to prevent access to sensitive data. This could justify the cost of an Enterprise license.

Incentivized

• It gives us a virtual desktop machine which is completely configurable.
• We can launch and terminate those machines as per our requirements
• It eliminates software conflicts as we get clean system every time on launch

Incentivized

• Chat with teams and the integrations with the other apps, and many more smaller ones, like to-dos, news, and the recent Outlook integration.
• Easy embedding on SharePoint to broadcast all the content created in the different tools.
• The office package is still robust with the good things from the past and new additions.

Incentivized

• Restarting workspaces takes lot of time
• MFA can be done only via email. Text or dedicated app would be a great choice.

Incentivized

• Fix Outlook. It crashes constantly, uses way too many resources, and freezes to the point that I need to shut it down in the Task Manager.
• Excel could use an easier numbering function. I used to drag down, and it would number the cells ascending. Somewhere, it lost this function and just copied the same number down the column, which is kind of useless.
• Someone needs to create (and include) a quick and easy cheat sheet for commonly used formulas. It would be nice if a drop-down would let you choose a formula (without all the prior programming).

I am completely satisfied with the product, and helps me on a daily basis. I do not the exact cost (it is not a cheap suite) but on the medium and long term the return on investment is guaranteed.

Incentivized

For its Primary purpose in our organization, providing developers and testers a clean, isolated and configurable environments which saves hours. The usability is nearly perfect. Usability is only suffering when user is into more intensive task like any kind of graphic works. At that time user is not experiencing the smoothness like a local machine

Incentivized

Because it's efficient and cost effective. I can work offline even when there is no Internet or I'm travelling. I am able to meet deadlines because it is user friendly which makes it easy to use. I make good use of the cloud storage as well so I have all my files in one place.

AWS support in general is pretty good, and WorkSpaces is no exception. We haven't had too much need for support but on the occasion we have, they've been quick to respond and helpful. Our issues have been resolved rapidly.

Incentivized

Over the past 8 years of using Microsoft 365, I have noticed that they change vendors often. This always leads to a poor experience in the beginning, then levels out after some time for the company to get things worked out. As a customer, it is really frustrating because I don't have time when something isn't working to have them "look into my issue" and get back with me. They have even closed a ticket I specifically told them to keep open. Your applications are only as good as the support.

Incentivized

Everything works and I use it all the time.

Incentivized

WorkSpaces (VDI) is a much more robust solution that competitor offerings when considering scalability and security. Amazon WorkSpaces has a substantial free tier to explore if this is the right solution for your project without purchasing other solutions. Considering this, AWS is a great solution to explore Virtual Desktop experiences and workstations for any growing remote business.

Incentivized

Microsoft 365 works together well with other apps and performs well as it is the standard setter in many settings. Salesforce is good at what it excels and functions at. The two products do not compete in the same field and are good complementary tools to achieve project management goals and tasks.

Incentivized

• Having a linux VM seems positive due to the security of the OS
• The Linux OS version sometimes is basic and requires extra apps to be installed

Incentivized

• 1600+ users have adopted Microsoft 365 in our company. We even created enablement sharepoint pages for every department and for new hires to go to as the source of truth or see what ERGs to join.
• Huge time saved with the meeting scheduling assistant especially when trying to book time with busy leaders.
• Copilots meeting summaries and email summaries are amazing. We can even use your own AI within Teams and ask it questions about our customer accounts, HR questions, etc. right within the Teams platform.

Incentivized