Google Classroom vs. Microsoft 365 Business Premium

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Google Classroom
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
N/A
$0
per month
Microsoft 365 Business Premium
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
An integrated solution, designed for small or medium-sized businesses, bringing together the productivity of Microsoft Office with advanced security capabilities to help safeguard data from external threats and help protect against data leaks. With Microsoft 365 Business Premium, users can empower employees to be productive anywhere on any device. Get more done with AI built into the Office apps. Work better together with a hub for teamwork bringing your tools and people together in one place.…N/A
Pricing
Google ClassroomMicrosoft 365 Business Premium
Editions & Modules
Education Fundamentals
$0
per license/per month
Google Workspace for Education Standard
$3
per student/per year
Teaching and Learning Upgrade
$4
per license/per month
Google Workspace for Education Plus
$5
per student/per year
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google ClassroomMicrosoft 365 Business Premium
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsEducation Fundamentals Version - 30-day free trial for qualifying institutions.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Google ClassroomMicrosoft 365 Business Premium
Considered Both Products
Google Classroom
Chose Google Classroom
We have used other products in conjunction with Google Classroom (Schoology, Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard, Office 365 etc.) but none of these are the same as Google Classroom. Some of these offer some of the features the Google Classroom does, but none offer all of the features, …
Microsoft 365 Business Premium
Chose Microsoft 365 Business Premium
I didn't do the selection. We most likely would have gone with Google products as it's more geared toward education.
Features
Google ClassroomMicrosoft 365 Business Premium
Learning Management
Comparison of Learning Management features of Product A and Product B
Google Classroom
7.6
60 Ratings
8% below category average
Microsoft 365 Business Premium
-
Ratings
Course authoring8.652 Ratings00 Ratings
Course catalog or library7.939 Ratings00 Ratings
Player/Portal7.438 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning content7.541 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile friendly7.157 Ratings00 Ratings
Progress tracking & certifications7.444 Ratings00 Ratings
Assignments7.558 Ratings00 Ratings
Compliance management7.434 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning administration7.546 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning reporting & analytics7.442 Ratings00 Ratings
Social learning8.451 Ratings00 Ratings
Gamification5.08 Ratings00 Ratings
Single Sign On (SSO) Enabled Learning9.512 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Google ClassroomMicrosoft 365 Business Premium
Small Businesses
iSpring LMS
iSpring LMS
Score 9.5 out of 10
Google Workspace
Google Workspace
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Schoology Learning
Schoology Learning
Score 6.2 out of 10
Google Workspace
Google Workspace
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
Schoology Learning
Schoology Learning
Score 6.2 out of 10
Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365
Score 8.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Google ClassroomMicrosoft 365 Business Premium
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(77 ratings)
8.8
(108 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(4 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.5
(8 ratings)
8.5
(57 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.4
(41 ratings)
Support Rating
1.9
(14 ratings)
9.4
(9 ratings)
Implementation Rating
2.0
(2 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
6.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google ClassroomMicrosoft 365 Business Premium
Likelihood to Recommend
Google
Google Classroom allows teachers to post for daily lessons and assignments. It also allows teachers to be able to communicate with students easily outside of class. Students are able to stay connected and know where to find all information and resources easily in a streamlined manner for all of their classes.
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Microsoft
Microsoft 365 Business Premium is well suited to any size organization and is a must-have for business purposes. It is a vital component for the majority of work software needs, as the Microsoft 365 Business Premium package has apps to handle needs that I didn't know we had. It is a great way to provide the required software programs to teams, especially those that work remotely due to the great sharing capabilities built into it. Furthermore, the nonprofit program provided our small nonprofit with vital components for our remote work, while allowing us to keep our donated funds going directly to our mission.
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Pros
Google
  • Student-teacher communication - I love using Classroom for this because my students can always go back and check what was on Classroom by looking through the stream. This way they don't have to go dig through emails to find what they're looking for.
  • Posting to multiple classes - I can post the same announcement or assignment to multiple classes at once without having to repeat the process or send separate emails.
  • Streamlining grading - when students turn work in on Classroom, it all goes to one place and then when I'm grading I can open their documents directly from Classroom or my Drive folder. This way, I'm not looking through emails and Google Doc shared files for their assignment.
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Microsoft
  • Work in sync in different departments.
  • Being able to work from any device or computer. It is a very noble tool in different devices.
  • The work between the different programs (Word, Excel, Notes) that it offers is extremely light and good.
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Cons
Google
  • The content management of the Classroom is not that good. The sub-section for notes, syllabus, or discussion is missing.
  • It doesn't have parental control feature.
  • It converts the excel output into a normal file. All the formulas and pivots got changed into plain text.
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Microsoft
  • adding calendar invitations is not straight forward
  • copying folders from SharePoint libraries to an external drive should not be relying on the available space on the C drive
  • administering mailboxes for our company is convoluted forcing me to hunt for settings and options
  • lack of flexibility on the location of the OST and PST files
  • the new version should not do away with PST files but rather improve their reliability.
  • the PST internal structure is inefficient. the PST file should be able to shrink automatically when one delete emails.
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Likelihood to Renew
Google
Testing is particularly important in online learning, and Google Classroom falls far short of other learning management systems in this regard. Security is also a concern: while account control is reasonable for the account used with Google Classroom, the person controlling a particular account is often able to, for example, forward or download proprietary materials.
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Microsoft
It is part of the organisation now. It provides and rich feature set and requires a relatively low amount of administration.
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Usability
Google
Simple design and seamless integration with Google tools and drive, but missing some key features. However, since it is limited in overall functions and ability to truly personalize / customize, it is quite user friendly and easy to set up and get going, other than sending out the code to your course or dropping students in via their gmail account. Users of Google Forms and sites will find the layout similar in design.
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Microsoft
The basic apps are straightforward and easy to use, especially since they have been around so long. I'm referring to the basic apps like Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, etc. Other features such as Microsoft Teams and Sharepoint Sites, Sharepoint Lists, Sharepoint Groups, etc. all require a higher level of knowledge to both implement and use properly
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Reliability and Availability
Google
We have had very little trouble in accessing Google Classroom. Our issues, if any, have risen from our server and not the Google servers.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Performance
Google
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
In the last 5 years, Microsoft has come a long way. The performance of the products has become more and more user-friendly and it seems that the feedback provided by the user community is being listened to and worked on. The processes are very fast and seamless. There are negligible errors and doesn't slow the systems down.
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Support Rating
Google
Since this platform is provided by Google, the technical support is better than any others, and we are not required to bother about the space constraints for adding the contents. If we have a good uninterrupted internet facility we can access Google Classroom without any delay or lag. They have app support in both Android and iPhone.
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Microsoft
As mentioned elsewhere in the review, Microsoft has historically paid attention to community feedback and issues, but timeliness can improve, and so can the addressing of long-standing issues about which many users have said "I have this issue too!" but no official solution exists. For issues that do have a solution, however, the solution is usually not difficult to find, and the explanation of features on Microsoft's website can mitigate many problems.
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Implementation Rating
Google
It was relatively easy to implement due to the simplicity of the platform. Even our more technology challenged teachers found it easy to get started with Google Classroom.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Google
I haven't tested or evaluated another digital classroom website or application. I feel like Google Classroom is convenient for many reasons such as compatibility to Google docs, slides, etc. I also love the ability to link to YouTube and other sites. I don't know if there would be a site that is easier to maneuver.
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Microsoft
Before migrating to Microsoft 365 Business Premium, we possessed an in-house exchange server. Therefore, it was difficult for us to look at alternatives to Microsoft for a solution – we did look at the Google Suite of products, but the transition for us seemed less cumbersome to stay with Microsoft from a staff and administrative perspective. While the G Suite does offer us many outstanding products and services, we also didn’t feel that Gmail is up-to-par as a corporate solution the way Exchange/Outlook/OWA are – this alone was also a driving force for our end-users, as there was minimal transition for them to move from an on-premise solution to an off-premise solution. The additional features of SharePoint, Teams, Project, and so many other applications within Microsoft 365 also helped us make a strong case to stay with Microsoft and expand what we were using. The end-user and mobile protections of InTune have also put us at ease when issuing laptops and mobile phones to an almost fully-remote end-user base.
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Scalability
Google
It is very easy to push out this program across our buildings. Teachers are able to use it without much trouble.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Google
  • Students are able to continue learning in a remote environment
  • Parents have a single, consistent organization structure to make it easy to track assignments and progress for multiple children
  • Much better solution than the quickly assembled Zoom-and-gloom of the previous spring when school abruptly went remote with no planning
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Microsoft
  • We can now keep work going from anywhere. It doesn't matter if we are on a job site or sitting in the office or working from home for a day or two we don't have to miss a beat.
  • It has unified how we store information so that everything isn't stored on individual computers
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ScreenShots