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Google Workspace Essentials vs. Microsoft 365 Business Premium

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Google Workspace Essentials

    Score9.4 out of 10
    N/AGoogle now offers Google Workspace Essentials (formerly G Suite Essentials), providing a solution for users of Outlook or Office whose teams want to use Google Meet and Google Apps without needing to involve a personal gmail account. Google Workspace Essentails includes Google Slides, Sheets, and Docs, as well as Google Meet, Google Drive, Forms, Sites, and Keep, in a bundle minus a gmail account. Basic Essentials supports (via Meet) meetings with up to 150 participants, and Google Drive with…

    $8

    per month per user

    Microsoft 365 Business Premium

    Score9 out of 10
    N/AAn 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 Workspace EssentialsMicrosoft 365 Business Premium
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Google Workspace EssentialsMicrosoft 365 Business Premium
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Google Workspace EssentialsMicrosoft 365 Business Premium
    Considered Both Products
    Google
    No answer on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    95%
    Would buy again
    19 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    50 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    17 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    48 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    19 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    50 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    79%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    11 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    33 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    16 Answers
    97%
    Implementation went as expected
    35 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    Google Workspace EssentialsMicrosoft 365 Business Premium
    Small Businesses
    Google Workspace
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Google Workspace
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Google Workspace
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Google Workspace
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Microsoft 365 Business Premium
    Score9 out of 10
    Microsoft 365
    Score8.7 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Google Workspace EssentialsMicrosoft 365 Business Premium
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.7
    (20 ratings)
    8.9
    (108 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    9.5
    (5 ratings)
    8.6
    (57 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.4
    (41 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.4
    (9 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Google Workspace EssentialsMicrosoft 365 Business Premium
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Google
    Well-suited for: Fast-paced drafting ideas, docs, charts, sheets, etc. Love it for client calls as well. Google Meet runs in a web browser; you don't need to download any special software. Shared Drives are great for sharing information; the ability to add a Google Notebook to them is the icing on the cake. It is less appropriate when Wi-Fi or the internet is spotty, or when you need heavy-duty Excel macro data crunching.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Google
    • Google Docs & Google Slides are essential to our company as we are remote. Multiple people can work on the documents at one time.
    • Easy to share and store files in Google Drive.
    • Google Calendar is amazing, it integrates seamlessly with other Google products and it's our company's primary calendar tool.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Google
    • Record option to be there in Google meet
    • ability to share documents outside google accounts need to be looked at
    • Improvement in conversion to MS office based documents and converting those documents to googles format needs a little work.
    • Will be good to have a pdf to word converter and vice versa
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    Google
    Now that our department has used G Suite Essentials for close to 2 years, I can't imagine not using it. It has proven to be a very practical tool for sharing files / folders on a shared drive. It also makes it easy to modify and update content. It is user friendly and the interface is simple.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Read full review
    Usability
    Google
    It is so easy to use, very intuitive and the site looks nice. There is no hint of the old DOS days in the look and functionality. Let's be real, Google Workspace Essentials is attractive and easy on the eyes and even offers a dark mode if you want to rest your eyes a bit or are in a mood for such
    Incentivized
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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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    Google
    No answers on this topic
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Google
    Google Workspace Essentials is more robust than Dropbox with the other features that are available. Google Workspace Essentials is very comparable to Microsoft 365, and we ultimately went with Google because at the time, it was free/priced better than MS, and now we have lots of legacy files already stored on Google servers, so a switch would be too time-consuming. We went with Google Workspace Essentials over OpenOffice because of the email features of using Google.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Google
    • Our fundraising and development efforts nearly doubled 2020-2022, largely in part to the organizational tools within Google Workspace Essentials.
    • We've opened up the capacity to work more closely with contractors in a more collaborative nature because of GWE's capabilities.
    • It was integral to our brand overhaul.
    Incentivized
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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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots