Google Workspace Essentials vs. Microsoft Office 2016 (discontinued)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Google Workspace Essentials
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
Google 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 Office 2016 (discontinued)
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Office 2016 is the familiar suite of Office products including applications such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for use on a single PC or Mac. The 2016 is no longer available for sale from Microsoft, and support is at an end since 2020.N/A
Pricing
Google Workspace EssentialsMicrosoft Office 2016 (discontinued)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google Workspace EssentialsMicrosoft Office 2016 (discontinued)
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 Office 2016 (discontinued)
Best Alternatives
Google Workspace EssentialsMicrosoft Office 2016 (discontinued)
Small Businesses
Google Workspace
Google Workspace
Score 9.1 out of 10
Google Workspace
Google Workspace
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Google Workspace
Google Workspace
Score 9.1 out of 10
Google Workspace
Google Workspace
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
Microsoft 365 Business Premium
Microsoft 365 Business Premium
Score 8.9 out of 10
Microsoft 365 Business Premium
Microsoft 365 Business Premium
Score 8.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Google Workspace EssentialsMicrosoft Office 2016 (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
9.6
(20 ratings)
7.5
(64 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(1 ratings)
5.0
(3 ratings)
Usability
9.4
(5 ratings)
7.0
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(45 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google Workspace EssentialsMicrosoft Office 2016 (discontinued)
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.
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Discontinued Products
I'd recommend [Microsoft] Office2016 for any business that has more than a couple of users, as the software is very scalable from just a small business to a large enterprise corporation. I don't know of any case where it might not be appropriate, as even home users and students use the software suite as well.
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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.
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Discontinued Products
  • Data manipulation. Excel takes the raw data we receive and allows us to digest it in ways that are useful to our business processes.
  • Communication. Outlook serves as our primary means of communication and setting up appointments.
  • Documentation. Word is the default standard when it comes to using a word processor and we are no different in this regard. Nearly every user has to use the application on a regular basis in order to accomplish their work.
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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
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Discontinued Products
  • Office 2016 professional edition can be priced for a single user license, it would be nice to see a drop in the pricing.
  • Office 2016 home edition is a better price but does not include outlook 2016, so it is not a good fit for the workplace environments.
  • Office 2016 can run slowly on older systems, so you need to make sure you have a machine that is 4 years old or less for it to run smoothly.
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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.
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Discontinued Products
We believe that office 2016 offers the best value when it comes to features included out of the box. The software is used in its entirety by our organization and is easily supported by our staff of IT technicians. Users find this software to be easy to learn and easy to use with minimal learning curve.
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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
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Discontinued Products
It's fairly easy to use, but the automatic formatting or capturing of formatting when pasting is wonky - especially when there are outlines or other bullets/numbered lists. Fixing and sizing up tables can be annoying, and there are sometimes formatting issues that we just absolutely cannot fix for some reason
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Support Rating
Google
No answers on this topic
Discontinued Products
I am an MS feedback hub participant and they certainly don't pay enough attention to several bugs several people raise it in the portal. For the enterprise, it seems to me based on my prior experience that yes, they have a dedicated team to support operations. For mid to small companies or single users, it has been a struggle. So, you are pretty much with MS Blogs and others.
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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.
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Discontinued Products
We use Microsoft Office 2016 because at the time it was the best tool for us, but now with full attention to cloud products, we may be thinking of migrating our solution to a cloud service.
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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.
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Discontinued Products
  • Microsoft Office 2016 saves me a lot of time daily. I have functions and macros set up that calculate and show me a lot of things just from a couple of my inputs. This would take full days sometimes if not for that.
  • Apart from time, it saves me money, I manage data in Excel, I don't have to buy software specifically for that.
  • Sooner or later my company will have to switch to new edition, which will hurt revenues because of a subscription model.
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ScreenShots