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Google Workspace Essentials vs. Microsoft Office 2016 (discontinued)

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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 Office 2016 (discontinued)

    Score8.7 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft 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)
    Considered Both Products
    Google
    No answer on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    95%
    Would buy again
    19 Answers
    93%
    Would buy again
    50 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    17 Answers
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    47 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    19 Answers
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    52 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    79%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    11 Answers
    98%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    40 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    16 Answers
    98%
    Implementation went as expected
    41 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    Google Workspace EssentialsMicrosoft Office 2016 (discontinued)
    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
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Microsoft 365 Business Premium
    Score8.9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Google Workspace EssentialsMicrosoft Office 2016 (discontinued)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.7
    (20 ratings)
    7.5
    (64 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    5.0
    (3 ratings)
    Usability
    9.6
    (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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    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
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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.
    Incentivized
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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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
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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
    Incentivized
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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
    Incentivized
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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.
    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
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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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    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots