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Google Workspace for Education vs. Microsoft Office 2016 (discontinued)

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Google Workspace for Education

    Score9.1 out of 10
    N/AGoogle Workspace for Education includes Google products like Classroom, Meet, Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides, to create an online ecosystem for learning. The Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals edition is available at no per student cost to available institutions.

    $3

    per month

    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 for EducationMicrosoft Office 2016 (discontinued)
    Editions & Modules
    Google Workspace for Education Standard
    $3.00
    per student, per year
    Teaching and Learning Upgrade
    $4
    per month per license
    Google Workspace for Education Plus
    $5.00
    per student, per year
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Google Workspace for EducationMicrosoft Office 2016 (discontinued)
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Google Workspace for EducationMicrosoft 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
    100%
    Would buy again
    6 Answers
    93%
    Would buy again
    50 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    6 Answers
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    47 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    6 Answers
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    52 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    98%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    40 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    5 Answers
    98%
    Implementation went as expected
    41 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    Google Workspace for EducationMicrosoft Office 2016 (discontinued)
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    Google Workspace
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Class for Web
    Score8.1 out of 10
    Google Workspace
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Class for Web
    Score8.1 out of 10
    Microsoft 365 Business Premium
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Google Workspace for EducationMicrosoft Office 2016 (discontinued)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.5
    (6 ratings)
    7.5
    (64 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.0
    (3 ratings)
    Usability
    9.0
    (4 ratings)
    7.0
    (3 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (45 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Google Workspace for EducationMicrosoft Office 2016 (discontinued)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Google
    Google [Workspace for Education (formerly G Suite for Education)] is pretty darn good [at] meeting the needs for educators and students. It is not designed to run your business office, transportation group, or lunch services. It doesn't need to be good at those. Focus on teachers and students. They do that really, really well. The Google folks continue to add features that help serve teacher and students. For example, they have really done a good job of adding Google Meet features such as polling and breakout rooms. Those features required a paid subscription to Workspace, but it makes sense since those features compete with Zoom, which requires a subscription for those services.
    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
    Read full review
    Pros
    Google
    • Email: The best email experience, period. It's fast, has the best mobile apps and tons of addons that extend it.
    • Office suite: The Google editors might not have all the features of their MS Office counterparts, but they have most of them and the apps are surprisingly performant.
    • Domain management: The Google Admin Console, coupled with the GAM command line tool, is very powerful, easy to use and simplifies any admin's work.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    Cons
    Google
    • The admin console regularly feel sluggish
    • Require third party tools to make changes to bulk devices
    • Support could be a little better
    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
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Read full review
    Usability
    Google
    Always up, never down. Compatible with so many different platforms, OSes, and tools. For instance, someone can be on a phone, tablet, laptop, and all of those tools are compatible with Google apps like Meet, Docs, Slides, and anything else Google based. It's flexiblity is fantastic and meets our changing hardware and software requirements
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Google
    Google has a simpler approach to its apps. With all applications being online, things like auto-save being a default have been helpful for many staff in our organisation. Compare this to Microsoft where much of the admin has to be managed by the ICT Team, Google allows for a portion of control to the user to manage permissions of areas. This type of user empowerment helps people see how important ICT is to a business.
    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
    • There has been a steady evolution of new features coming out that reduced the need for third party tools
    • We have been able to sign agreements to lock in annual renewal costs for up to 5 years
    • It's a ubiquitous platform, finding support is generally pretty easy
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
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