Microsoft 365 vs. OneNote

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Microsoft 365
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) is a Microsoft Cloud subscription service that includes Microsoft Office products (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, and Access). The software can be installed across multiple devices and ensures that users always have the most up-to-date version of the included Office applications.
$5
Per User Per Month
OneNote
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft's OneNote is a digital note-taking app, supporting photos, annotating, web page clipping, emailing, and synchronizing notes across devices.N/A
Pricing
Microsoft 365OneNote
Editions & Modules
Business Basic
$5.00
Per User Per Month
Individual
$5.84
*Per Month
Business - Apps
$8.25
Per User Per Month
Enterprise - F3
$10.00
Per User Per Month
Business Standard
$12.50
Per User Per Month
Business Premium
$20.00
Per User Per Month
Enterprise - E3
$32.00
Per User Per Month
Enterprise - E5
$57.00
Per User Per Month
Microsoft OneNote
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft 365OneNote
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details*When billed annually.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Microsoft 365OneNote
Considered Both Products
Microsoft 365
Chose Microsoft 365
Personally I would prefer Google Workspace because it integrates better with the Android based tools that I already use. I also like how Google's Docs, Sheets, and Slides online functionality is their focus rather than an addon to get to the cloud. Google Workspace's sharing …
Chose Microsoft 365
Google Docs, Sheets, Calendar, etc. were not available in the listings, but to me, these would be Microsoft's competition in this space. Google seemed to have basically copied what Microsoft has done with these apps [and] made them web-browser friendly and cloud-based. …
Chose Microsoft 365
I haven't had to use anything else, we learned Microsoft programs in high school and college.
Chose Microsoft 365
Office 365 provides quarantining the spam services and also the skype service where one can schedule meetings and discuss for long hours. It provides customers to enforce customized policy on their data in order to protect their data from attacks. It also helps in data privacy …
Chose Microsoft 365
Price, support, applications, cloud services
OneNote
Chose OneNote
OneNote is part of the Microsoft stack, so it integrates well if you are already using that. It is quick to use and works on multiple devices like desktop and phone.

Confluence may be better for things like wikis and more robust for content it can display. I remember being able …
Chose OneNote
I tried organizing various online hard drive storage products like Dropbox, iCloud and Google Drive and One Drive. However, I like the visual aspects of OneNote when I save a document or webpage. It's simpler and I am able to know immediately if I have found the item I am …
Chose OneNote
Evernote and OneNote are very similar. Mac users may be more comfortable with Evernote as it has been the standard on Mac for many years, but OneNote has definitely caught up in terms of feature/functionality. Personally, I bounce back and forth between them as I have many …
Chose OneNote
I had used IBM Doors for requirement gathering though a document repository. It was hard to maintain as we had to always download the latest docs on a local [drive]. OneNote overcame this issue.
Chose OneNote
I've looked at Evernote and a few miscellaneous Android apps but nothing is as integrated with Microsoft Office or quite as flexible as OneNote. To be honest, OneNote chose me. It has been a part of Office Professional for many years. Though, I admit I didn't start really using …
Chose OneNote
Prefer to use OneNote because it's included in Microsoft Office.
Best Alternatives
Microsoft 365OneNote
Small Businesses
Google Workspace
Google Workspace
Score 9.1 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
Google Workspace
Google Workspace
Score 9.1 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Enterprises
Microsoft 365 Business Premium
Microsoft 365 Business Premium
Score 8.9 out of 10

No answers on this topic

All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Microsoft 365OneNote
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(242 ratings)
8.3
(74 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.5
(6 ratings)
10.0
(13 ratings)
Usability
7.7
(13 ratings)
7.7
(14 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.8
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
8.9
(54 ratings)
8.7
(10 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft 365OneNote
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
Microsoft 365 would be well suited for medium to large enterprises. This is where there are several hundreds or thousands of people. Since most everyone has used one of the applications the learning curve would be reduced. Another reason would be the ability to implement security measures to prevent access to sensitive data. This could justify the cost of an Enterprise license.
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Microsoft
In my opinion OneNote is a must for anyone who does business. It’s versatile, stable and sustainable. It can keep private information private - like passwords. It can be used for collaborative work - like standard operating procedures. It is fairly easy to use and far superior to pen and paper. When used for meeting notes, it can be flagged with icons that are searchable - like ideas or important items. You can even create Outlook tasks on the fly
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Pros
Microsoft
  • Chat with teams and the integrations with the other apps, and many more smaller ones, like to-dos, news, and the recent Outlook integration.
  • Easy embedding on SharePoint to broadcast all the content created in the different tools.
  • The office package is still robust with the good things from the past and new additions.
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Microsoft
  • Because of its flexibility and ability to hold different types of content (text, images, tables), it is a great tool for collecting content from different resources and organizing it in one place.
  • Technical support analysts are using sections for their support case analysis; they paste pieces of logs, screen-shots, document their steps in troubleshooting etc., all in one section, to get the full picture yet stay organized.
  • The logic of content structure; Notebook>Section>Page>Paragraph, allows you to manage and collect all needed information by the areas of the user's responsibility. For example; each of my projects has its own section, in which each page is a task.
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Cons
Microsoft
  • Forms lack comprehensive features and parameters for detailed questioning for example cannot be directly linked with Power BI
  • Outlook email filters are not handy to use and require more detailing in terms of location past emails
  • Teams requires substantially large amounts of system resources which could be finetuned
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Microsoft
  • The table editing tools are too simplistic and lack the features found in other Office products.
  • Some content loses its rich text formatting when being pasted into OneNote. A workaround is to paste the content first into Outlook or Word and then copy/pasting that into OneNote.
  • Microsoft is moving away from a local install of OneNote, which means notebooks have to be in the cloud in Office 2019. This will actually reduce the usefulness of OneNote in some environments and opens the door to competitor products.
  • Update: Microsoft has now announced that it will continue to support OneNote 2016 through 2023. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Office-365-Blog/Your-OneNote/ba-p/954922
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Likelihood to Renew
Microsoft
So far the Microsoft 365 platform provides features and tools that can cater to 100% of present organizations needs considering both technical and business necessities, however most features are not been effectively utilised at present. The current featureset is able to cover for most of the future needs of the business and technical functions.
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Microsoft
As this is not a compulsory tool in our organization, I would say all depends on the decision makers, however since this is a part of MS Office, I am sure we will have it for as long as we will possibly need it. However, I would not be so sure, if it was a separate product
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Usability
Microsoft
Microsoft 365 is the gold standard for performing project tasks in a professional environment, enabling the quick transfer and exchange of files and ideas for team members who work locally and remotely. Its suite of tools is familiar and has evolved to being cloud based, allowing for files to be updated in real time from near and far.
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Microsoft
I find OneNote incredibly usable. I'm fairly middle of the road when it comes to tech savvy-ness. The platform was very easy to learn and explore. I like that OneNote is no clunky and offers a clean interface. This is important when it comes to deciding if a tool is usable for multiple people.
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Reliability and Availability
Microsoft
To-date Microsoft 365 platform has offered an amazing uptime and availability percentage per year compared to all other products which provide the stability and overall business resilience of their ecosystem which is a great relief for information technology service entitites which heavy rely on Microsoft offerings as a whole to redeliver their own custom products
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Performance
Microsoft
The Microsoft 365 tools expects and demands a substantial amount of system resources to operate at optimal level and even more when integrated with other applications which is a downside, however given that external supporting tech factors such as fibre/broadband speed bandwidth, high speed RAM and ample storage resources are allocated the tools work error free providing robust communication
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Microsoft
Overall, I rate OneNote's performance highly. In general, notebooks, sections and pages load quickly. OneNote integrates with other apps and info ca easily be shared/copied to and from the tool to other tools. Moreover, Notebooks tend to sync quickly meaning shared notebooks are up to date almost immediately provided there are no syncing issues.
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Support Rating
Microsoft
Over the past 8 years of using Microsoft 365, I have noticed that they change vendors often. This always leads to a poor experience in the beginning, then levels out after some time for the company to get things worked out. As a customer, it is really frustrating because I don't have time when something isn't working to have them "look into my issue" and get back with me. They have even closed a ticket I specifically told them to keep open. Your applications are only as good as the support.
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Microsoft
Since it is part of Microsoft Office and used across the globe there are a lot of support options available. It's quickest to just do a google search which will have plenty of articles to help you since there are so many OneNote users but as an Office customer you also have access to Microsoft support and I have had good experiences with their support (probably because I'm with a large company who is a large customer to them).
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In-Person Training
Microsoft
The resellers involved with selling Microsoft products are reluctant to provide in person specialist trainings to consumers due to the fact of costs of economies of scale and is not provided free of charge most of the time. In Person trainings needs to be agreed to at the initiation of projects and implementations for better ROI.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Microsoft
The standard training offered with 3rd part resellers are fairly standard and covers the basic workability however the trainings needs to be specifically customised according to unique requirements of the organizations. for example an MSP would need to master specific communications verticals within Microsoft 365 whereas and online store using Microsoft 365 would needs to master a different set of tools within the suite to get the best ROI post implementation.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Microsoft
The Microsoft support partners are more than capable of handling implementations and dealing with unprecedented errors during the implementations. Not part of the implementation though the setup was done with minimum misconfigurations which is evident with present live setup which works fine without any bugs and gaps at present context.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Microsoft
Typically I prefer working with companies with Microsoft 365 as their main tool because they're usually a fast growing company with a global presence. I like using it for work because it's easy to collaborate, share, review, comment, reply in any of the tools. The mobile app for Outlook and Teams are lifesavers when we're constantly traveling and you can join meetings on the mobile Teams to never miss a beat.
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Microsoft
I tried using Evernote and it is an equally usable tool, however, I prefer the interface and capabilities of OneNote. OneNote seems much easier to use and understand. I think that may primarily be because OneNote is a Microsoft application and I am very used to using Microsoft applications such as Word, Excel, etc. I also use OneNote to keep my grocery list. It does as good of a job as the grocery list applications out there, only I like the flexibility I have with OneNote and how I specifically do my shopping.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Microsoft
Microsoft pricing is not very expensive and yet not very cheap as well, and it hovers in between the baseline. The charges are mostly based on the tier level partners who charge based on their individual reputation in the market. Power negotiation will lead to cost effective and attractive pricing
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Microsoft
Multiple tools within the same platform have been deployed successfully within different functional technical and non technical teams such as Devops, SOC, NOC, Shared services, Managed services, Global Information technology, Cloud operations, Finance, Administration, human resources and all these teams collaborate while maintaining central uniformity in terms of global standards who are dispersed in different geographical locations with ease
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Professional Services
Microsoft
Have not directly obtained professional services from Microsoft but rather obtained specialized services such as implementations and configurations, setting up and integration support with Microsoft authorized suppliers, 3rd parties, and resellers, which has been a pleasant experience. Again the level of delivery quality on professional services is based on the level of hands on exposure of the 3rd party
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Microsoft
  • We have a lot of nonprofit users, so they have a good ROI.
  • I like the constant updates without having to purchase the software repeatedly.
  • I used to purchase each Office (insert year here) often, so the software was up to date and had the newest options and connectors. I think my return on investment would have been much better if Microsoft had updated those versions to keep them current; after all, we did pay for them.
  • Microsoft 365's offering a monthly fee or a discount for a year helps, and you can look at it as a free backup if you have everything set to back up to One Drive. (Cloud-based document filing you can access anywhere ( with an internet connection)—you Can't beat that!)
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Microsoft
  • OneNote has become our organizational standard method of taking electronic notes (though some still prefer pen and paper.) It has been a zero cost outlay due to its freely available nature.
  • Its integration with other Microsoft Office products makes it easy to share notes and content between products, allowing for easy collaboration where needed.
  • OneNote's integration with OneDrive ensures that individual's notes are always safe and secure, taking away the tedious responsibility of backup from the user, and makes it happen seamlessly in the background.
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ScreenShots