Microsoft 365 vs. Power Apps

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
Power Apps
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
PowerApps is a low code / rapid application development product from Microsoft that allows users to quickly build apps.
$20
per month per user
Pricing
Microsoft 365Power Apps
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
Power Apps Premium
$20
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft 365Power Apps
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details*When billed annually.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Microsoft 365Power Apps
Considered Both Products
Microsoft 365
Chose Microsoft 365
Microsoft is leaps and bounds ahead of these product suites and is an ecosystem unto itself, except for Google Workspace, which offers more features in its online versions than Office Online.
Power Apps
Chose Power Apps
I'm not sure if you can say D365 CRM is an alternative to PowerApps, because basically all the customization of using D365 CRM, or what used to be called XRM, is now called a model-driven PowerApp. Likewise, SharePoint has become intimately connected to canvas PowerApps. Both …
Chose Power Apps
Much cheaper, much more customizable, and easier to use. There is not much of a learning curve and the licensing cost is much cheaper. PowerApps does one thing very well, whereas other platforms are mediocre. There is much more customization possible for your in-house workflows …
Chose Power Apps
PowerApps and Power Automate go together in the Power platform. They are made to work together to create a vast collection of connectors and out of the box pieces that come together to make a whole application. If you are unable to complete a task from within PowerApps, Power …
Chose Power Apps
PowerApps is what the company has presented to us as our option. While Nintex is nice and relatively capable, it is always a +1 to the Microsoft platform and requires its own validation and integration. Nintex can also be feature limited in its online version depending on the …
Features
Microsoft 365Power Apps
Low-Code Development
Comparison of Low-Code Development features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft 365
-
Ratings
Power Apps
7.9
24 Ratings
6% below category average
Visual Modeling00 Ratings8.022 Ratings
Drag-and-drop Interfaces00 Ratings7.823 Ratings
Platform Security00 Ratings8.723 Ratings
Platform User Management00 Ratings8.123 Ratings
Reusability00 Ratings7.423 Ratings
Platform Scalability00 Ratings7.622 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Microsoft 365Power Apps
Small Businesses
Google Workspace
Google Workspace
Score 9.1 out of 10
Creatio
Creatio
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Google Workspace
Google Workspace
Score 9.1 out of 10
Quixy
Quixy
Score 9.9 out of 10
Enterprises
Microsoft 365 Business Premium
Microsoft 365 Business Premium
Score 8.9 out of 10
Creatio
Creatio
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Microsoft 365Power Apps
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(242 ratings)
9.3
(23 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.5
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.7
(13 ratings)
9.0
(4 ratings)
Support Rating
8.9
(54 ratings)
9.7
(6 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft 365Power Apps
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
Power Apps is ideal for scenarios that are neither too complex nor too large. It is easy to begin development in Power Apps, as it is one of the best tools for low-code development. Power Apps can be implemented for complex scenarios as well, provided there is strong knowledge of the tool and ample time for planning. Our applications benefit from Power Apps' cross-platform support, making it easy to use on any device, including desktops, laptops, and mobile devices.
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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
  • Power Apps has formats that are pre-built that don't require any coding which makes it easier to achieve your vision. This does become a challenge if your App needs don't fit into that format.
  • We deal with a ton of data so the fact that you can connect to any data source in addition to their pre-stablished data connections makes the process a breeze.
  • The online learning resources and tutorials are helpful as well for those who are tech savvy.
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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
  • Sometimes the cost of solutions is greater than the benefit. Licensing is expensive relative to the scope of some business user-created personal or team-level solutions.
  • While there is a starter-kit for Governance, it is complicated to stand up and requires dedicated resources to provide on-going governance operations. Many organizations are not going to be able to dedicate resources to governance and this causes the sprawl, solution duplication, silos, unneeded and unplanned licensing expenses, and a general "wild wild west" environment.
  • There needs to be better direction and best practices given around Power Platform Environment utilization and optimization.
  • The accessibility to the platform and ease for business partners to independantly create solutions is both a benefit and a negative. When the business outcome needed is a good fit for PowerApps it is a quick win, but when not a good fit it becomes a frustration for the business partner attempting to make the platform do something it is not well-suited for. The business partner entangles tech teams in the effort which drains resources and provides a lack-luster solution. All of this to say, it would be beneficial to have some tools that business partners could leverage to determine\understand if the type of business outcome they need is well suited to PowerApps or not.
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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
No answers on this topic
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
PowerApps is a great solution and I have spent the last year familiarizing myself with the platform and building custom applications to complete a whole range of tasks such as asset management, custom invoice generation, and item restriction tracking. We as a company have barely begun to scratch the surface of what can be achieved with PowerApps.
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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
No answers on this topic
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
The community forums are extremely responsive to questions asked, there is a good body of online documentation and many community posts to draw from. Although the platform has changed, which means some of the posts are out of date and the solutions provided aren't relevant. Of relevance, I read over 400 articles plus documentation to get this first app built in SharePoint, move it to SQL and make it work exactly the way it should.
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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
1. PowerApps functionality comes with E1 over E3 License without adding extra costs 2. For Nintex you pay (at the beginning) for each workflow, so my intention would be, to do no workflows to prevent additional costs, but I want a platform with a fair price that allows me to create workflows without thinking about the price for each workflow and we use only some workflow and relative easy workflows and forms as a medium-sized company. 3. PowerApps provides a lot of functionality without needing to invest in premium features directly.
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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
  • Automation of manual processes brings an ROI on labor costs.
  • Intake of data provides clean database design.
  • Connectivity to data-lake provides insights and trends into the data.
  • Able to scale operations with efficiencies provided by the app.
  • Can mature the process and workflows to do more.
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ScreenShots