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Microsoft Excel vs. Microsoft Office 2016 (discontinued)

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Microsoft Excel

    Score9 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft Excel is a spreadsheet application available as part of Microsoft 365 (Office 365), or standalone, in cloud-based and on-premise editions.

    $6.99

    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
    Microsoft ExcelMicrosoft Office 2016 (discontinued)
    Editions & Modules
    Excel with Microsoft 365
    $6.99
    per month
    Excel for 1 PC or Mac
    $139.99
    perpetual license
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Microsoft ExcelMicrosoft Office 2016 (discontinued)
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Microsoft ExcelMicrosoft Office 2016 (discontinued)
    Considered Both Products
    Microsoft
    Chose Microsoft Excel
    i have used many Microsoft products like Microsoft Office, PowerPoint, SharePoint, Teams, Windows, Yammer etc., but I can say that every product is different from each other and each product solves different professional day-to-day work problems quite efficiently, although I …
    Incentivized
    Discontinued Products
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    99%
    Would buy again
    78 Answers
    93%
    Would buy again
    50 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    70 Answers
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    47 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    76 Answers
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    52 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    96%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    46 Answers
    98%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    40 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    54 Answers
    98%
    Implementation went as expected
    41 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    Microsoft ExcelMicrosoft Office 2016 (discontinued)
    Small Businesses
    Stackby
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Google Workspace
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Google Sheets
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Google Workspace
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Google Sheets
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Microsoft 365 Business Premium
    Score8.9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Microsoft ExcelMicrosoft Office 2016 (discontinued)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (78 ratings)
    7.5
    (64 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (7 ratings)
    5.0
    (3 ratings)
    Usability
    8.6
    (23 ratings)
    7.0
    (3 ratings)
    Availability
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    8.0
    (45 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Configurability
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Microsoft ExcelMicrosoft Office 2016 (discontinued)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Microsoft
    I don't really know another program as powerful as Excel. I've used Google Doc programs but do not feel they come close. So far, anytime I've needed a table of some sort for data, whether it's budget oriented or information off a survey, the best system has been Excel. We do web audits on occasion and we create an Excel worksheet featuring every URL of the pages we're auditing, notes, data about the content, information about files attached to the page and other information to help us determine what pages need updating, deleting or otherwise. We also use Excel primarily to export our Google Analytics to in order for us to create reports for clients that need to see specific information about their traffic.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Microsoft
    • It is very good at embedded formulas and tying cells to one another
    • It allows me to compare deals terms on a side-by-side basis and talk my clients through it easily.
    • It is very helpful as well in terms of allowing me to filter/sort results in many different ways depending on what specific information I am most interested in prioritizing.
    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
    Microsoft
    • Excel offers collaboration features that allow multiple users to work on the same spreadsheet, but managing changes made by different users can be challenging. Excel could improve its features by offering more granular control, better tracking of changes, and more robust conflict resolution tools.
    • Itcan be a barrier to productivity when importing and exporting data from other applications or file formats. To improve its features, it should offer better support for standard file formats and more robust error handling and reporting tools.
    • Excel can be challenging for finance students and working professionals, but it can be improved by offering more robust tutorials, better documentation, and more user communities and support forums.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    Microsoft
    Excel remains the industry standard for spreadsheets and has maintained simple and straight-forward formula writing methods. Although there is a learning curve to do more complex calculations, there are countless help sites and videos on the Internet for almost any need.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    Microsoft
    I'm giving it a 7 because it is my go to. But the fact other prefer Google Sheets when working with a team does get irritating. I've used the online version of Microsoft Excel that other teams can get into and it still seems behind Google Sheets. It's a little clanky and slow? If that's even a term.
    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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    Reliability and Availability
    Microsoft
    I have rarely, if ever, had issues with its availability.
    Incentivized
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    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Microsoft
    Excel load and performs calculations immediately. It integrate well with all Microsoft Office applications and does not slow them down.
    Incentivized
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    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Microsoft
    I have not had to use it often, but it is good.
    Incentivized
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    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
    Microsoft
    Out of Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Power BI, IBM SPSS, and Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel is by far the most common tool used for anything data-related across organizations. Accordingly, our organization has also implemented Microsoft Excel as a first-step tool. We recently adopted Microsoft Power BI (the free version), and use it occasionally (mostly for creating dashboards), but it is less commonly understood by stakeholders across our organization and by our clients. Accordingly, Microsoft Excel is more user-friendly and because of its popularity, we can easily look up how to do things in the program online. Google Sheets is a comparable alternative to Microsoft Excel, but because it's cloud-based and we have sensitive data that needs to be protected, we chose against using this software. Finally, a few users (including myself) have access to and utilize IBM's SPSS. For my role, it's a helpful tool to do more rigorous analyses. However, because of its cost and limited functionality as a simple spreadsheet, we only use it for more complex analyses.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Microsoft
    N/A I was not involved in this process.
    Incentivized
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    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Scalability
    Microsoft
    Each user can use it to whatever level of expertise they have. It remains the same so users can contribute to another's work regardless of whether they have more or less expertise
    Incentivized
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    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Microsoft
    • Excel has positively impacted the business as it has increased our efficiency.
    • It also saves us the time that we would have spent on making the calculations that it does for us.
    • Since it works on all devices and is compatible with both Windows and Mac, we do not have to invest in any other alternative.
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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
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