Microsoft Office 2016 (discontinued) vs. Microsoft Visio

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Microsoft Office 2016 (discontinued)
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft 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
Microsoft Visio
Score 7.6 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft offers Visio, a diagramming tool for building flowcharts, diagrams (e.g. network diagrams), org charts and floor plans, available online as a subscription and also in enterprise level packages (e.g. Visio Professional).
$5
per month per user
Pricing
Microsoft Office 2016 (discontinued)Microsoft Visio
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Visio Plan 1
$5.00
per month per user
Visio Plan 2
$15.00
per month per user
Visio Standard 2024
$309.99
one-time fee On-premises diagramming solution, licensed for one PC
Visio Professional 2024
$579.99
one-time fee On-premises diagramming solution, licensed for one PC
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft Office 2016 (discontinued)Microsoft Visio
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Microsoft Office 2016 (discontinued)Microsoft Visio
Considered Both Products
Microsoft Office 2016 (discontinued)
Chose Microsoft Office 2016 (discontinued)
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.
Microsoft Visio
Chose Microsoft Visio
MindManager and Visio are similar however MindManager doesn’t give you the same customization. Visio is definitely preferred when it comes to mapping out processes and documenting future and current state.
Best Alternatives
Microsoft Office 2016 (discontinued)Microsoft Visio
Small Businesses
Google Workspace
Google Workspace
Score 9.1 out of 10
OmniGraffle
OmniGraffle
Score 9.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Google Workspace
Google Workspace
Score 9.1 out of 10
OmniGraffle
OmniGraffle
Score 9.6 out of 10
Enterprises
Microsoft 365 Business Premium
Microsoft 365 Business Premium
Score 8.9 out of 10
OmniGraffle
OmniGraffle
Score 9.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Microsoft Office 2016 (discontinued)Microsoft Visio
Likelihood to Recommend
7.4
(64 ratings)
8.5
(71 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
5.0
(3 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Usability
7.0
(3 ratings)
8.0
(6 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(45 ratings)
7.3
(14 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft Office 2016 (discontinued)Microsoft Visio
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
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Microsoft
Visio is by far and away the best tool that I have used to do Value Stream Mapping sessions with the warehouse I support. It has all of the shapes needed built in to be able to represent all areas of the processes. I also like how you are able to make the drawing as big as needed and when printing it out of Visio you have the ability to use the necessary paper size. The biggest complaint that I have with the software if how it can be cumbersome for non-Visio users (that is, people without a license in the orgnaization) to interact with the Visio Map. We normally have to dedicate one Visio SME to be able to make the changes that Process SME's find since they do not have access to the software.
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Pros
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.
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Microsoft
  • Microsoft Visio is excellent for organizing thought processes related to our more complex research.
  • The diagrams created with Microsoft Visio are ideal for graphically displaying the internal organization of work and research groups through flow diagrams.
  • Microsoft Visio is a great tool for managing our students' activities by creating flowcharts that help us graphically visualize the steps of their group work.
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Cons
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.
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Microsoft
  • When navigating through swim lanes, the user must be careful between switching from the point to the connection features as it can be difficult to remember which mode you’re in.
  • When drawing “decision points,” it can be difficult to type words like “yes” or “no” between the connection lines.
  • The exporting options aren’t ideal. They are hard to create in PDF format.
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Likelihood to Renew
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.
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Microsoft
We use Microsoft Visio to keep our diagrams updated and to that end we will need the subscription to keep using the software. Otherwise we will be left with PDF versions of the diagrams.
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Usability
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
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Microsoft
I have always struggled with some basics, such as connection points, object alignment, font consistency, arranging layers and their order (bring forward, send backward), and managing overlap. I usually need to create an initial rough draft and then do a separate cleanup pass to bring the diagram up to my quality standards. If I skip that step, the result generally does not look very good. And once a diagram becomes busy or the file gets large, Visio has been unstable for me in the past, including occasional crashes that caused non-recoverable edits.
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Support Rating
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.
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Microsoft
Overall, I feel that Microsoft's support is weak. They are now such a behemoth that their model of putting documentation online for their users to sift through is totally outgrown. Given the amount of money you pay for these licenses, Microsoft should provide easy one-on-one support for their products via email or chat. The idea of paying their rates for support incidents is ridiculous. If you have an enormous amount of time on your hands, use their support websites and you will eventually find a solution most of the time.
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Alternatives Considered
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.
Read full review
Microsoft
Even though it’s a more expensive solution, Vizio is built for the enterprise. Therefore, it integrates perfectly with our existing Microsoft stack, and quite frankly, because it’s such a more mature product, it provides exactly the functionality we need and expect.
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Return on Investment
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.
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Microsoft
  • Reduces the amount of time I need to create process flow diagrams. In the past I would use Powerpoint or Word which required a lot more effort and time and never looked as good. Visio just takes that headache away.
  • Only negative is that I personally believe it should always have been part and parcel of the Office suite, thus giving more users the opportunity to use it rather than specifically having to justify its separate purchase within our organisation. Different now with Office 365 of course!
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ScreenShots