In my opinion both tools have the same effect. The differences between them are in terms of features as well as the apanying supportponents. Whatever MS Word is this platform has been around for quite some time. As one of Microsoft's darlings they certainly put a lot of effort. But as a proof MS Word has be a lexicon in the dictionary and no one can negate its huge treasure of features. In the case of G Docs although I prefer to use it more than MS Word because of the convenience it brings actually I think it will take a long time for G Docs to take MS 's place. Although a lot of people think that what they can do with MS Word G Docs can still do even better but I always think that the amount of G Docs features can never bepared toparable to MS Word . I will elaborate on this as well as make some otherparisons. Nowadays although I only use G Docs pletely for all my work and assignments I have worked with MS Word for more than 35 hours a week (mostlyposing essays during G Docs is not yet popular.) The reason why I switched to using G Docs instead of being loyal to MS Word was because of the ipatibility with theputers of the partners I work with - G Docs solves this problem. So with the amount of experience I have accumulated I believe that my opinion should definitely be considered. And here are someparisons 1. G Docs has a more extensive library resource. Because it is an online platform its resources are constantly and easily updated daily. If you don't have the time topile everything from scratch the G Docs template is right for you. Meanwhile the resources of MS Word are fixed for each version and the number is very limited. It's hard to find a modern consistent template for projects in older versions of MS Word . Even fonts are relatively poorpared to G Docs . In general if you prefer modernity and convenience G Docs will be more suitable. 2. Bookmarks - Another nice thing about G Docs that MS Word doesn't have is bookmarks which allows you to quickly find an appropriate point on a document with just a few taps. Imagine having a hundred-page document that would be a nightmare in MS Word if you needed to store something important for you to search for the only way to highlight the . That and scrolling to find it later it's really time consuming. 3. Collaboration issues - This is really the beauty of G Docs . G Docs offers a great ability for it to be an online platform allowing multiple people to work together at the same time greatly increasing productivity saving a lot of time. This is something that MS Doc can hardly keep up. Because it is an offline platform MS Word cannot allow multiple people to work together at the same time. Not to mention G Docs allows you to review the history of document editing helping to quickly return to the appropriate version if there are any errors. With MS Word each time it is necessary to collaborate between A and B when A is done it will be transferred to B . If B accidentally deletes a part of A 's to check A needs to re-read the entire document - very time-consuming and edits are sometimes not possible because it is hard to find the wrong place and the content is hard to recover. 4. Connection - allows assigning. When there are any latest changes on a document all members can easily receive notifications from Gmail . 5. Flexibility - G Docs lets you work from anywhere with any device as long as you have an Internet connection. Meanwhile with MS Word you must make sure your device has the correct version you need. As an illustrative example versionpatibility betweenputers is also a problem. Ifputer A uses MS Word 217 when transferring files toputers of B and B using 26 version thepatibility is not available. Even the lack of fonts or formatting in older versions is a problem. This ispletely ovee with G Docs when it is an online tool alwayspatible with a single version. 6. The ability to prevent risks - with MS Word you must constantly Save when there are any changes. If something happens by accident such as a power outage it will be a disaster when you take all the effort you have just spent. G Docs supports the ability to automatically Save making you more secure in this regard. And the storage of G Docs is also extremely greatpared to the limited amount of resources on the PC . 7. Security - As G Docs is an online platform one person can access it with just one without the effort of stealing. However it is important that it limits who has the authority to edit. The things I mentioned above are the great personal experiences that G Docs brings. However considering the other aspect G Docs has many points that are not suitable for businesses as I have never seen so many businesses appreciate G Docs more than MS Word G Docs is really inconvenient and it not free. It is worth noting that G Docs is supported to switch between formats very flexibly. However when downloading local you must return to the basic formats like .doc .docx .xls etc. With MS Docs the conversion is relatively more difficult when you need to take advantage of online conversion tools such as ... In addition researching and writing offline conversion applications for this format is also a problem. I used to spend a lot of time on it and development was nearly impossible for me personally. I had to research a number of third party libraries for many different jobs. In fact this problem is encountered in both G Docs and MS Word such as merge files split files etc. By the way about online conversion tools I highly rmend websites such as Convert Word to PDF. Documents DOC to PDF s Word to PDF Converter s etc. If you're a programmer like me I encourage you to consult the original document from Microsoft. If you fancy the convenience of a third library I rmend Word Library for .NET C# and VB s . Above are my experiences and reviews I hope to contribute a little bit for you. Please feel free to contribute more ideas to make my answer moreplete.