Microsoft 365 vs Google Workspace for Business - A Detailed Comparison
Tags: automation, learning, productivity, tutorial
Published: 2024-04-23 05:35:36

In this article, we are going to understand the comparison of Microsoft 365 vs Google Workspace for business. Here, we are discussing the market share of both and differences based on offerings, pricing, storage, and suitability.

Nowadays, many productivity suits providers are in the market, but two of them have created their reputation among fast-growing organizations and startups. Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace are both leading in providing productivity suits and cloud-based integration of email suits.
Let's deep dive into Microsoft 365 vs Google Workspace and understand their key differences.

## What are Microsoft 365 and  Google Workspace Productivity Suites?

Productivity suits have been in great demand since 2000 when Microsoft launched its Office suite for business enterprises.
Till 2006 Microsoft Office(Now integrated into Microsoft 365) was a lone wolf in providing Office software to businesses. Then Google launched its collaborative docs and spreadsheet for users and companies and came up with an email suite with productivity apps named G-Suite (Now Google Workspace). 

Many organizations are leveraging these suite’s collaboration and communication efficiency to enhance productivity. 

Both offer real-time collaboration and target their customers differently, Microsoft offers Exchange server or Azure services, while Google offers AppSheet or Sites to attract customers. This leads to the scenario of Microsoft 365 vs Google Workspace.


## Microsoft 365 vs. Google Workspace for Business - Features Comparison.

Microsoft and Google both have different customer bases. Google is more popular among startups and small businesses and on the other hand, Microsoft is popular among established businesses and large organizations.

Let's understand their key differences and offerings through a table -

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/0mer5y8q5pcra55ayhyb.PNG)![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/nv70sejl0gx3lrqqozqs.PNG)

After this, you can understand the key difference between Microsoft 365 vs Google Workspace.
The above table differentiates between two popular Productivity suite provider on their features and offerings. After reading this, one can think of what are the differences between their plans and which type of organizations should use Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. 
Let's see another comparison between Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace based on their plans.

## Microsoft 365 vs. Google Workspace for Business - Plan Comparison.

Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace include many plans for different user bases.
In this article, we are only focusing on Business and enterprise plans. If you are an individual user you can refer to the Microsoft 365 website and Google Workspace official website.
Comparison for Business plans - 

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/jbnvtne6vsah7lhkmijv.PNG)

## Who Should Choose Microsoft 365 and Why?

Organizations that are operating with large manpower with large numbers of users or databases should use Microsoft 365. Because it offers many user management tools for an admin and provides a cloud-based mailing system which can also be downloaded on the desktop.

**Pros -**

- Features- provide Word, Excel, and OneDrive to ease the process of real-time collaboration. 
- Accessibility- users can access their files on a desktop using Microsoft 365 desktop applications.
- Security - offers Microsoft Defender for business that saves the data from theft and MFA for secure access.
- Cloud storage - the basic plan comes with 1 TB of storage per 
user.

**Cons -**

- Complex - too complex for normal or not trained users or if the admin has less expertise then a data loss situation can occur.
- Customization - fewer Customization features compared to Google Workspace.
- Limited app based on plans- the basic plan has limited applications 

## Who Should Choose Google Workspace and Why?

Startups and small-scale organizations with fewer numbers of employees can go with Google Workspace. Because it is a cost-effective suite provides easy collaboration on the web and provides many features to customize the usage. The business that is focused on fully cloud-based email suites can consider this.

**Pros -**

- Cost efficient - comes with the basic plan cheaper than the Microsoft 365 basic plan with all apps.
- User-friendly - a user-friendly and familiar user interface.
- Collaboration - seamless collaboration between users from anywhere(internet required).
- Customization - more customization and user experience features.
- Security- it offers ransomware protection.

**Cons -**

- Features - limited features compared to Microsoft 365.
- Storage - comes with less storage quota in the basic plan(30 GB).
- Accessibility- only accessed on the web no desktop application is there 

After, reading this all your key points and questions regarding Microsoft 365 vs Google Workspace should be cleared.

## What if You are Using One of Them and Want to Switch?

At present, 80 startups out of 100 are using Google Workspace as a productivity suite or email suite. And 80 established organizations are using Microsoft 365 as a productivity suite.
 
**Scenarios when an organization wants to shift from one to another.**

- **Scenario 1:** Maybe in the future, the startups that are growing may need to shift to Microsoft 365 for managing users and for compliance purposes. 
- **Scenario 2:** Maybe the Large Organization wants to do cost-cutting and wants to shift some of their employees to Google Workspace. 
- **Scenario 3:** If the organization doesn't want to be involved in the complexities of hiring an admin, for Microsoft 365, and doesn't require that much employee management and their record, Which they can simply implement on a spreadsheet.

In this scenario, an organization may need to shift to Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. If you are using Microsoft 365 and want to shift to Google Workspace productivity suite, or using Google Workspace and want to shift to Microsoft 365, you have to migrate your old data to avoid data loss while shifting.

To deal with this issue one can migrate the files using a manual method but it requires a lot of time and downtime at work. As technical specialists, we suggest you migrate your data through an efficient and streamlined approach. Use [Migrator Wizard Office 365 Migration tool](https://migratorwizard.com/office-365/) which can migrate your Google Workspace data into Microsoft 365. 

> **Read More: [Increase OneDrive Storage for Office 365](https://migratorwizard.com/onedrive/increase-storage-space/)**

## Step-by-Step Procedure for Easy Migration

After understanding Microsoft 365 vs Google Workspace and the migration conditions associated with it let's see a smooth procedure for it.

- Install the tool from the above link and **Activate it**.
- Select the **Destination** platform and the **Source** platform.
- Choose the categories you wish to move under the **Workload** option on the same screen.
- Choose files to migrate between particular dates using the **Date Filter** option, Click on the **Next** button.
- Navigate to the **Source** screen.
- Give careful attention to the **Service Account** details and **Admin Email**.
- Permissions will be granted to the **Source admin** and click **validate**. Click on the Next button.
- Click on the **Destination tab** and provide the **Application ID** and the **Admin email**. Click on validate and verify the permissions.
- Now fetch the users from the source using **Fetch user, import user, or download template**.
- Click on continue.
- **Import group mapping** for users
- You can also select a user based on priority.
- Click on **validate**, this will help in the authorization of the source and destination.
- After validation click on **Start Migration**.

After this, your migration will be started and done in some time depending upon the size of your data.


> Read More: **[Export Office 365 Mailbox to PST](https://dev.to/rohitdxt/how-to-export-office-365-mailbox-to-pst-efficiently-5829)**

## Conclusion 

In this article, we have discussed key considerations while comparing Microsoft 365 vs Google Workspace. We have also compared both of them based on their offering features while mentioning their use cases and suggested who should use them considering the pros and cons. We have also witnessed an automated tool that saves time while migrating.