In this article I compare Google Workspace vs. Microsoft 365 from my perspective as a small business owner. This choice is particularly difficult for SMEs that often have limited budget, no time for platform administration and don’t have an IT department for support.
This is an overview to help you make an informed decision between Google Workspace vs. Microsoft 365, based on real experience, written in Apple Pages on a Mac 🫢.
TLDR by the end.
A few points before we dive in
There are so many nuances that it is impossible to compare everything, and it is easy to get lost in the details. You may also not even know which features are important before you have used the suites for a while.
The plans and tools look almost similar on the surface. However, they are quite different both conceptually and on a detailed level, but no matter what you end up choosing, you will get quality productivity tools.
Ecosystem, platform, integration, synergy, compatibility
Those are all slightly different ways of expressing a crucial point; stick to a single suite and your life will be a lot easier for several reasons:
- You only pay one subscription.
- Using fewer apps is easier and will take up less resources on your laptop and phone.
- Administration of the platform is easier and arguably more secure.
- A seamless flow of integrations and compatibility makes you more productive. You can be certain that two competing vendors will make your life miserable jumping around between their ecosystems.
- If you really want the full benefit of an AI assistant, the best foundation is when it can access all your data on the same platform.
The easiest way to grasp how large these ecosystems really are, is to browse the products.
Features get developed all the time
It is futile to focus on features only, because new features get added all the time. Articles comparing the individual apps on a feature level do not make sense in my world and this also implies that you want to cherry-pick. When you have to make your choice, I recommend considering if the overall impression of each vendor resonates with you. Hopefully that should be more obvious to you by the end of this article.
You can see the planned features releases below to give you an idea of how often things get added:
Google Workspace feature release calendar
Market share
According to Statista, Google has the dominant market share (44%) in the “office productivity software”-category, while Microsoft is second (30%). I suspect that these numbers are somewhat reversed for business use only.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/983299/worldwide-market-share-of-office-productivity-software
Plans comparison
Pricing
The pricing is almost identical. It is worth noting that Google sells its subscriptions exclusively, whereas you can buy Microsoft licenses from third-party vendors. This means you can often get the Microsoft annual subscriptions on a discount. At the time of writing, I found an offer on Amazon with a 20% discount. You can check the price here (I may get commission at absolutely no extra charge to you).
| Vendor | Plan | Monthly price (paid annually) |
|---|---|---|
| Google Workspace | Business Starter | $8 per user |
| Google Workspace | Business Standard | $12 per user |
| Google Workspace | Business Plus | $18 per user |
| Microsoft 365 | Business Basic | $6 per user |
| Microsoft 365 | Business Standard | $12.5 per user |
| Microsoft 365 | Business Premium | $22 per user |
Which plan to choose
Google’s plans are straightforward. Every plan includes all their apps. The main differentiators are storage and security.
Microsoft is a bit different. Here you get an increased number of apps as you move up. The storage is the same.
The first plan includes webapps only. An upgrade gives you dedicated desktop apps. The last tier adds better security and internal collaboration apps primarily for large companies.
In essence, both Google and Microsoft give you increased security and administration options the more you pay. Google mainly adds increased storage, whereas Microsoft includes more apps.
I found the Business Standard plans best suited for my needs. Google’s Starter Plan has too little storage and Microsoft’s Basic plan only gives you the web versions – then I would surely choose Google Workspace instead.
What is included
If you already have clear preferences here, this list might heavily influence your decision. It is also evident that Microsoft throws in a lot more apps from the Standard-plan and up.
| Function | Google Workspace | Microsoft 365 Business |
|---|---|---|
| Email 📧 | Gmail | Outlook |
| Chat 💬 | Chat | Teams |
| Meetings 📞 | Meet | Teams |
| Calendar 🗓️ | Calendar | Outlook |
| Notes 📓 | Keep | OneNote |
| To-Do 📝 | Tasks | To-Do |
| Writing ✍️ | Docs | Word |
| Spreadsheets 🧮 | Sheets | Excel |
| Presentation 💼 | Slides | PowerPoint |
| Surveys ❓ | Forms | Forms |
| Intranet 🏢 | Sites | SharePoint |
| App Builder 👩💻 | AppSheet | PowerApps |
| Storage 💾 | Drive | OneDrive |
| Whiteboard 🧠 | Whiteboard | |
| Recording ⏺️ | Stream | |
| Video Editing 📽️ | Clipchamp | |
| Collaboration 🤝 | Loop | |
| Project Planning 📚 | Planner | |
| Lists 📃 | Lists | |
| Presentations 💼 | Sway | |
| Social Platform ☕ | Viva | |
| Notes📓 | Sticky Notes |
Apps you get thrown in your face
No matter what you choose, you are entering a larger (huge) ecosystem that does far more than office productivity. Parts, you can completely forget if you don’t find it useful. However, some things are so deeply integrated that you can’t avoid it. The most important are listed below.
| Function | Google Workspace | Microsoft 365 Business |
|---|---|---|
| AI Assistant | Gemini | Copilot |
| Search | Google Search | Bing |
| Browser | Chrome | Edge |
Features
I will now comment and compare some of the most important features. This is where you will realize that the choice depends a lot on your individual needs and preferences and that the two suites are quite different.
Google’s cloud is great, Microsoft’s is a supplement
Google is cloud only. Microsoft traditionally comes from desktop apps but has gradually moved into cloud with web versions.
If you only intend on using the cloud, Google’s apps are better in general. They are designed from the bottom up for cloud, whereas Microsoft in many cases has started out with a desktop version and then converted it into a lighter web version with less features. I consider these web versions as a bonus when you’re on the go, but they cannot stand alone.
Microsoft likes to stay in the office
Google’s cloud-only philosophy makes it easier to collaborate. Your collaborators don’t have to install anything, and you can be sure their functionality is the same as yours. This makes their suite ideal for remote work.
Microsoft is more about the desktop versions, which are more powerful but better suited for the traditional “stay in the office”. Particularly for large volumes of data in spreadsheets, I prefer Excel in the desktop version because here, performance is essential.
There is also a more seamless flow of switching, comparing and pasting between desktop apps. If e.g. you have to attach a file in Gmail, you have to upload it first.
On top of that, Microsoft offers a lot of internal collaboration tools like Teams, SharePoint, Viva, and Loop and those only really come to their right in corporations with many internal employees in the same location.
Third-party integrations vs. security
Google and Microsoft both have a wide range of integrations with third-party vendors. However, my impression is that Google choose to rely on third parties to fill potential gaps in features, whereas Microsoft prefers to develop everything in-house. This is both good and bad, because you can really get great third-party apps, but letting in too many external factors also poses a higher security risk, which Microsoft has prioritized.
Real-time collaboration requires more clicks with Microsoft
You can do real-time collaboration in both Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, i.e. see changes in real-time and where your collaborators are looking. Microsoft calls this “co-authoring”. Keeping in mind that Microsoft Office comes from a tradition of “send, review, return”, it takes a few more clicks to make this feature work properly. I almost become nostalgic from my time in government work, where you would send your documents for review to 10 layers of bosses, and the only thing that came back intact was my author name :).
Google is “smarter”, Microsoft gives you control
Google generally want to do things for you, like categorize your inbox automatically, add relevant e-mails to your calendar and so on. This is something you either love or hate, but you can be certain it will only increase with the introduction of Gemini.
Microsoft lets you do the same things, but you need to do it yourself. This is obviously more work, but you can also get the customization like you want.
Google likes to search, Microsoft likes to organize
Using tags is pervasive in the Google apps, while Microsoft lets you add things to folders instead. Multiple tags can be assigned to the same document or e-mail, while folders can be nested, i.e. main folder > sub folder etc. It is clear that Google wants you to search to find your things, while Microsoft wants you to organize it neatly.
In G-suite, it’s not there. In 365, you’ve overlooked it
In terms of Google, if you can’t find the functionality you’re looking for in “Options”, the feature probably doesn’t exist.
When it comes to Microsoft, the feature probably exists, but you have overlooked something and need to go through five different forums before you find the solution. Differences in functionality between desktop, web, and mobile does not make it easier. Add to that “Personal”, “Business”, “New” and “Mac” versions as well. Here you can do this, but here you can’t. This at least, drives me crazy.
Administration can be a job description in itself
Administration quickly becomes difficult on Microsoft platform, which can be a real challenge for small business owners that just want to get on with their lives. The advantage of this is more options for securing and managing your platform.
Google Workspace is easier to get started with, but does not provide the same level of control.
To sync or not sync
There’s nothing worse than sync errors. Using Microsoft’s apps, you will get this more frequently than Google’s equivalents. I have a bad habit of closing down my programs too quickly after a change, which is a recipe for disaster for Microsoft’s sync tech. When I work directly in the cloud with Google apps, this is not a problem.
Opening up e.g. Gmail is also lot speedier than Outlook, which has to sync first. On the other hand, I don’t have to worry about working offline in Microsoft apps.
If you don’t wear socks in your shoes, you probably prefer Google
Google’s user interface is simple, colorful and quirky.
If you dress corporate-style, that old dark-blue color of Microsoft probably appeals to you instead.
Bloat and confusion vs. gaps and walls
Microsoft has features for everything. They have a larger suite of included apps, there are far more functionality baked into them and you can customize them to your needs.
Google’s apps are, on the other hand, easy to use with a clean and consistent interface across the board. However, if there’s something you don’t like or miss, you have likely hit a wall and have to live with it.
If you go with Microsoft, you will not lack features or customization options. On the negative side, some of the apps are far from best-in-class, bordering bloatware, and have so much functionality overlap that even Microsoft must be confused. Moreover, I dislike Microsoft trying to push me into using Edge or Bing. I am also wary of committing to the lesser used apps, e.g. Lists or Planner, as they may be axed at some point.
Google’s offering is much leaner, but has some gaps instead, where the only alternative is a third-party vendor (and additional license). E.g. Google has discontinued their whiteboard app, Jamboard, which I think is an essential supplement to Google Meet.
Another clear gap for me is a proper note-taking app in the span between Google Keep and Docs. Keep is too simple, akin to sticky notes below my monitor. There is no infinite canvas, web-clipping functionality is terrible, and formatting options are non-existent. Google Docs, on the other hand, is too cumbersome to organize and jot down notes quickly.
Microsoft’s support network is larger, but you need it less for Google
In my personal experience, I have yet to find a corporation the size of Microsoft and Google that provides remote tech support, where you don’t want to throw your PC out the window after a few hours. All my experiences have been horrific. The support agents don’t understand the problem, you get into an infinite loop of being sent around departments and you have to sit and look at them doing the same thing remotely over and over again – and this is provided you even get to talk to a real person and not a chatbot.
If you are a serious business, the only real alternative is on-site support. In this regard, it is easier to find Microsoft partners that can provide this. However, as I have also mentioned, Google’s suite is simpler in both functionality and administration, which means you may not need it as often.
Google Drive and OneDrive is a general tie except for photos
Even on Windows, there is little to separate Google Drive and OneDrive. You can install and set up automatic sync for both storage services. The speed and recovery options are also on par.
However, if you do anything with images or photos, Google Drive is a clear winner. Technically, Google Photos is a separate app, but it shares storage with Drive. The dedicated Photos app, in both it’s web and mobile versions, is much better than the photo features in OneDrive. This applies to search, organization, sharing, gallery and editing options – it’s pure magic.
Gemini and Copilot could someday be useful
I am still not a huge fan of Gemini or Copilot in their current states. Their output ranges from moderately useful to outright garbage. However, conceptually I can see their usefulness in text-related tasks, code and analysis and as hands-free assistants, when they are integrated directly into the apps. Who wins this one, I dare not guess – on paper it should’ve been Google a long time ago.
Android or Windows edge
Although Google’s suite works great in Chrome on Windows and Microsoft makes great apps for Android, I still think there is a slight edge whether you prioritize the best user experience on mobile Android, particularly Pixel phones, or a Windows (Copilot) PC. The apps and widgets look and work slightly better on their corresponding vendor OS and the AI assistants are better integrated, so you can prompt them across different apps.
If you use any kind of home automation with a Nest Hub, Google’s apps are also integrated there.
Putting it all together
So let’s sum up to make the choice simpler.
Google Workspace: Simplicity, search and easy collaboration
Google Workspace is the easiest to get started with and use. It offers thoughtfully selected features and tries to be smart and do things for you. The app selection is lean and integrates with the popular Chrome and Google Search. On top of that, Google is in a favourable position to make Gemini useful in the future, because they already own your soul and have all your data.
Collaboration works like a breeze. Sharing is easy, you can work in real-time with other users, and noone has to install anything or get beefy PCs. You’re also certain that your collaborators have the exact same functionality. This makes Google Workspace particuarly suited to remote work across company borders.
The UI is colorful and makes you happy.
Pros:
Cons:
Microsoft: All possible features, control and powerful desktop apps
Microsoft 365 Business has a huge selection of apps and features, where you won’t lack anything. You also get the whole palette of powerful desktop apps, light web versions or dedicated mobile apps. Add to that apps that focus on intra-company collaboration and socializing. It is truly a value proposition, especially considering you can get the annual plans at a discount from third-party vendors.
You are in control, whether it be customizing your app functionality, how they look or organizing your e-mails and files exactly the way you want.
There is also an advanced platform administration center that enables you to implement state-of-the-art security and Microsoft is generally more restrictive when it comes to third-party integrations or inviting external accounts that could pose a risk.
The UI is the well-known blue and grey with the ribbon on top.
Pros:
Cons:
TLDR: My personal, simple conclusion
To provide you with a quick answer to a complex question, my choice would be based on this:
I would choose Google Workspace if:
- My business is small or a start-up.
- I have to collaborate and share with other small clients or freelancers across different companies.
- I’m not a Power User in any way.
- I need to get started quickly.
I would choose Microsoft 365 if:
- My business is growing and have more employees than me.
- I want most value for money
- I need powerful functionality.
- I need to control security and functionality tightly.
Get started with trials
I recommend that you start with at least one of the trials.
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