Google Sheets Docs vs Office 365 – Excel Online Word Suite Comparison

If you are looking to switch to the cloud, you have two options at your disposal. The Office 365 suite from Microsoft and the G Suite from Google are the likely choices you can opt for. But, which one would you choose for your productivity enhancement? Let us compare them (Google Sheets Docs vs Office 365) and arrive at a result – well, if possible.

Related: Office 365 E1 vs E3 Enterprise Plans Comparison 

G Suite vs Office 365 – Which is better?

Are you trying to find the best office tools for your company is confused between the G Suite vs Office 365? Both of them offer you a complete end-to-end solution for office productivity and business email integration. Remember – both Office 365 and G Suite offer an excellent functionality in their own right. In most of the features and services, you can expect them to provide you with exciting productivity improvement options.

Even then, you may be checking out the best of the two. No matter how good they are, you cannot and need not use both. If you want to choose either of them, you need to understand the features and functionality between them.

Let us discuss the individual components for a proper understanding.

Word Processing

If you are considering document creation and processing, nothing can beat Word. It has been the world standard when it comes to word processing. With decades of product design & improvements, Microsoft really knows what customers want from a word processing app.

There are hundreds of templates and editing options that are available at your disposal. Office 365 offers you world-class office versions in online mode and offers web-based editing and sharing options in real time.

Google Docs provides you with a similar experience of working with documents. Of course, working with them can be a little tricky as you are not used to the functionality as such. The interface is entirely different from what we are used to over the years. However, the online collaborations and secure cloud storage options are what would make it an excellent choice.

Spreadsheet Solutions

Just the way Word has been synonymous with word processing; Excel has been the Go To solution for your spreadsheet solutions. It is capable of doing thousands of operations. The ease of use and simpler navigation tools to access the features you want to access. It has been one of the excellent tools for budgeting, financial calculations, and data entry functionality.

Google Sheets is indeed capable of the function that you usually deal with data processing, but it remains a simplified version of Excel. The significant advantage that it offers is its collaborative features. If you are someone who is utilizing the most straightforward features of Excel (that amount to just around 15 to 20 percent) of the total capacity of Excel, then you would be comfortable with Google Sheets. Simply put, the collaborating features are what would make Google Sheets an excellent option when compared to Google Sheets.

Slideshows

This is an area that both Google and Microsoft work along the same lines. Whether you use Google Slides or PowerPoint – both of them offer you similar functionality for most users. Your final choice will boil down to your personal preferences and how you are used to.

However, if you have a look at it from close quarters, we would consider PowerPoint is a little more capable than the Slides. There are hundreds of choices when it comes to presentation templates. Customizing the slide effects is what would make it an excellent opportunity. You may not find similar options on Slides. Providing a polished look to the presentations is something that you may not be able to experience with Slides.

As with the Sheets and Docs, the only reason that makes it one of the best options is the collaborative functionality that it comes packed with. Share and edit your presentations on the go with your team – isn’t that a wonderful experience?

Also Read: G-Suite vs Office 365 Security

Which is Cheaper? Google Sheets, Docs vs Office 365

Well, pricing is an important aspect when it comes to opting for the best productivity solution. Both the solutions offer differential pricing. You may choose the pricing that best suits your exact requirements.

G Suite Pricing

It offers you three basic pricing options. Here are the prices that are available for your needs –

• Basic – $ 5 per user per month – 30 GB cloud storage **
• Business – $ 10 per user per month – Unlimited Storage **
• Enterprise – $ 29 per user per month – Unlimited Storage **

Office 365

Office 365 comes with over ten different plans. We will focus on the major pricing plans as given below –

• Business Essentials – $6 per user per month *
• Business – $10 per month per user *
• Business Premium – $15 per month per user *

**Pricing subject to change

Which among them is cheaper then? Well, the way we see it, both of them provide an excellent and affordable pricing plan for small businesses. One of the advantages is that the G Suite offers you unlimited storage if you have more than 5 users in Business and Enterprise plans. Office 365 does not provide you with unlimited storage.

In essence, you will find the G Suite being a formidable choice when it comes to competitive pricing.

The Interface

Well, when it comes to the interface – you will like the familiar look that we have come to experience over the years. From that perspective, you will look ahead to Office 365 to be one of the best options.

But, if you are looking for the remote team performance and online collaboration capabilities are what you are looking forward to – G Suite will be your best choice, especially for users who are deeply invested into the Google ecosystem.

Security Features

Security is indeed one of the essential features that you need to take care of. How do the services work in providing excellent services concerning online-security?

G Suite is built on their Google infrastructure. You can expect the same degree of security features with the G Suite. Some of the security features include automatic detection of suspicious activity, phishing attempts, and other hacking attempts. You can configure different sets of policies to restrict access. You also have access to data leak protection options.

Office 365 comes with security features like multiple factor authentication (MFA) options with Azure Active Directory integration. It also makes use of its AI features to learn the regular user activities. If any suspicious activity is found, the service is flagged for attention. It also comes with data loss prevention functionality. This will ensure that data theft and leaks.

Collaboration Tools

The collaboration is the primary reason why we are interested in the cloud-based office suites. That is the major USP of both Office 365 and G Suite. How does the collaborative compatibility differ between the two tools?

The primary focus of G Suite has been the online collaboration. It was started off to with the purpose of making the real-time collaboration between the teams as seamlessly as possible. There are several options for simple and easy team-collaboration that includes Hangouts that also offers you video and voice calls. It lets multiple users work on a single file simultaneously. You can edit documents, add or leave comments, review the changes or revert to the previous version. Google Calendar and Google Keep are a few other collaboration options that you can find with G Suite. If you are an avid Android user, you will have most of these apps pre-installed on your phone as well.

Finding and making use of the collaboration tools on Office 365 may not be as easy as it may be the case with G Suite. It does allow multiple users to work on the same file simultaneously. It makes use of Skype (for Business or Teams) for video calls and messaging options. In essence, it does come with collaboration tools, but may not be an excellent choice for Android users.

However, most of the large Enterprises already have Microsoft’s office and moving onto O365 is a natural transition.

Comparison between Office 365 and G Suite

Features/ Particulars	Office Suite 365	G Suite
Cloud Storage	1 TB for all plans 50 GB Email Storage	30 GB 1 TB if less than 5 users Unlimited for more than 5 users
Apps	Docs, Sheets, Slides, Keep, Calendar, Hangouts, Gmail, Photos	Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Skype, Outlook, One Note
Reliability	99.9% service level guarantee On-demand service and scalable	99.9% Service level guarantee On-demand and scalable
Advanced Threat Protection	Available	Not supported
Automatic Notifications	Yes	No
Document Storage	Yes	No
Full-Text Search	Yes	No
Multiple Documents Formats	Yes	No
Version Control	Yes	No
Third Party apps integration	Bitium, Box, Dropbox, Leadmaster, Outlook, One Drive, SharePoint, Zapier	Dropbox, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Lead master, One Drive, Slack, Trello Zapier
Total Integrations available	364	115

Our Thoughts – Google Sheets Docs vs Office 365

Well, after that long discussion on the comparison between Office 365 and G Suite, which one among them do we find practical? Both of them have been designed mainly for online team collaboration and pack in a host of features almost similar.

If you are a small business user, G Suite can be your best bet. It is quite simple and more straightforward to use. Moreover, it offers you great pricing. A more straightforward admin panel is another added advantage on G Suite.

Office 365 would be better positioned for the enterprises and larger organizations. The offline Office applications are what would make it an excellent option for increased productivity.

The final choice should boil down to the exact requirements you may have. Choose the one that best meets your style of working and share your thoughts with us.

Productivity suites have been one of the major aspects of your business. It is an integral part of your business and improves your efficiency. If you are wondering what we are talking about, a productivity suite is a group of applications or group of programs and includes a word processor, spreadsheet solution, slides, and email solution. If you are looking for such tools or suites, the two popular names that would pop up in your mind are Office 365 and Google Suite. How do they compare with each other? We will find out in this concise comparison.

Google Docs vs Office 365 – An Overview

Well, when it comes to the productivity applications, Microsoft has had sway over them since quite long. However, Google is not willing to be left behind. Google has been challenging the monopoly of Microsoft with its G Suite (earlier known as Google Apps).

While Microsoft has had its monopoly over the productivity apps, Google has been the clear leader in the web (search), mobility, and practically dominates the online space. Microsoft has been making attempts at gearing up to challenge it with Office 365.

Let us compare the two of them based on a few select feature sets.

The Features

Well, the two competitors love playing with words to make their products appear an excellent option. However, both of them come with almost equivalent features.

The components and features available on Google Docs and Office 365 are entirely equivalent in almost all aspects. While Office 365 has Word, Excel, PowerPoint for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations, Google Suite offers you Google Docs, Google Sheets and Google Slides. Similarly, there are other options as well. Outlook online vs Gmail, One Note online vs Google Keep, Skype vs Hangouts and Sharepoint vs Google Sites are the alternatives that are comparable to each other.

User Interface

We have got used to the user interface of the Microsoft applications for quite long. The online versions of the apps are similar to the offline avatars. You have everything identical to the desktop versions – right from fonts, templates and formatting options.

In sharp comparison, Google suite of applications appears quite basic. They possibly look like quite an old school in every respect. Finding your favorite aspects may not be an easy task if you are a newbie to the Google Docs interface. Of course, we have similar features between the two competitors, but when it comes to the easy to use interface (or the one that we are used to!).

Creating Documents

Microsoft has had an excellent experience in terms of creating and working with the documents. You have access to the document formatting and other advanced features, and thus it would be inherently easy to move back and forth between the desktop versions and the cloud.

Excel is a point of excellence here. The power and advanced features that Excel comes with cannot be comparable to the similar options that Google Sheets offers you. Office 365 takes an upper lead here in comparison to Google Docs. Then there is a comparison between PowerPoint and Google Slides. Again, Office 365 scores over Google Docs in every respect.

Collaboration

Collaborating with the team through online access is another point that provides an excellent opportunity. SharePoint in Office 365 is what efficiently handles the task. SharePoint has several features including revision history, document check-in/check-out and integration with Microsoft Office on the desktop.

Google account lets you share with your team through the use of Google Docs. You can share the files between your organization and work on them simultaneously. Google packs in the features like Google Chat and Google Voice in its suite. This will help you work with the features like audio/video calls and instant messengers.

Communication

Office 365 provides you with the presence tools like Lync and helps you integrate with Office tools. You can use the tools to have a call or chat. It also lets you check who edited the files and when.

Google too offers the same features through its Hangouts messenger. However, the options provided by Microsoft appear to be more polished and offers you a higher degree of integration.

Pricing

Microsoft is known to provide a different price point. You can expect the same spot with Office 365. The plans start at a minimum of $6 per user per month as long as it comes to Professional Small Business Plan. The medium and enterprise plans range from $ 10 to $ 27 per user per month. No matter which plans you check, it cannot beat the pricing offered by Google Docs.

Google Docs is available for free in its basic plan. Google Apps for Business offers you two plans. There is a flexible $ 5 per user per month plan for the startups. You can also opt for a payment of $ 50 per user per year. Both the programs come with 1 GB of storage and 25 GB of Email inboxes.

Our Thoughts – Google Sheets Docs vs Office 365

Almost all the features and functionalities of the competing suites remain almost similar in many respects. In fact, with nearly all elements being identical across both the competing suites – the final point that boils down is the price and ease of use.

If you are a start-up or a medium-sized business organization, we would advise you to opt for Google Docs as the best option. If you tend to use a massive amount of data and using a lot of Word Documents – you may find Office 365 a better alternative. In essence, if you are an enterprise, it can be your best bet to go with Office 365.

Both Office 365 and Google Docs come with excellent options in their own right, but neither of them comes close to the desktop functionality. Both of them can be quite good in their right, but Office 365 can be a little familiar thanks to its monopoly over the years over productivity tools. Google offers you an affordable solution and best for the collaboration.

Spreadsheets solutions are one of the most critical aspects of our day to day business activities. Google has been adding a few extra features to its spreadsheets solutions – Google Sheets and this has made Microsoft follow suit with the inclusion of the collaborative features to its Excel spreadsheet application. How do these two equally capable solutions fare against each other? We will check out the characteristics of the two offerings from the two tech giants in a concise manner.

Google Sheets vs Excel Online – An Overview

Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets have been one of the most practical spreadsheets applications that you can rely upon. Microsoft Excel has been one of the excellent tools regarding spreadsheets solutions. So much so that the word Excel has become synonymous with the spreadsheets. However, with the emphasis that cloud services have gained concerning your business solutions over the years, Google Sheets has become one of the prime options of late.

Anyhow, Excel has not yet lost its charm but instead evolved. It has been making attempts to improve its functionality further. How does it work concerning the functionality offered by Google?  We will analyze the features one by one.

The Pricing

You cannot beat Google when it comes to the pricing. Not only Google Sheets, but you can have access to the entire suite of Google applications at just $5 per user per month! As for Microsoft Office, it may be comparable to the Office 365 subscription to the most extent.

However, if you are looking for offline access to Microsoft Suite, it will cost you a minimum of $ 8.25 per user per month. Moreover, Google offers you discounted prices if you are opting for long-term solutions. That would leave Google Sheets a clear winner in the price war regarding spreadsheet solutions.

Moreover, if your spreadsheet solution requirements are limited – you can get it for free. It is included as an app with your Gmail subscription. Thus, we would consider it to be an affordable option if you are starting up your business. Even if you decide to Pay later, the pricing would be quite minimal and not be a burden as such.

The Ease Of Use

Google Sheets was the first spreadsheets solution that brought the concept of working as a team. The ability to collaborate in real time was something unheard of before Google Sheets came into existence. Microsoft Excel was indeed a huge pain when it came to online collaboration. Even when any of the persons was running an older version of Excel, it was a real pain working real time.

Of course, the launch of Excel Online has simplified the process. It now comes with almost all the features that Google Sheets has been offering. The Auto fills formulas and a chat window to discuss the changes were something Google had introduced, now available on Excel Online as well.

Both the products share similar features and are entirely compatible.

Data Processing

This is an area that Excel Online stays ahead of its competitor. Google Sheets can be an issue as it approaches the 2 million cells limit. It can begin getting slow and possibly crash on you.

Excel, on the other hand, can handle a lot of data and the cells can go up to hundreds of thousands without an issue. Excel is built with more processing power right from the start.

The Features and Formula

Again, Excel has years of experience in handling data efficiently. That shows up in the way it works on Excel online. The chart tools, analytical options and add-ons available on Excel surpass those offered by Google.

In any case, Google is entirely new to the Spreadsheets solutions, and it is evident it is fast catching up with Excel. As things stand now though, it is Excel that can help you work with complex calculations and formulas.

Formatting

Well, they have their differentiating features in this context. Of course, both of them do not support advanced options. However, Excel lets you convert your range of cells into a table. The double underline feature can be one of the excellent ones. The best-finished look in your tables can be an attractive option for Excel Online. The headers in your table stand out in bold while the rest of the cells will be suitably colored.

As for Google Sheets, they have their own set of positives regarding formatting. There is ample support for cell border styles and colors. Another exciting feature is the strikethrough option as a means of an excellent formatting tool.

In essence, we would consider both them offering almost similar experience concerning formatting. Of course, there is a difference between the two, but still, they compete with each other on equal grounds.

Compatibility

When it comes to the compatibility with the older versions of the files, Excel online shows a higher degree of performance. Whether you are dealing with formulas, charts or sparklines – everything works quite smoothly. Of course, the documents from older versions will need to be converted, but the task is accomplished readily. It doesn’t take much time to convert them, and the files are rendered flawlessly.

Google Sheets faces severe limitations when working with older versions. Google Sheets may even fail to open the files created with older versions. It may not even troubleshoot the import errors. One of the issues you may come across includes the lack of support for the histogram type of charts created with Excel.

Collaboration

Of course, the concept of team-collaboration is entirely new for Excel. However, it must be agreed that Microsoft has brought in a lot of innovations. You should be able to collaborate with anyone you send the links to, and there is no need for the recipients to have a Microsoft account. The real-time collaboration is available from within OneDrive.

The collaboration was what catapulted Google Sheets to the status it enjoys today. You can send the links to even those who are not using Google (well, there is a slim chance that someone without a Google account even exists). Of course, you can prevent the data from being downloaded, reshared or being printed. The faster real-time functionality is what should make Google Sheets a better alternative to Excel Online. You would not be able to see who made the changes and at what time, though.

Integration With Other Apps

Well, Google Sheets is made by Google, and they have a host of other Google apps – almost all of which we use at one time or the other. It can seamlessly integrate with all other Google apps and services. Getting info directly from the internet, fetching financial information from Google Finance or translating something – everything is done super easy.

Excel too has been adding this functionality with each of its upgrades. There is an option to add automation through Work Flows and create interactive graphs. The service even lets you create art. However, given the whole suite of applications that Google offers, you will find Excel falling short in the arena.

Revision History

Google Sheets should ideally offer you a real-time experience – literally! You should be able to find every one of the edits made by each of the users at any given time. You can revert to the previous versions if you are not happy with the changes, or decide to accept the changes if you consider they are okay.

Excel saves multiple appended files. Working through them can get frustrating at times and confusing to a greater extent. This can lead to double efforts for the same task and may tend to commit mistakes.

The Parting Thoughts

Well, we may not be able to arrive at a clear leader as such. Both of them have equal capabilities. If a high degree of collaboration and lower price tag are what you are looking for, Google Sheets should perfectly fit your bill. It can be the best for working with teams without much of data processing.

In essence, both Google Sheets and Excel Online have been created for differing user needs. In case you are looking for a spreadsheet solution that has a sheer degree of functionality, then Excel can be your best choice. Ability to work with a considerable amount of data and a set of advanced options would make it an excellent opportunity over Google Sheets. On the other hand, in case your requirements for a spreadsheet solution are more modest, Google Sheets would ideally meet most of your needs.

We assume the comparison between the two equally compatible and capable tools should have given you an insight into the capabilities of the spreadsheet solution of your choice. Choose the one that indeed meets your exact needs and share your thoughts and experiences with your favorite tool with us here.

Also Read:

1. How Much Does Office 365 Business Premium Cost in India?
2. Office 365 Business Premium Features Price and Trial Accounts: Essential Details
3. Office 365 Business Premium vs Enterprise E3 Plans – What’s The Difference?

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