Why I choose Google Workspace over Microsoft 365

Author

Teerakit Chantrakul
October 01, 2024

I’m starting a new company and choosing office software for my team. For those who are not familiar with office suites, think of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. There are a few providers but two of the most popular are Microsoft 365 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and Google Workspace (Docs, Sheets, Slides).

I used Google Workspace for my previous company, very satisfied with it. But I wonder what it’s like on the other side. So I did some tests, and it confirmed my decision.

This article is based purely on my personal experience using both platforms as a user. I mostly cover the user experience and may not cover technical security aspects. If you work in a big corporation, please consult your IT.

Table of Contents

What I like about Google Workspace (and I don’t about Microsoft 365)

Cloud-native

On Google Workspace, you do everything through a web browser. This can be Chrome, Edge, Arc, Firefox, or whatever browser you prefer, no apps to download or install. All features work everywhere because there is only one place, the cloud.

On Microsoft 365, you have 2 connected experiences, the online and desktop versions. And their connection is not very smooth. Some features are available on desktop, but not online, making the work inconsistent.

Some may argue that Desktop apps are more powerful. For example, Excel Desktop has features that may never be implemented on Google Sheets. And I agree.

But let me ask you this. When is the last time you use Power Pivot and Power Query? For me, it was 9 years ago when I worked at Lazada with 10 million rows of data. Many of you may not even know what Power Pivot or Power Query is.

And that’s the point. Google Sheets already covers 99.99% of the work you do daily. Even if you were that 0.01%, you should be using something else like Power BI or Looker.

Works everywhere

This matters, especially when working with external parties like clients or partners who may or may not use any of Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. They might use Apple Business, Lark, Libre, or not use anything at all.

Microsoft 365 online version rarely works as intended for me. There will be times like, “Hmm this looks weird online, let’s try downloading it and open on the desktop app. Oh, it works now”. I mean, what’s the point of having the online version if I have to download the file anyway?

When I send a link to a client, I want to make sure that that link is guaranteed to work on whatever device, OS, or browser they use. And this is where Google Workspace serves me well, while Microsoft 365 is the opposite.

Reliability

This is kinda continue to the fact that Microsoft 365 is not cloud-native, I ran into some issues.

Word Online always has formatting issues, showing broken formatting when viewed online (This happens today still). If you send someone a link to a Word file, you will need that person to open it on Word Desktop to see exactly what you see. What if they don’t have Word installed? Good luck then.

You will never face this issue on Google Docs. As long as that person can open the link on a web browser, they will see what you see.

Excel also has issues when collaborating. When two people are working on the same Excel file, it crashes so often that I need to regularly refresh to check if my input is saved properly (This happened a few months ago). Again, never see this issue with Google Sheets.

So, the only reliable way to work with Microsoft 365 is to work on a downloaded file on a desktop, not collaborating with anyone, which destroys the purpose of the online version.

Third-party integrations

Microsoft 365 has tight integrations… first-party. Meaning, that they work well together within their ecosystem. However, in reality, you are likely to be using third-party software, which many times, may not integrate with Microsoft 365.

On the other hand, Google Workspace seems to have a much (much) wider integration with third parties. This is kinda obvious. How many times do you see “Sign in with Google” vs. “Sign in with Microsoft”? Yeah.

If you work with many tools, you will be frustrated when you find a situation like: “I wish I could import this directly to Excel. Sadly this tool only integrates with Google Sheets”.

Don’t get me wrong, you can pretty much do the same integration with Microsoft 365. But it’s not available natively for many providers. Meaning that you need to build it yourself, which is not for average users.

You need a Google account anyway

In your business journey, you will end up using at least one of the Google Services, especially if your company has a marketing team (which you should!). To use that service, you will need a Google account including:

While you can use any email to create a Google account, it’s seamless to just have your email as a Google account. You need a Google account one day, but you may never need a Microsoft account.

While I’m a Google fanboy, there are some downsides. Let’s cover that too.

What Google Workspace lacks (and Microsft 365’s done better)

Familiarity

Most people are quite familiar with Microsoft’s suite. They already know how the tool works which makes them quick and easy to adopt. Google Workspace needs some training on how the cloud works which can be complicated in the beginning. Worst case, they may not adopt it at all.

Project management tool

Microsoft 365 has a project management tool called Microsoft Planner which can be used to manage projects and tasks for your team. Google Workspace has none. This means you need to use other tools for it, which may involve additional costs.

Pricing

Most people say that Microsoft 365 is cheaper as it starts at $4.75 (without Teams) including 1TB of storage while Google Workspace costs a bit more ($6) but only offers 30GB of storage. However, I find this argument unrelatable.

From my experience running a business using Google Workspace for years, I’ve never hit the storage limit as Google’s storage is much more efficient. For example, a blank Google Slides uses 3 KB while PPTX from PowerPoint uses 31 KB! Unless you are a YouTuber, you shouldn’t worry about the storage at all.

Another thing is that Microsoft 365’s base plan doesn’t include the desktop apps, only the (buggy) online version. You will need the Business Standard plan ($12.50) that includes the desktop apps to just be useful, which is comparable to Google Workspace’s Business Standard plan ($12) with double the storage (2 TB).

Conclusion

Microsoft 365 is easier to adopt and balances online and offline work, while Google Workspace takes a more modern approach but requires everything to be done on the Internet.

People are not very good at change. Most will prefer Microsoft 365 and do it offline, the old-fashioned way. Some may prefer the cloud path, where everything is truly connected. This depends on how you want your company culture to be.

My recommendations are:

  • If you already have a running company and have already chosen one, just go on with it. The differences may not be worth the time and resources migrating.

  • If you have a running small company (a few hundred employees) with young employees (Gen Y and below), choose Google Workspace.

  • If your team works mostly online, choose Google Workspace, otherwise go with Microsoft 365.

  • If you have a big company, you might already be on Microsoft 365.

  • If you are starting a new company, choose Google Workspace.

Have you tried any? Let me know your thoughts.

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