In the past, the entirety of the business world (at least that part that was digitalized) ran on Microsoft Office. Even today, when there are some incredible alternatives, a lot of individuals, organizations, and enterprises still choose to go with Microsoft.
In order to understand where this loyalty comes from, you need to take a look at a detailed feature comparison of now Microsoft 365 fares against some of its competitors.
Now, Microsoft 365 is a combination of productivity software, collaboration tools, and cloud-based services. So, it’s important to acknowledge this when making comparisons. Therefore, on our list, we’ll have platforms from all these categories.
1. Google Workspace
This comparison is, arguably, the toughest, considering how much Google Workspace has going on for it. First of all, it’s much easier to set up. It’s also easier to administrate, which means that it’s quite user (and beginner) friendly.
Now, probably the biggest strength of Microsoft 365 is that its individual apps usually perform better. This is really easy to break down, seeing as how Word is a better editor than Google Docs, Excel has a better performance than Sheets, and MS has far more features in its applications.
In other words, it all comes down to what you’re valuing more. Google Workspace is still simpler and free, but if you’re just looking at performance, there’s no question that Microsoft 365 is offering more.
Now, one thing that Google Workspace actually does better is offer a better storage model. At the same time, Microsoft 365 offers more storage (at these lower levels of service).
One Drive app is seen as far superior to the Google Drive desktop app. Namely, it automatically allows you to sync the change to a file rather than a whole file, which is a monumental difference in usability.
Lastly, Google Workspace offers better spam and phishing email detection.
2. Monday
Monday is a project management platform that some compare to Microsoft Planner, an app that’s an essential feature of Microsoft 365. The key thing to understand here is that this application is available to premium business and educational subscribers. As such, it is great for integration with the rest of the 365 suite, as well as other Microsoft apps like Teams.
Monday is simple, intuitive, and has great customer support. A lot of companies praise Monday’s approach to partners, and a lot of first-time users find Monday to be more beginner-friendly.
Now, the big thing here is that you would expect more people to be familiar with Microsoft software, but the biggest problem with Microsoft 365 (and Office before it) is that the majority of people use only 20-30% of its features and apps. In other words, even when everyone was using Office, the majority used just Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The rest were quite situational.
Lastly, even if you don’t go with Microsoft 365, you could also consider Azure as a Microsoft alternative to Monday. Even here, the comparison would be a lot closer than you now assume. This tool has boards/kanban, which allows you to track work items. SharePoint Lists is great for creating a workflow, while you can even use PowerAutomate to make your system act as a workflow engine.
3. OnlyOffice Workspace
OnlyOffice DocSPace is a collaborative online workspace. Right off the bat, it’s worth mentioning that OnlyOffice Workspace has enterprise and community editions, with the former being a paid downloadable version of OnlyOffice.
So, comparing Microsoft 365 for individuals and enterprises would be only fair. In other words, it would take two separate comparisons in order to really see how these two collaborative suites fare against each other.
The home license of the OnlyOffice premium version is $150 for ten users (home license), which is enough only for the smallest of enterprises. The problem is that the home version doesn’t really replicate the features of Office 365. The enterprise version is for a minimum of 50 users, and it costs $1,500.
One thing you need to keep in mind is that Microsoft 365 has far more users than OnlyOffice, which means that whenever you encounter a rating or review of OnlyOffice, it will always be less impactful. With less than 100 reviews, it’s really down to randomness, and people using it are often in a niche that gives them a unique way to use the tool, whereas Microsoft 365 offers something else entirely.
4. Apache OpenOffice
Perhaps the most direct comparison yet, OpenOffice was originally envisioned as an open-source alternative to MS Office, a title it justifies until this day. The biggest difference here is in the cost. While some would argue that MS Office 365 does an overall better job and has more polished apps, there are some who would strongly disagree.
Each major MS app has an Apache OpenOffice alternative. For instance, instead of Word, it has Writer. Instead of Excel, it has Calc. Instead of PowerPoint, it uses Impress, etc. Overall, each of these apps is pretty decent and a choice to go with them as your main digital workplace arsenal probably won’t be a decision that you’ll come to regret.
You see, the interface of most OpenOffice apps is quite similar to that of their more famous counterpart. Nonetheless, long-time users of Office 365 and its predecessors will probably still be able to feel the difference.
Also, it’s worth noting that OpenOffice has lower system requirements and it might even provide easier file-sharing between platforms.
Keep in mind that Apache OpenOffice is a sort of a continuation of OpenOffice.org, but it’s just one of the derivatives, with the other one currently being Libre Office. Its other close cousins are NeoOffice and Collabora Online.
Wrap up
The main reason why this myth of Microsoft 365 not offering much perpetuated is because the majority of its users really focus on just 20-30% of its features. The rest goes unused or underused. This is where Google and some other alternatives shine, seeing as how they put most of their effort into the features that people are using the most heavily. Still, when you put all things into perspective, it’s beyond doubt that Microsoft 365 is still a top dog in 2024, and anyone claiming otherwise better have some hard data to support their claim.
