Nowadays, everyone wants to switch to the Cloud due to its scalability and reliability. Amongst all, Google Apps and Exchange Online both are suites of productivity tools, which help to perform business tasks. These services will allow creating documents, presentation, and spreadsheets. They are capable to collaborate with all team members, also provide video conferencing and cloud storage. Thus, it is very difficult to choose one service between Office 365 and Google Apps. In the following segment, we will compare Exchange Online vs Google Apps and explain which one is better for business purpose. Before moving further, let us know about Exchange Online and G Suite in brief.
Quick Glance on Microsoft Exchange Online vs Google Apps
Most of the Organizations are using cloud-based services to advance their business goals. Both Office 365 & G Suite are the most popular collaboration suites among them. Please have a look:
- Exchange Online: It offers an inexpensive monthly plan starts with just four dollars per user per month. There is a large mailbox storage up to 50 GB and users can send messages to each user up to 150 MB in size. It integrates with Microsoft Outlook, even when using a cloud-based version. It supports both iPhone and Android mobile.
- G Suite: As everyone knows, Gmail is just a part of Google Apps for the business suite. It is a cloud-based emailing service so, data to be stored safely. But, Gmail inbox storage capacity is smaller than Exchange Online. That’s why everyone wants to prefer Exchange Online instead of Google Apps.
Office 365 vs. Google Apps: What’re the Differences?
Now, we are going to compare both cloud-based services according to some factors. After this, you will understand both applications and you will decide which one is the most suitable for you. Now let’s take a look at the differences over Exchange Online vs G Suite:
| S. No. | Parameters | Exchange Online | Google Apps |
| 1. | Productivity Applications | Exchange Online offers Word, Excel, OneNote, Skype for Business, Publisher, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access Complete professional suite with some advanced features. | Google Apps provides many cloud services like Google Docs, Sheets, Forms, Sites, Slide, Keep, Calendar, Gmail, Hangouts, Complete suite with less professional features. |
| 2. | Accessibility | It is available on the desktop as well as mobile (can be installed on more than 5 devices) and also available online. | It is only the web-based application. Does not support desktop versions. It is available for offline work and mobile applications. |
| 3. | Synchronization | Emails, contacts and calendar are automatically synchronized on every device using ActiveSync. | Emails, contacts, and calendar, are automatically synchronized across all devices using Microsoft’s ActiveSync. |
| 4. | Pricing | Exchange Online offers different pricing options. Enterprise Level E3 is $20 per user per month, which involves cloud and desktop applications, unlimited email storage with 50GB, unlimited users, and 24*7 web and mobile support. | Google Apps provides two plans, for business $10 and $ 5 per user per month that includes a complete online product suite, unlimited Cloud storage with 1TB per user, and 24*7 Web, phone & chat support. |
| 5. | Collaboration | Skype for instant email messaging and online meetings. Microsoft Teams available for chat-based workspace. |
Google Talk for instant messaging and Google Hangouts for the video conferencing. Even Hangouts does not support file sharing through IM or preloading of slides. |
| 6. | Privacy Policy | Microsoft’s privacy policy assumes they cannot scan your data or provide relevant information to third parties. | Google’s Privacy Policy defines they can use the data that they collect from you for advertising purposes. |
| 7. | Email services | Exchange Online provides 50 GB additional space for the inbox and 1 TB OneDrive for Business storage per user. | Google Apps supports 30GB of storage limit in Gmail, Google Drive and Picasa. |
| 8. | Flexibility | Multiple plans available for all requirements and sizes. | Same plans for different business sizes and needs. |
Note: “If users want to migrate to Office 365 from Google Apps, the most suitable solution would be Google Apps to Office 365 Migration tool for instant and safe data migration”.
Bottom Line
In this write-up, some of the major differences between Office 365 and Google Apps are discussed. After knowing the various aspects of both services, we have introduced the Exchange Online vs Google Apps comparison to make a better choice between the two. Users can choose any of the email services as per their need or comfort.
