Google Workspace vs. Microsoft 365: Making the Right Choice for Your Business

If you’re starting a business, one of the first tech decisions you’ll make is choosing between Google Workspace and Microsoft 365. Both offer the essentials: email, file sharing, spreadsheets, video calls, and collaboration tools. But which one is right for you?

In this episode, we break down the similarities, the differences, and the things that actually matter when making this decision. From promotions to long-term compatibility, we share how to pick one without overthinking it and why switching later is harder than you think.

We cover:

• Why functionality is nearly the same across both platforms
• Why preference and familiarity often matter more than features
• The pros and cons of Google’s collaboration vs. Microsoft’s power tools
• How promotions from your hosting provider can influence your choice
• Why Excel power-users tend to prefer Microsoft 365
• How to think about the bigger picture if your business involves tech development

This isn’t a decision to stress over. It’s about making a choice, sticking with it, and moving forward confidently.

Need help choosing and setting up the right tech stack for your business? Book a free strategy call with us. We’ll help you decide, implement, and optimize the tools that keep your business running smoothly.

“Google is great for sharing. Microsoft is great for power users. Both get the job done.” – Anna Angelova

Transcript for “Google Workspace vs. Microsoft 365: Which Should You Choose?”

The transcript below was automatically generated. Please ignore any errors or inconsistencies in the text.

Anna Angelova   0:04
Yeah, Friday. And I think I hear an echo. So this is the more than just us management, your favorite daily podcast where we help you build a driving business.

Jores Minasvand   0:08
Happy Friday.
So.

Anna Angelova   0:19
If you are a regular listener, you know I’m Anna Angelova, business coach and consultant, co-host of this podcast, and your favorite co-host is here with me, Joris Minosvan. Hey, Joris.

Jores Minasvand   0:33
Happy to be here. Happy Friday, Friday before long weekend. Most people are probably snoozing or taking the day off as a last long, long, long weekend of the summer. But here we are chugging away on helping small and medium businesses become healthy and stay.
Stay healthy. So on that note, what is the topic of the day today? What are we talking about?

Anna Angelova   1:01
Today we are discussing how to choose between Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, and this is something that I mentioned it yesterday. If you are an established business, you probably don’t really need to choose between these two because you’re probably already using something. But if you’re starting, chances already you might.
I might be wondering, do I choose one? Do I choose the other? So which one do you pick? And you want to start, Joris? Go ahead.

Jores Minasvand   1:33
Well, personally I’ve been using office products since the inception I think in the when the dinosaurs were in the earth. So I think to me if you’re just taking example for Excel for example.
I don’t like the Google Excel or the online version. Even when I when I use Office and I go to Teams, I open an Excel in Teams, the online version. It is not the full-featured. Maybe it’s because I’ve been using it.
For, like I said, for decades now, and I like the the features and the autonomy of of the online version. But for example, my daughter, she’s a millennial. She loves everything. She even has has the Google on on her phone.
So you she said Google Docs on her phone. She loves. She doesn’t know the difference. She doesn’t realize the difference. So I think it’s the matter. It’s a matter of choice. And what are you comfortable with and how much of the features do you want?
To use I think online. I don’t think online versions. Maybe they are getting better, better, have the features, but I find them a little clunky to use. I don’t know why it’s me again my age, but I love the full version Office 365.
And I will live by that. Yeah, I I I don’t think there are any differences with the features, like from like a major difference. Some features are available, some features function better.
I find also the user experience, the way you navigate and click and drag and and copy and paste or or use formulas and all that or edit. I think for me online version works better Office 365 but again I think it’s a it’s a matter of if you start with Google.
Version. I don’t think there is any problem with that. I think that’s a pretty good. It will work for you, but ultimately it’s a matter of and it’s also I think what you mentioned Anna, once you start with one, make sure that you choose the right one because I don’t think you can switch over.
It’s not gonna be easy.

Anna Angelova   3:54
Oh yeah, switching over is a nightmare and for anything right for for a lot of things like it’s a nightmare. So absolutely what I’d say is a lot of it comes down to preference and when you are used to one or the other it it’s a good point like it’s like.
I I like working with this one. I want to stick with it because price wise more so more or less they are the same. Now sometimes there are promotions like for example.
I remember when we switched to Bluehost, so we are again no affiliation or anything like this. We moved from GoDaddy to to Bluehost for the website and Bluehost was running. They had some kind of an agreement I guess with Microsoft so so they were actually.
Promoting Microsoft Office and Microsoft 365 as a solution for businesses after that, and I think it’s been at least a year, maybe more that they’re not promoting. It’s not even. I’m not even able to them. I was not even able to find the Microsoft offer anymore.
Now they’re promoting and they’ve been promoting the Google workspace. And if you don’t have a preference, I would say again functionally with the major things, both of them provide the major functionalities, both of these workspaces provide.
Version of Excel or a spreadsheet. They provide a Word document, right? They provide whether it’s Teams or Google Meets. They provide a way for you to meet and host even.
Meetings with more people and all these different tools. They’re available in both spaces. They provide also servers, mail servers, so you can have professional e-mail, so if you don’t have preference.
And there is some kind of a promotion that let’s say your your cost provider, your website hosting provider is running. You can go with this, you can go like as I said, Bluehost, if I’m not mistaken, is still offering some kind of a promotion like 50% off for the first few months for Google.
Workspace. You can go with this. I would say we’re not, but personally we’re not.
Like, yes, we are both used to.
The Microsoft tools and I agree that in a lot of aspects like Excel is a tool that this is one of the things Excel and and e-mail have cued more more software applications and ideas than anything else because Excel is so powerful and it can do so many things.
So personally, we both prefer the Office 365 because we’re used to it. I even remember from high school even this is what we had. This is what we used. Now when it comes to using this on an Apple product, of course, probably both.
We’ll face some problems. If you have an iPhone or something like this, who knows? The Google products are probably not working well. The Microsoft products are probably also buggy. It is what it is. So yeah, I would say in addition just to what you said, considering.
Financially, of course, considering if there is a promotion, you might want to go with the one that’s being promoted if you don’t have any kind of specific preference. But in general, both of them give you the the necessary functions to run your business.
The necessary functionality to share things with people as well. Now when it comes to sharing in some aspects, Google might be a little bit better because a lot of people have Gmail and like when you share something, a document on SharePoint with Microsoft, sometimes it can be a little bit.
It’s hard for people to access it, but when you share things so on Google Drive, like the Business Google Drive, you have people with Gmail usually don’t have problems accessing this, so there might be a bit of this involved.
But in general, all the necessary things that you need to run your business are there. And again, it’s more towards preference, your personal preference. And then of course, like you can think about in terms of the business you’re building as well, like both provide like both.
Google and Microsoft, they have a lot of other things, right? You’re familiar with a lot of these things like Microsoft has Azure, Google has the Google Cloud GPC and then also in terms of being able to develop applications and things like this Microsoft.
Google has their stack, Google has their stack. So they both offer a lot of other things that go beyond the office and workspace. So you might want to think actually consider the bigger picture of your business, what type of business you have, what you’re running.
Whether you might want to if if your business is some kind of a techie business where you are actually developing an application, maybe an application that is like will be an Android on Android phones and things like this. Maybe Google is the path for you if you are developing it with.
The open source and some things like this, but then if you are developing something that’s more with the Microsoft tools, then Office 365 might be for you.

Jores Minasvand   9:52
Yeah, I think it’s a very simple case. Pick one and run with it. Very simple.

Anna Angelova   10:22
So yeah, in general, again, I would say they both provide e-mail, they both provide file sharing, they both provide spreadsheets, slides, right as well, like creating slide cloud storage.
They now they all then provide both of them provide some kind of um.
A I solutions, right? Copilot, Gemini. Now some of these are additional, right? With Microsoft, if you want to sign up for Copilot, it’s additional, like it’s an additional service and.

Jores Minasvand   10:50
Yeah.

Anna Angelova   11:02
It’s something that again, you might want to consider and see what’s going on. They do have. Again, both of them has have features that is really designed to help you run your business, communicate, collaborate effectively.
And again, it really depends on also how many users you have and what plan you actually really want to use for your own solution and.
I do think that Microsoft 365 provides a little bit more sophisticated functionality.
But again, if you’re not used to it, Google might be the path for you. But anyway, both are good. And the other thing is that with anything else, both of them can be also tested like you can or the test like you use a free trial.

Jores Minasvand   11:49
E.

Anna Angelova   12:00
And see how each product works and whether you want to invest on one or choose the other. But again, the differences are not that big and I would say don’t sweat too much on this.
If you have a personal preference, go with this. If not, go with the one that has a promotion or the one that based on your business plan, the one that suits you and move forward. This is just one small step in your whole journey.

Jores Minasvand   12:33
Absolutely. And like we said yesterday, opposite of what we said yesterday, don’t panic. Yesterday we told you to panic, but today don’t panic. It’s just a simple choice and choose one and move on, yeah.

Anna Angelova   12:34
So.
Yeah, and The thing is that there’s no right or wrong here. Don’t worry. Yeah, yeah, even if you choose the Google workspace, but then you end up building something that involves Azure or or Microsoft coding and things like this, this thing can be.

Jores Minasvand   12:50
No, I don’t know.
The preference.

Anna Angelova   13:04
Done. It’s not. It’s not a problem. Mm-hmm.

Jores Minasvand   13:07
E.

Anna Angelova   13:11
Right. Thank you, Joris. And this is it for this week. Keep it short and sweet for a Friday before the long weekend. And although it’s a long weekend, we are a daily podcast. So tomorrow we are back with a review of what we talked about this week.
And then Sunday we will be kicking off another week. So remember to join us. If you have not subscribed yet, subscribe and we’ll be back tomorrow with the recap of the week. Now go enjoy the last Friday of August.
Time flies, only that’s why.

Jores Minasvand   13:46
It does fly.
Thank you, Anna. Bye.