Microsoft 365 vs Google Workspace

One of the most frequent questions we are asked at MBS is Microsoft or Google? This question is often asked as ministries consider Microsoft or Google for services like email, SPAM filtering, productivity apps like word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations and communication services such as video calls, chat and messaging.

Both offer charity donations for free use of their services and significant discounts for paid licensing for non-profits.

So, what’s the difference? Is one better than the other? While this is a bit of a loaded question, here are 3 distinctions worth considering.

Licensing

While both Microsoft and Google provide free charity and non-profit licensing there is a clear difference.  Remember, these free licenses are how Microsoft and Google choose which charities and non-profits they wish to donate to, much in the same way you choose which charities and non-profits to support financially with your money.

To determine who they support, each has set rules establishing who they will give their free software to.  If you are using the free version, these rules impact churches and ministries. If you are using the paid version, these rules do not apply.

God has allowed MBS to help ensure churches and ministries are able to use Microsoft 365 without any impact on their religious beliefs.  Google has stipulated in their free licensing certain terms with which your church or ministry may not be comfortable.  If so, use the paid version.

More information on these differences is available here.

From a paid perspective, both license per user and offer different levels of discounts for non-profits.  The decision should not be made solely based on what’s cheapest as these suites are critical to ministry operations.

In our opinion, Microsoft is the better choice when it comes to licensing.

Applications

Historically Microsoft was first with MS Word 1.0 in October 1983.  Google Docs was officially released in 2006. Microsoft was driving Word, and eventually its Office suite of products for business productivity back in the early days of PC development.

Generally speaking, since Microsoft was first, their suite is considered more feature rich but also a bit bloated in terms of navigation and ease of use. Google’s suite, being newer, appears more modern and can appeal to younger users but in general, the feature sets are similar enough to not be a significant factor in deciding which one to use.

The applications integration into the operating system are significant.  Since Microsoft makes both Office and Windows the integration is tight and provides many benefits.  That said, we support ministries using Google Workspace for email and then licensing Office for Word and Excel.

To overcome any integration issues, Google offers Chromebooks running Chrome OS which has a seamless integration with Google Workspace. It is important to note that both platforms work on both operating systems and both work on PCs and Macs.

In our opinion, Microsoft is the better choice when it comes to applications.

Data

Both platforms offer strict data policies and ensure the customer owns the data, not Google or Microsoft. The differences really come down to how each provider operates.

Microsoft released Office to help PCs in the early days be productive.  The early versions of Office were not cloud based as the cloud didn’t exist back then. Microsoft continues to develop and sell Office and Microsoft 365 as a business productivity suite.  Microsoft is a service company in the business of selling software.

While much younger, Google started as a data company.  Google’s search engine is heavily data driven and that data is what Google sells, both in terms of search engine results and advertising.

While your data is secure on both platforms, do you want your data and productivity suite with a tech company based on services or data? Even with all the protections in place there are aspects of operating any Google product or service that can make the customer feel like the product and not the user.

In our opinion, Microsoft is the better choice as a services company and not a data company.

At MBS, we try to be software agnostic. While we have our recommendations, we want to support what works best for your ministry, even if it may not be what we recommend.

The decision for which platform to use should not be taken lightly. It is an extreme drain on ministry resources to switch back and forth. If you’re currently deciding, here’s an article with tips on making software decisions that last. The principles for picking Church Management Software also apply to selecting a productivity suite.

For the reasons above, and others depending on your needs, we do recommend Microsoft over Google. However, we maintain proficiency on both platforms so we can serve as you’d like to be served.

Whether you agree with our recommendations or not, are you making a software decision that will last?  As always, we are here to help you decide, implement your decision, and support your goals.