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Google Workspace vs Microsoft Exchange Online comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Google Workspace
Ranking in Email Applications
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
102
Ranking in other categories
Wireless Email (2nd), Cloud Storage (6th), Content Collaboration Platforms (2nd)
Microsoft Exchange Online
Ranking in Email Applications
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of Google Workspace is 22.9%, down from 23.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Exchange Online is 14.1%, down from 15.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Applications
 

Featured Reviews

Sunil-Nair - PeerSpot reviewer
Email collaboration and accessibility have improved team productivity
The valuable features include the email service, email updates, and Google Drive. People are given email access to Google Drive. The team can share manual files and work accordingly. They can access different teams from anywhere, collectively putting files, sharing them, and managing them. Additionally, the manufacturing product does not require any downgrades. It works fine and continuously for the last three or four years. Users can access their emails from anywhere in their browser without a laptop or can directly access from Gmail. This is helpful for salespeople.
NancyHartman - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective collaboration achieved with versatile features and good customer service
There are always improvements needed. My personal issue with using OfficeSuite and the Exchange Server is that one has to cobble together a whole bunch of different applications. Therefore, a lot of scripting and programming knowledge is necessary. I am not an IT person; I am an educator, a trainer, a user. I want to get the work done. However, I find that the Exchange Server and possibly the way our company has set up access permissions require extensive programming knowledge. It might take six to eight weeks to get a programmer's time to build something, whereas I can use something like Smartsheet that will do everything I want without needing a programmer. Smartsheet is more end-user friendly compared to a Microsoft product. Microsoft believes an expert IT person should manage everything, however, I want to manage things on my own in a simplified way. That is not easy using the Exchange Server or Microsoft Office. It is not end-user friendly for development, and a programmer is needed. Once set up, using them as an end-user is fine. I find that the automations are not robust, and the FedRAMP systems are not robust. I have a few issues with Exchange and Office, but there's nothing I can do about it.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The security and privacy policies of G Suite make it efficient, and the organizational data is secure."
"The solution is easy to use, and you don't need a lot of knowledge for it."
"Reduces IT spend, freeing up cash for other areas: sales, marketing, recruitment, etc."
"The implementation was very easy."
"Google Mail lets you link a task to a specific email and add a reminder. That's helpful for reviewing your schedule. It's based on Slack, so you don't have these folders like in Microsoft mail. Using Slack instead of folders is a bit more intuitive. It's easier to find again a specific email than using Microsoft Suite. If you misplace things, it's much easier to find them because of Google's search capability."
"G Suite Enterprise provides many features, such as business increased search visibility, email address, and domain. It's a large whole ecosystem that is the major benefit. You can manage your whole team and have many tools. Over seven years, the solution has gone through some drastic upgrades and improvements which are done automatically, I do not have to manual upgrade."
"The collaboration features are valuable."
"The tool helps me keep a backup of old emails. Like everyone else, I love the Google search engine for searching emails on webmail. The Google Workspace connector for Outlook works well, so I have no issues with that."
"The solution generally works well. We can send and receive emails just fine."
"The overall usage was all good."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Exchange Online are spam filtering, 50 GB of email storage, good integration with Outlook, and ease of management."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Exchange Online is its performance."
"It is very manageable."
"Technical support is helpful."
"The best thing about Microsoft Exchange Online is that it's integrated with the Outlook application."
 

Cons

"Their tool called Sheets is the counterpart to Excel but it doesn't have the same functionality that Excel would have. So usually if somebody needs to go back to Excel or Office, it's because of Excel."
"For Google Docs, if you upload a Word document up to Google Docs, it could mess up your formatting quite a bit."
"The downloading options need improvement, particularly in converting and viewing data formats like PST and inbox formats easily."
"I am not a big fan of how Gmail organizes the mail. I find it complicated to see which mail from which users send at which date. Especially if there is a lot."
"G Suite could offer something a little more solid in terms of chat — something that is a little more like Slack and integrates with everything. But, unfortunately, the chat is very basic there. It doesn't offer that many features and feels like it doesn't belong there."
"The solution could always be more secure, although that doesn't affect me so much."
"The solution could improve by having more frequent updates."
"The initial setup is not intuitive at all."
"This product is too complex to use."
"The integration could be better if it could integrate well with other products and software."
"There is an annual enterprise subscription could improve by having more features."
"Exchange Online's scalability could be improved."
"I would prefer an anti-malware functionality in at least the basic version."
"Functionality wise, I can't really say it's improved from Exchange Online, I think it's not so much change on-premise. It's about the same. Other than that, it's the extra features that make a difference, really"
"The ActiveSync services and the mapping services could be improved."
"In the past, we had issues with DB in mailboxes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Google Workspace is reasonable. I pay less than 100 a month."
"It's low in cost as compared to Office 365. There is an annual licensing cost."
"Careful consideration should be given to the different licensing options and provisions should be made for additional applications that may be required for your particular business."
"We have purchased an annual subscription."
"The price of G Suite Enterprise is reasonable compared to HotSpot. I'm not going to say G Suite Enterprise is affordable. It's valuable, you find value in paying your gas bill or your electricity bill, because of what it allows you to do."
"I rate Google Workspace's pricing five to six out of ten. We do not pay any extra costs."
"G Suite and Microsoft Office 365 offer products with similar functionality at several different price points. Zoho offer a more extensive range of products and attempts to provide all the applications required to run most small and medium-sized businesses."
"We pay a monthly subscription for the use of this solution."
"The licensing cost increased at least 15 to 20 percent recently and it would be helpful for them to be reduced."
"There is a license required for the solution and it is paid annually."
"We bought some licenses, and some are within our package or partnership with Microsoft."
"This is an expensive solution."
"I have no opinion."
"The price of the license depends on a lot of factors, such as the number of licenses and company specifics."
"We pay per user per year for the cluster with over a thousand users."
"They have raised their prices, and obviously, it hits our customers. Some of them are deciding to step back from Office 365. For customers who have bought the annual subscription, they are moving to the monthly subscription."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Google Workspace?
Easy-to-build forms are allowing me to get feedback and information from my internal teams as well as from the customers very efficiently with the result data in structured manner.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Workspace?
I'm not satisfied with the cost because I feel these services should be free as they use our data.
What needs improvement with Google Workspace?
As far as Google Workspace is concerned, it is working fine for us. Our needs are fulfilled, so that's fine. However, integration with Microsoft Outlook could be improved. The new integration was i...
What do you like most about Microsoft Exchange Online?
The benefits are widespread and effective communication. We use Microsoft Teams for meetings within and outside our organization. Additionally, Teams can be used for chat, allowing us to track comm...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Exchange Online?
The pricing for Microsoft Exchange Online is quite reasonable, in my opinion. Many licensing options are available so that we can choose based on the customer's needs. For example, if a customer on...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Exchange Online?
There are always improvements needed. My personal issue with using OfficeSuite and the Exchange Server is that one has to cobble together a whole bunch of different applications. Therefore, a lot o...
 

Also Known As

G-Suite Enterprise, G-Suite, Google Apps for Business, G Suite Basic, G Suite Business, G-Suite Basic, G-Suite Business, Google Vault
Exchange Online, Exchange Online Plan 1, Exchange Online Plan 2, MS Exchange Online
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

There are over five million businesses that use Google Apps for Business worldwide. Some key customers include The Roche Group, National Geographic, American Red Cross, City of Los Angeles, Flight Centre, and Konica Minolta.
Bank Alfalah Ltd., Paderborn-Lippstadt Airport, Blue Star Infotech, Scitec Nutrition, Resolution Films, British Airways, Empire Cinemas, InnoGames
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Workspace vs. Microsoft Exchange Online and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.