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Office 365 vs ownCloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Office 365
Ranking in Content Collaboration Platforms
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
143
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ownCloud
Ranking in Content Collaboration Platforms
20th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Content Collaboration Platforms category, the mindshare of Office 365 is 6.9%, up from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ownCloud is 0.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Content Collaboration Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Gary Cook - PeerSpot reviewer
Access to advanced features boosts productivity despite pricing concerns in developing regions
I need to do maintenance for Office 365 very seldom, once a year. In the maintenance process for Office 365, we have about 12 people involved. For the maintenance side of Office 365, only one person is involved. Looking at Office 365's pricing, I would give it a 4 on a scale from 1 to 10. My overall rating for Office 365 is an 8 out of 10, but for the product itself, I would give it a 10. I would definitely recommend Office 365 to other businesses, probably a 9 out of 10 for recommendation. This is only because of its price and the fact that they do not take into account developing countries such as South Africa, where they should give us more favorable prices or local prices. We do not have a partnership with Microsoft, which is a sore point for us. We have reached out to Microsoft South Africa, and they are very hard to contact and largely uncooperative. We are a B-Level 2 and a B-Level 1, which are local affirmative action ratings that companies get. Level 1 is the highest, and Level 8 is the lowest. We hold amongst the highest BEE ratings, but we have not found Microsoft South Africa to be forthcoming or very open. We should have a partnership with them, and we run Power BI as we are a Power BI shop now. I strongly would want to see a box within Office 365 for our team to have ChatGPT through OpenAI as well. We use Excel as a data source for many tasks and find that it integrates really well with Python. We write a lot of Python code and use Excel as a data sheet many times, and we operate through SQL and other zero elements as well. From an Office 365 viewpoint, we find that with Copilot and Python and Excel's provision for Python, it is very useful.
SC
Self-hosted file sync tool used to deploy custom web UIs.
I think it’s probably the best self-hosted file sync tool on the market. It’s a full web application platform, an indispensable tool for a business of any size that needs to deploy any kind of custom web UI. If you build an ownCloud app, you’ve got authentication, storage, security, caching, and database layers already fully baked for you. You just need to build your UI and custom logic. Your app doesn’t even need to interact with files, sync, or interact with other ownCloud features. Any web UI can be included without ownCloud. It can even be a portal to web interfaces of other applications within a business using the external app to display external sites within ownCloud. This is the case as long as that site allows itself to be displayed within a frame.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is stable."
"The integration with other applications is pretty good."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the integration."
"The functionality that is most valuable is the solution's ability to detect patient data in email attachments. Whenever a user sends out an email with patient data embedded in an attachment, it triggers an alert. The tool can detect a social security number and various other forms of patient identity. Emails are then automatically generated and sent."
"The way the ERP presents information for the user is very good."
"The solution is quite intuitive and easy to use."
"There are no more server and hardware operational costs and downtime, updates, etc. for all the workloads available. Newer features and updates are available immediately. Can be managed from a single web interface. Cloud-based, so same experience for all users, regardless of location."
"​Great impact on project management and team collaboration."
"I think it’s probably the best self-hosted file sync tool on the market."
 

Cons

"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 could use some customization, but this area for improvement is trivial."
"I rate the support of Office 365 a four out of five."
"Security is still complex, but the admin console improving."
"Sometimes the synchronization between the desktop and online is a little bit slow."
"In terms of improvement, it should have tutorials when you first have the opportunity to use it, to be able to really learn it."
"Data protection and email security are almost the same for all the organizations, irrespective of their segment (SMB or enterprises), with standard subscription at least basic Data loss prevention and Advance threat protection can be enabled for SMB segments, it is available in enterprise version / Premium versions."
"The integration with mobile services is not so good. It's coming, but they could improve a lot."
"It would be a fantastic opportunity if their solution could be used in combination with VoIP software, allowing you to combine VoIP software and Office 365 on a single platform."
"Even with fast disks, it still takes a fair bit of time to write most schema changes to multi-GB tables."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Most of the time, we purchase Microsoft Exchange licenses, which are less expensive and provide only an email platform and 50 gigabytes of email storage for free."
"Licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis, or we prepay them."
"For the moment, we are paying on a monthly basis because we are still adapting the support and how we want to proceed. I think we will move to paying for the annual license."
"Good reporting and good value subscriptions for international calls."
"The pricing is not really high, but one can get the software with the license key for free."
"I think that we pay $9.99 USD per user, monthly."
"Licensing, billing, and accounting are available from the management interface."
"The pricing is high and has actually caused us to limit the number of licenses we purchase due to budgeting."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
46%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Manufacturing Company
5%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Office 365?
For pricing, I think it's fairly priced, I would rate it 8.
What needs improvement with Office 365?
The areas of Office 365 that have room for improvement are what should be better in this solution.
What is your primary use case for Office 365?
A typical use case for Office 365 is how I primarily use this solution.
Ask a question
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Comparisons

No data available
 

Also Known As

Microsoft Office 365, Office 365 Enterprise, Office 365 Enterprise E1, Office 365 Enterprise E3, Office 365 Enterprise E5, Office 365 ProPlus, Office 365 Business, Office 365 Business Essentials, Office 365 Business Premium, Office 365 F1
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Me & the Bees Lemonade
CERN, Joy Global, Sciebo, Bauhaus, datto
Find out what your peers are saying about Dropbox, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in Content Collaboration Platforms. Updated: July 2025.
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