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Office 365 vs Symphony 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
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
145
Ranking in other categories
Content Collaboration Platforms (2nd)
Symphony
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Social Software (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Messaging and Collaboration solutions, they serve different purposes. Office 365 is designed for Content Collaboration Platforms and holds a mindshare of 8.8%, up 6.0% compared to last year.
Symphony, on the other hand, focuses on Enterprise Social Software, holds 7.6% mindshare, up 5.4% since last year.
Content Collaboration Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Office 3658.8%
Dropbox Business - Enterprise10.1%
Microsoft OneDrive for Business9.4%
Other71.7%
Content Collaboration Platforms
Enterprise Social Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Symphony7.6%
Slack Business - Enterprise15.5%
Microsoft Teams14.4%
Other62.5%
Enterprise Social Software
 

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.
Nenad Pejcic - PeerSpot reviewer
Makes tasks like network planning and performance monitoring much easier
I have experience with solutions from other vendors like Nokia, Huawei, and Tyson. The main pros of Symphony, in comparison, are the modules that provide a comprehensive overview and the automation features for planning data. These aspects are notably beneficial and stand out. On the downside, the major cons revolve around user customization. Unlike other vendors where you can create your reports and customize navigation, Symphony's user optimization in the SCAP module is limited. This lack of flexibility is a significant drawback, especially when compared to other solutions. Overall, while certain modules like those related to SolarWinds are straightforward and comparable, Symphony falls short in terms of user customization.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cloud-based management is valuable and software deployment is positive."
"The most valuable feature is the integration with OneDrive, which has allowed us, a small business, easy access to a cloud environment, with no need to back up the data from five different computers."
"Reliable without any glitches."
"The most innovative feature of Office 365 is the Power Apps, which allows us to automate literally everything that we want automated. For example, sending attachments to specific folders on SharePoint, adding people's SharePoint when certain apps are performed, or emailing certain people at certain instances, such as when you've done a follow-up with the CRM and you need a marketing email to be sent out at a particular point."
"The phone VoIP product provides genuine a unified communication solution."
"Office 365 has positively impacted my organization by making the salespeople more accurate because they've been able to use the features in Excel instead of relying on the calculator or adding machine, and some of the AI with writing and things with Word has helped improve things with that, too."
"Using Office 365 has allowed us to go digital and onboard people seamlessly for working at home during the COVID pandemic."
"The integration with other applications is pretty good."
"The entire product is good."
"Symphony and Laravel are the most comfortable frameworks for any developer. It is also lightweight."
"I found the RAM Commander module in Symphony to be the most valuable."
"The overall functions are good."
"The solution is user-friendly, and it is very good security-wise."
 

Cons

"I rate the support of Office 365 a four out of five."
"I'd like to see them add more features in the future in order to continue to advance the product."
"We have found that, with Teams, if you are including one more person who is not in the company ecosystem, supposedly I'm inviting them as a guest in the chat. However, when I do that, I can't share files."
"There are some complexities to the initial setup if you use some of the more advanced features."
"Improvements can be made to the products generic offering. It's not customized for health care. It doesn't understand the meaning of health care related concepts. Providing a greater degree of industry specificity would make the tool much more unique and valuable."
"Microsoft Word is a little bit left behind regarding the tools it has."
"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."
"One of the big changes is when Microsoft updates anything, they will switch where some of the settings are and where to find them, which becomes a little frustrating because you're used to it in one spot and it's someplace else."
"To improve the situation, enhancing the functionality for integrating with other applications and addressing ticketing issues is crucial."
"Compared to established vendors, it lacks user flexibility and customization, especially in the PM module."
"The solution needs to improve CI."
"The area that needs to be improved is modular asset management. When we are uploading the assets in bulk, it is not aligned."
"The solution is very expensive, and its pricing could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a license to use this solution. We have an E3 license which covers many different solutions."
"The price of Office 365 is very expensive."
"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."
"I would rate the solution 3 out of 5 for the price. I think Microsoft presents a good solution concerning the price."
"The pricing is good for all the features that we receive, e.g., Skype for Business."
"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."
"​The pricing/licensing is easy to manage."
"I think that we pay $9.99 USD per user, monthly."
"It's a costly product, but the number of available features justifies it."
"Symphony is expensive."
"It is fairly an expensive product, but works for us."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Government
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Performing Arts
7%
Financial Services Firm
63%
Retailer
4%
Venture Capital & Private Equity Firm
4%
University
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business62
Midsize Enterprise29
Large Enterprise68
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.
What do you like most about Symphony?
Symphony and Laravel are the most comfortable frameworks for any developer. It is also lightweight.
 

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
BNP Paribas, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Citi, Credit Suisse, JP Morgan Chase
Find out what your peers are saying about Dropbox, Microsoft, Google and others in Content Collaboration Platforms. Updated: September 2025.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.