No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Office 365 vs Symphony comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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
6.1
Number of Reviews
152
Ranking in other categories
Content Collaboration Platforms (1st)
Symphony
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Social Software (12th)
 

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 6.8%, down 10.1% compared to last year.
Symphony, on the other hand, focuses on Enterprise Social Software, holds 3.0% mindshare, down 6.6% since last year.
Content Collaboration Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Office 3656.8%
Box - Intelligent Content Management8.1%
Dropbox Business - Enterprise7.0%
Other78.1%
Content Collaboration Platforms
Enterprise Social Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Symphony3.0%
Slack Business - Enterprise9.6%
Atlassian Confluence7.1%
Other80.3%
Enterprise Social Software
 

Featured Reviews

BasilJiji - PeerSpot reviewer
System engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Collaboration has transformed how our teams work and Copilot now drives faster daily decisions
The interface for the security and compliance center could be simplified. It changes frequently, which can make it somewhat difficult for admins to stay up-to-date on where specific settings are located. The compliance center modification or improvement of Office 365 needs to be introduced. The rest of the features feel acceptable to me. The reason it is not a ten is because of the complexity of managing the vast array of admin settings, which requires a specialized IT team. Even though it meets industry standards for decent security compliance such as SOC and HIPAA, the complexity of managing the admin settings needs to improve.
Nenad Pejcic - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Professional Services Engineer at Aspire Technology
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

"Office 365 allows me to access documents and work on them much quicker, and I find it beneficial as it includes Outlook, which improves my workflow efficiency."
"I have found that Office 365 is one of the best tools for business continuity, for small companies."
"The most valuable features of Office 365 for me involve collaboration; my work requires collaboration with multiple people on Excel, PowerPoint, and Word, and we use real-time collaboration as well as asynchronous work, where I can continue from where someone else left off."
"I find Office 365 convenient and easy to use, primarily because I have been a Microsoft product user for a long time, and its user-friendly interface and consistent workflow across various Microsoft products are particularly notable."
"Everything about the solution is useful."
"I can recommend Office 365 to people because it allows them to concentrate on their core job while Microsoft handles any problems from the cloud."
"Office 365 is comprehensive with its functionalities, and I am not currently missing anything."
"It is excellent for any organization's business productivity."
"Symphony and Laravel are the most comfortable frameworks for any developer. It is also lightweight."
"The entire product is good, and the number of available features justifies its cost."
"The solution is user-friendly, and it is very good security-wise."
"The overall functions are good."
"The entire product is good."
"I found the RAM Commander module in Symphony to be the most valuable."
 

Cons

"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."
"There is no direct return on investment as IT is a cost center."
"The integration with mobile services is not so good. It's coming, but they could improve a lot."
"The cost is not very reasonable; the pricing could be more flexible, and features needed are sometimes only available at higher subscription levels not suited for our company size."
"The pricing is not very reasonable as it could benefit from being more flexible."
"From a performance point of view, Office 365 can be too slow, especially when used intensively, and it consumes too much memory, causing other applications to underperform."
"In terms of disadvantages in Office 365, the cost is something some people complain about because I live in South Africa and it is quoted in dollars."
"Office 365 can be improved by increasing support, which currently is not efficient and takes a lot of time to resolve issues."
"The solution is very expensive, and its pricing could be improved."
"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 needs to improve CI."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"​The pricing/licensing is easy to manage."
"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 price of Office 365 is very expensive."
"I would rate the solution 3 out of 5 for the price. I think Microsoft presents a good solution concerning the price."
"We have a license to use this solution. We have an E3 license which covers many different solutions."
"It is fairly an expensive product, but works for us."
"It's a costly product, but the number of available features justifies it."
"Symphony is expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Content Collaboration Platforms solutions are best for your needs.
920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Construction Company
15%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
39%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Media Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business62
Midsize Enterprise31
Large Enterprise70
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Office 365?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Office 365 is that it is moderate.
What needs improvement with Office 365?
Office 365 could be improved or enhanced in some ways. It would be better if it were more simple to find the points, or sometimes there are so many possible configurations that it makes you confuse...
What is your primary use case for Office 365?
Teams and Outlook are important for us, and Teams is central to our operations. I utilize Power Automate for streamlining repetitive tasks in our organization, but not for large tasks. For tasks su...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

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 Microsoft, Google, Dropbox and others in Content Collaboration Platforms. Updated: November 2026.
920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.