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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
6.7
Number of Reviews
143
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 6.9%, up 5.9% compared to last year.
Symphony, on the other hand, focuses on Enterprise Social Software, holds 8.3% mindshare, up 5.5% since last year.
Content Collaboration Platforms
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

"Most of the work that seems not to work offline works perfectly with Microsoft Office 2013, like converting a Word document to a PDF file."
"We use it for documentation management, to collaborate with Microsoft Teams, web calls, web conference calls, chats, and as a documentation repository mainly. We have an Office pack suite to be able to write documentation, make spreadsheets, and create PowerPoints."
"The most valuable features of Office 365 are Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Teams. Teams helped us to collaborate more through its call and document sharing features."
"The products are quite simple for the end-users to use, the up-time is very good, the product is practically maintenance-free, and the multi-layer security is excellent from the security standpoint."
"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."
"Using Office 365 has allowed us to go digital and onboard people seamlessly for working at home during the COVID pandemic."
"The most valuable feature of Office 365 is automatic saving. If something happens on the computer your work is saved."
"Adaptable solution with a good interface. It's easy to set up and easy to use."
"The entire product is good."
"The solution is user-friendly, and it is very good security-wise."
"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."
 

Cons

"The one big problem with the solution is if you are presenting in Teams and someone puts their hand up, you don't get a notification. If you are running a meeting and just presenting you don't know that people have their hands up and want to ask a question."
"A need that a company like ours has is that we want to be able to have data flow into one tool, for example, for all the management of tasks through the company and workflow of who is doing what and so on. There are no real solutions for this at the moment in Office 365. It would be nice if they could implement this in the next release, so we can have one solution from one company giving us the whole data and flow of data into the company."
"Constantly evolving with new features, which can be challenging for users."
"In terms of improvement, it should have tutorials when you first have the opportunity to use it, to be able to really learn it."
"Normally, they have a way to work with specific developments, and I think they shouldn't allow the partners to make some changes they have made. When I have a client with a lot of changes, we have a problem with that because there aren't rules to develop inside the ERP, so you can do anything."
"I would like to see the macro functionality in Excel made simpler."
"Office 365 could be easier to use at first. Tutorials are needed to know how to use the solution."
"I'm not sure if there are areas of improvement. For us, it's working quite well."
"Compared to established vendors, it lacks user flexibility and customization, especially in the PM module."
"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."
"The solution needs to improve CI."
"To improve the situation, enhancing the functionality for integrating with other applications and addressing ticketing issues is crucial."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"We have a license to use this solution. We have an E3 license which covers many different solutions."
"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."
"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."
"Licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis, or we prepay them."
"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
Educational Organization
56%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
63%
Computer Software Company
5%
University
4%
Venture Capital & Private Equity Firm
3%
 

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.
What do you like most about Symphony?
Symphony and Laravel are the most comfortable frameworks for any developer. It is also lightweight.
 

Comparisons

 

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, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in Content Collaboration Platforms. Updated: May 2025.
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