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Office 365 vs Symphony comparison

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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

"As a package, Office 365 bundles many software together, making it a very compelling proposition."
"Office 365 has significantly enhanced collaboration and productivity through integrated tools like Teams, Excel, and Power BI."
"If you do not think about the money you have to pay to activate it, the tool offers good value and many applications, making it worth it."
"Microsoft 365 operates seamlessly in the background, allowing us to perform tasks across different Microsoft applications."
"Office 365 improves productivity and collaboration."
"So far, substantial savings of approximately 30 to 40 percent vs the old licensing model."
"It is excellent for any organization's business productivity."
"Office 365 significantly improves our operational efficiency by consolidating our phone system, file storage, and email into one ecosystem."
"The overall functions are 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 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 entire product is good."
 

Cons

"Performance-wise, Office 365 needs a lot of bandwidth. The problem is, the solution requires very high bandwidth and internet usage. Meaning, the desktop application consumes a lot of internet data. Sometimes, when the connection is slow, it won't work and it won't load. This is an area for improvement for Office 365."
"The stability for Office 365 is not very good, as the application sometimes closes without any information; the old version was much more stable."
"Task management needs to improve."
"As soon as I leave the school though, I'll lose access to Office 365, most of the work I've saved on the system."
"Office 365 could be improved in areas such as their collaboration functionality."
"I work on a Mac, and sometimes Outlook on Mac is pretty slow."
"Office 365 tools work very well on Windows, but there is still some lag when using Mac computers."
"Office 365 can be too heavy at times."
"The area that needs to be improved is modular asset management. When we are uploading the assets in bulk, it is not aligned."
"To improve the situation, enhancing the functionality for integrating with other applications and addressing ticketing issues is crucial."
"The solution needs to improve CI."
"Compared to established vendors, it lacks user flexibility and customization, especially in the PM module."
"The solution is very expensive, and its pricing could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 not really high, but one can get the software with the license key for free."
"The price of Office 365 is very expensive."
"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."
"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."
"The pricing is good for all the features that we receive, e.g., Skype for Business."
"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
Financial Services Firm
15%
Construction Company
15%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
39%
Comms Service Provider
6%
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...
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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.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.