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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
6.0
Number of Reviews
150
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 (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 9.6%, up 5.7% compared to last year.
Symphony, on the other hand, focuses on Enterprise Social Software, holds 7.2% mindshare, up 5.3% since last year.
Content Collaboration Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Office 3659.6%
Dropbox Business - Enterprise10.1%
Google Workspace9.8%
Other70.5%
Content Collaboration Platforms
Enterprise Social Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Symphony7.2%
Slack Business - Enterprise15.8%
Microsoft Teams14.0%
Other63.0%
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

"It's inexpensive to license."
"The integration of co-pilot as part of M365 has made it easy to access support for common technical issues, saving time that would be used on trying to access prompt feedback following back-and-forth emails in getting the correct solution."
"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."
"It has more features than somebody would expect, and it is worth taking a deeper look into the features available."
"It's very stable."
"The most valuable feature of Office 365 is that it has many solutions bundled together."
"The solution is quite intuitive and easy to use."
"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."
"Symphony and Laravel are the most comfortable frameworks for any developer. It is also lightweight."
"The entire product is good."
"The overall functions are good."
"The solution is user-friendly, and it is very good security-wise."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Security is still complex, but the admin console improving."
"Office 365 could allow for smoother collaboration with other companies, which is the main reason we use it. The B2B connection is something we need, like global adverse lists between two tenants or multiple users. That's what we're missing at the moment."
"We have had some connectivity issues."
"Using Visual Basic, I have had a lot of trouble with relative paths when programming for Excel, and sometimes it is very difficult to debug programs."
"As a private user, I do not appreciate the cloud features, but I doubt that this is something Microsoft would consider a feature request."
"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."
"To improve the situation, enhancing the functionality for integrating with other applications and addressing ticketing issues is crucial."
"The solution needs to improve CI."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is high and has actually caused us to limit the number of licenses we purchase due to budgeting."
"Licensing, billing, and accounting are available from the management interface."
"I think that we pay $9.99 USD per user, monthly."
"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."
"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."
"Symphony is expensive."
"It is fairly an expensive product, but works for us."
"It's a costly product, but the number of available features justifies it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Performing Arts
7%
Educational Organization
6%
Financial Services Firm
66%
Retailer
5%
University
4%
Outsourcing Company
3%
 

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?
I didn't inquire about the specific costs of transitioning from the previous tools. However, I was informed that the cost of using the Microsoft ecosystem is higher than the combined cost of using ...
What needs improvement with Office 365?
I don't have any ideas off the top of my head at the moment about what I would improve about Office 365. I can't think of anything that frustrates me about the tools. I mentioned that I use Copilot...
What is your primary use case for Office 365?
We use the Microsoft Office 365 suite for personal purposes. We use Teams for communications, and we use Azure DevOps for some of our workflow management. I use Office 365 for Outlook for emails. I...
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 Microsoft, Dropbox, Google and others in Content Collaboration Platforms. Updated: October 2025.
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