Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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

"As an email provider, I believe Office 365 is the best email provider."
"The most valuable feature is the integration between net and mobile devices."
"Adaptable solution with a good interface. It's easy to set up and easy to use."
"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."
"If you have a global solution, you can go from one product to the other very easily. And then you can share data between all the different tools of Office which is good because participation and sharing is very good. That's the most important aspect of Office 365."
"It's nice that it's an all-in-one solution and everything is all in one place."
"I like Office 365's usability."
"Using Office 365 has allowed us to go digital and onboard people seamlessly for working at home during the COVID pandemic."
"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."
"The entire product is good."
"Symphony and Laravel are the most comfortable frameworks for any developer. It is also lightweight."
 

Cons

"Sometimes the synchronization between the desktop and online is a little bit slow."
"I would like to see better integration with Teams, and better usability with SharePoint."
"Microsoft Word is a little bit left behind regarding the tools it has."
"There are several additional features we would like to see, such as advanced features of SAN protection in Office 365. The main thing is the SAN protection; we would like to see a lot of advanced features added because we had a lot of spam attacks."
"It seems like every other week when we log into the administrative portals, it doesn't matter which one, it could be the active directory portal, it could be the exchange admin center or SharePoint admin center, it seems like Microsoft is consistently updating with new versions of the admin centers, which can be frustrating."
"The online applications have limited functionality compared to the local applications."
"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."
"It could be more user-friendly for inexperienced people."
"The area that needs to be improved is modular asset management. When we are uploading the assets in bulk, it is not aligned."
"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."
"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

"The pricing is good for all the features that we receive, e.g., Skype for Business."
"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/licensing is easy to manage."
"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 high and has actually caused us to limit the number of licenses we purchase due to budgeting."
"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."
"Good reporting and good value subscriptions for international calls."
"It is fairly an expensive product, but works for us."
"Symphony is expensive."
"It's a costly product, but the number of available features justifies it."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Content Collaboration Platforms solutions are best for your needs.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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.