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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
6.2
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 (8th)
 

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 10.2%, up 4.9% compared to last year.
Symphony, on the other hand, focuses on Enterprise Social Software, holds 4.8% mindshare, down 6.9% since last year.
Content Collaboration Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Office 36510.2%
Google Workspace9.3%
Dropbox Business - Enterprise8.6%
Other71.9%
Content Collaboration Platforms
Enterprise Social Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Symphony4.8%
Slack Business - Enterprise11.2%
Microsoft Teams8.4%
Other75.6%
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

"I like Office 365's usability."
"The most beneficial aspect of Office 365 for me is its compatibility across companies, ensuring seamless communication and collaboration because the majority of people use the product."
"One of the main advantages of Office 365 is its widespread use, which makes it easier to collaborate on documents."
"Cloud-based management is valuable and software deployment is positive."
"Having everything in one place in Office 365, and all the apps integrate together with OneDrive, and the email management is pretty decent."
"The valuable features of Office 365 include easy integration with different platforms, and it's the standard solution because almost all people use this Microsoft Office solution."
"Teams is a really good collaboration tool; you can work basically at any part of the world and communicate and collaborate with anybody, as long as they are connected to the internet."
"The collaboration tools in Office 365 enhance my team's workflow immeasurably, and they are absolutely top class."
"The overall functions are good."
"The entire product is good."
"I found the RAM Commander module in Symphony to be the most valuable."
"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."
 

Cons

"Constantly evolving with new features, which can be challenging for users."
"It could be more user-friendly for inexperienced people."
"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."
"If two people update the same file, it causes issues."
"I'm not sure if there are areas of improvement. For us, it's working quite well."
"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."
"The online applications have limited functionality compared to the local applications."
"Integration between Outlook calendar and Google Calendar would be a good improvement since many of our team use Android phones and personal Gmail accounts as their main calendar application."
"The solution needs to improve CI."
"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."
"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

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

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
55%
Media Company
6%
University
6%
Retailer
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business62
Midsize Enterprise29
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 can be improved by increasing support, which currently is not efficient and takes a lot of time to resolve issues. It has been observed that support personnel often lack hands-on experie...
What is your primary use case for Office 365?
Email and collaboration are the main use cases for Office 365 at Omagi Media Labs. It is used for internal and external communication in daily work. Groups and Teams groups are created and used in ...
Ask a question
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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, Google, Dropbox and others in Content Collaboration Platforms. Updated: January 2026.
881,665 professionals have used our research since 2012.