Microsoft Teams vs. Google Workspace Comparison

Looking for a platform to optimize your team’s workflow?

You’ve probably come across Microsoft Teams and Google Workspace, two leading tools designed to boost collaboration and efficiency.

In this blog, we’ll compare their features in detail to help you decide which platform best aligns with your communication, collaboration, and productivity needs.

Read on to find out which one is right for your team.

Microsoft Teams vs. Google Workspace Comparison: Which Platform is Better?

What Is Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft Teams serves as a central hub for all team activities, streamlining communication and collaboration for in-house and remote teams.

As part of the Microsoft Office 365 suite and an alternative to Google Workspace, Microsoft Teams aims to boost team productivity and streamline workflows.

Microsoft Teams features

Microsoft Teams offers a variety of features, from chat and video conferencing to channels and file-sharing capabilities. Let’s explore each one.

1. Feature #1: Chat

Chat view on Microsoft Teams — *via* *Microsoft*

Microsoft Teams chat allows you to connect with people no matter where you are. With chat, you can:

Engage in one-on-one and group conversations
Create threads to keep discussions organized
Use @mentions to get someone’s attention
Share files and images directly in the chat
Bookmark important conversations to view them again later
Set up notifications for important or urgent messages

2. Feature #2: Teams and channels

Microsoft Teams offers dedicated spaces for your company’s teams or departments to collaborate. Within these spaces, members can discuss everything from product launches to strategies. Set up a group for a more focused environment, so members can work exclusively on specific projects or topics within a dedicated space.

Ultimately, Teams’ features help you streamline communication and collaborate with team members easily.

Read More: Microsoft Teams Hacks

3. Feature #3: Video and audio conferencing

Microsoft Teams video call — *via* *Microsoft*

Microsoft Teams’ video and audio calling features let you connect with your team from anywhere in the world.

With these features, you can:

Schedule online meetings, set the agenda, and share invites
Dial in to join only the audio portion of a meeting if you choose
Dial out to add people to the meeting
Mute noise, designate presenters, and share your screen in the meeting
Enable real-time transcriptions so that the meeting is accessible
Make meetings creative and productive through Microsoft Whiteboards, where team members can brainstorm and work together creatively while on call
Create custom backgrounds
Host web conferences and webinars, where you can invite up to 1000 attendees
Record the meeting for team members who couldn’t attend

4. Feature #4: Task and document management

The Tasks app in Microsoft Teams brings tasks together from the Microsoft To Do and Planner applications. It provides you with a comprehensive view of your tasks and their deadlines. It also enables you to create, assign, and track tasks directly within Microsoft Teams.

Besides task management, Microsoft Teams’ integrations with the other programs of Microsoft 365 help you and your team with document management. For example, integrations with Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel allow you and your team to create and share documents, presentations, and spreadsheets within Teams.

Teams also integrates with SharePoint and OneDrive, which gives you and your team a secure, centralized place for storing, accessing, and managing files and documents.

Microsoft Teams pricing

Microsoft Teams Essentials: $4/user/month. In this plan, you get access to unlimited chat, phone, and web support, the capacity to host meetings for 300 participants, live captions in English, 10 GB of cloud storage per user, standard security, and more
Microsoft 365 Business Basic: $6/user/month. In addition to everything in Microsoft Teams Essentials, you get access to the capacity to manage 300 users, spam and malware filtering, 10+ additional apps, 1 TB of cloud storage per user, and more
Microsoft 365 Business Standard: $12.50/user/month. In addition to everything in Microsoft 365 Business Basic, you get access to collaborative workspaces to co-create, video editing and design tools, attendance registration and reporting capabilities for webinars, and more
Microsoft 365 Business Premium: $22/user/month. In addition to everything in Microsoft 365 Business Standard, you get access to advanced, high-quality meetings and webinar hosting capabilities, AI capabilities, advanced security, and more

What Is Google Workspace?

Google Workspace is a productivity suite for personal and business use. With its intuitive interface and comprehensive set of applications, it enhances teamwork and streamlines business processes.

As a prominent alternative to Microsoft Teams, it is designed to boost collaboration, communication, and productivity within and across teams in your organization.

Google Workspace features

Google Workspace offers a variety of features and tools, from Google Chat and Meet to Google Drive and Groups. As you can expect, it integrates perfectly with Google sites. Let’s explore them one by one.

1. Feature #1: Google Chat and Gmail

Google Chat allows you to enter into a one-on-one conversation or create a group chat. As one of the best team chat apps, it allows you to:

Send messages directly to your team members
Add emojis, reactions, and gifs to messages
Tag a particular team member
Attach and share files and other documents

Apart from Chat, Google Workspace provides another competent business messaging app—Gmail. As a widely used email service, Gmail allows you to handle and manage both formal and informal conversations with team members, clients, and stakeholders. It lets you categorize inboxes, organize emails with labels and filters, and set up notifications for important emails.

2. Feature #2: Google Spaces and Groups

Google Spaces, a feature within Google Chat, provides dedicated areas for teams to collaborate on specific projects or topics. In Google Spaces, team members can:

Share messages and files relevant to their work
Organize discussions around particular themes
Assign and track tasks

This functionality allows you and your team members to collaborate in an organized and focused manner and enables effective project management.

In addition to focused chatting spaces, Google Suite or Workspace facilitates email-based discussions through Google Groups. It allows you to create forums where team members can participate in threaded conversations, share information, and manage group communications through email.

3. Feature #3: Google Meet

Google’s video conferencing feature, Google Meet, allows you to organize video and audio-based meetings with your team members. It enables you to:

Start instant meetings and share meeting links
Schedule meetings to be held at a later date
Share your screen and present files, documents, and presentations
Record meetings to keep a log of everything
Apply virtual backgrounds and visual effects to hide your real background
Include live captions to make meetings accessible to every member
Stream meetings live for company-wide events, such as workshops, training, conferences, etc.

4. Feature #4: Task and document management

Within the Google Workspace, Google Tasks and Google Calendar facilitate task management. These tools allow you to create and manage daily, weekly, and monthly to-do lists and keep track of tasks against their deadlines.

Apart from task management, collaboration tools like Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides help you with document creation and management. They let you and your team create, edit, and format documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in real time.

Of course, there’s also Google Drive’s storage functionality. With it, you can store and manage important files and documents in a centralized place.

Google Workspace pricing

Business Starter: $6/user/month. In this plan, you get access to a custom and secure business email, the capacity to host meetings for 100 participants, 30 GB of pooled storage per user, security and management controls, and more
Business Standard: $12/user/month. In addition to everything in Business Starter, you get access to shared drives, the capability to hold meetings for up to 150 participants and record them, 2 TB of pooled storage per user, and more
Business Plus: $18/user/month. In addition to everything in Business Standard, you get access to attendance tracking capabilities, the capacity to host meetings for up to 500 participants, advanced administrative controls, 5 TB of pooled storage per user, and more
Enterprise: $25/user/month. In addition to everything in Business Plus, you get access to the capacity to hold meetings for up to 1000 participants, noise cancellation and live streaming capabilities, advanced compliance and security controls, and more

Google Workspace vs. Microsoft Teams: Features Compared

Both Microsoft Teams and Google Workspace offer tools for communicating and collaborating with your team and enhancing overall productivity.

But which one excels in meeting your business needs? Let’s dive into a feature-by-feature comparison to see which platform stands out.

Feature #1: Communication

When it comes to communication, both platforms offer solid chat features. Similar to Microsoft Teams chat and its integration with Outlook, Google Workspace provides Google Chat and Gmail. Both platforms enable you to effectively start, manage, and track conversations with your team with advanced features, such as tagging, notifications, bookmarking, etc.

🏆 Winner: When it comes to communication, it’s a close call, but Google Workspace edges out Microsoft Teams with its user-friendliness and easy interface.

Feature #2: Collaboration

Compared to Google Workspace, Microsoft Teams excels in organizing groups for project management. While Google Workspace does offer tools like Google Space and Groups, Microsoft Teams’s teams and channels provide a more robust and structured solution for managing diverse projects within a single platform.

🏆 Winner: Microsoft Teams wins on collaboration thanks to its ability to assign tasks and manage projects right from the Teams interface.

Feature #3: Video and audio meeting hosting capabilities

Regarding hosting video and audio meetings, Microsoft Teams and Google Workspace compete fiercely. However, Microsoft Teams provides a much larger attendee capacity at a lower cost than Google Workspace.

🏆 Winner: This is a tie. Because while Google’s meeting interface is superior, if you’re expecting several hundred attendees at a meeting, Teams is the better choice.

Feature #4: Task and document management

Both Microsoft Teams and Google Workspace offer robust task and document management functionalities; however, Teams excels with its unified approach.

🏆 Winner: Microsoft Teams takes the task and document management prize. It integrates seamlessly with the Microsoft 365 suite of tools, providing a more cohesive experience for large businesses to track tasks, collaborate on documents, and securely store files.

Google Workspace vs. Microsoft Teams on Reddit

We turned to Reddit to gauge people’s opinions about the Microsoft Teams vs Google Workspace debate.

MS Teams is great not just for audio but also for video calls. You can record your video meetings and as opposed to Google chat, the video is saved and available in the channel where it was recorded right in the conversation thread.

Other users praise Google Workspace for its email, scheduling, and audio calling capabilities:

Gmail is excellent. It even includes a meeting scheduler now (think Calendly). Google Meet is excellent for audio calls.

For those considering flexibility and scalability on a budget, Reddit users suggest starting with Google Workspace and then transitioning to Teams as you scale:

Start with Google Workspace and Slack, it’s a more flexible (and likely cost-effective) choice than MS. Once you have 20+ employees and require better centralized IT, then MS becomes a more appealing option.

💡 Pro Tip: Master your workday with these practical time management tips to boost your productivity.

Meet ClickUp: The Best Alternative to Microsoft Teams and Google Workspace

Microsoft Teams and Google Workspace excel in their own distinct ways. However, if you’re exploring more advanced options to support your team’s evolving workflow, meet ClickUp.

As an all-in-one productivity platform, ClickUp is designed to meet the communication, collaboration, and project management needs of individuals and organizations of all sizes.

Let’s take a close look at ClickUp’s features and see how they compare with those of Microsoft Teams and Google Workspace.

ClickUp’s One Up #1: ClickUp Chat, Clips, and other features

ClickUp Chat

ClickUp 3.0 Chat menu expanded — *Communicate easily with your team members using ClickUp Chat*

Bring team communication under one roof with ClickUp Chat. This feature allows you to engage in one-on-one and group conversations with your team members.

This asynchronous communication tool enables you and your team to:

Add emojis and reactions to conversations
Add members to conversations and draw a team member’s attention to a task with @mentions
Keep track of comments that require action with ClickUp’s Assign Comments feature
Customize notifications so that you never miss any important information or updates
Format messages with rich editing tools
Share project links, files, and documents directly in chats

ClickUp Clips

ClickUp Clips makes communication with your team members a breeze. It allows you to record your screen and share your ideas clearly. You can embed and share a clip anywhere in ClickUp. For example, you can embed it in a conversation or on a whiteboard and share it using a downloadable video file or a public link with team members.

The uses of ClickUp Clips don’t end here. You can attach them to task descriptions to turn them into actionable tasks and provide feedback by adding comments to the clip.

ClickUp’s One Up #2: ClickUp Meetings and AI notes

ClickUp’s notable feature, ClickUp Meetings, helps you manage your meetings easily. It allows you to integrate with a number of meeting tools, schedule meetings, manage and track agendas (with checklists), and document meetings with ease.

ClickUp Summarize feature for Meeting Notes — *Summarize meeting notes, agendas, and much more with ClickUp Brain*

💡 Pro Tip: Meetings often demand time-consuming note taking, but with AI-powered tools like ClickUp Brain, you can reclaim that time. This smart tool effortlessly generates meeting notes, agendas, summaries, tasks, and project updates—customized to fit your team’s needs.

ClickUp One Up #3: Task and document management

ClickUp Tasks

ClickUp 3.0 Task view Due dates — *Plan and manage tasks for different projects easily with ClickUp Tasks*

Plan, organize, and manage tasks for any project with ClickUp Tasks. This tool enables you to:

Create, assign, and set deadlines for tasks and sub-tasks
Customize tasks and track their progress with custom tags and priority levels
Add context to your tasks with files, links, etc.
Link related and dependent tasks
Visualize your work by adding tasks and subtasks to multiple Lists

ClickUp Docs

ClickUp Docs is the perfect solution for your team’s document management needs. It allows you and your team to:

Create documents for a variety of projects
Work together in real time on the same document
Format your document with rich editing and formatting features
Convert text into trackable tasks
Share your files and documents easily and securely

ClickUp: The Answer to the Microsoft Teams vs. Google Workspace Debate

Modern workforces need the best tools for communication, collaboration, and project management to thrive in today’s competitive landscape.

Compared to Microsoft Teams and Google Workspace, ClickUp is an all-in-one app that offers a robust set of tools for all your business’s complex workflows. With ClickUp Chat, ClickUp Tasks, and ClickUp Brain, you gain a well-rounded solution for your team’s communication, collaboration, and project management needs.

Questions? Comments? Visit our Help Center for support.

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Microsoft Teams vs. Google Workspace: A Comparison

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