But new business users will need to pay $50 per user per year, or $120 per user per year with advanced security and e-discovery features. It's still free for individual users, and existing business users on the free plan. The basic version of Google Docs used to be free for everyone, including business users, but Google changed its pricing structure in December. If your company is already using SharePoint, Web Apps require the purchase of an additional license. However, the basic plan does not include live support - for that, you'd need to upgrade to the $8 per user per month plan, which also comes with a SharePoint intranet. Businesses can sign up for Office 365 plans, which start at $6 per user per month for up to 50 users, and include online email and shared calendars, in addition to the Office Web Apps. Microsoft's Office Web Apps is free for individual users. Here's a feature-by-feature comparison of the two products. Both offer collaboration tools and mobile access. Just to be clear, Office Web Apps are not the same as Office on Demand, which is a streaming service that offers the full-featured Office software as part of an Office 2013 subscription.īoth the Microsoft and Google platforms allow the upload, import, and editing of existing Office documents, creation of new documents, and saving files in the familiar Office formats. The Word Web App, for example, is missing the autosave function and the Excel Web App doesn't allow users to freeze rows.

However, some Office Web Apps seems to be missing key components required for basic usability. (See a slideshow of 10 things we love/hate about each.) While overall, Google Apps offers more functionality, the Office Web Apps is starting to show promise, especially for companies committed to the Microsoft ecosystem, since Microsoft's platform makes it simple to open documents in the full, desktop-based Office software. The Microsoft apps now support printing, touch-screen tablets, and add some other previously missing features. However, Microsoft recently released an updated set of Office Web Apps, accessible to individual users from their SkyDrive accounts, and to business users through Office 365 and SharePoint. For years, folks looking for free online word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations have turned to Google Docs.

Google docs onenote equivalent