Office 2021 vs. Microsoft 365: How to decide on
Microsoft Office could also be the most typical productiveness software for company customers, but it surely’s not a one-size-fits-all suite. Here are the variations between Office 2021 and Microsoft 365 and how one can determine which is finest for you.
Microsoft
Microsoft Office is how billions of individuals world wide go to work and college, whether or not they do it from dwelling, an workplace, a classroom, or a mixture of any of these. This suite of productiveness instruments is utilized by individuals working in 106 languages in practically each nation on this planet, and it’s out there in variations for private, small enterprise, enterprise, and academic use.
But there’s multiple manner to purchase Office — or, quite, to purchase the license to make use of it. There’s the “perpetual” model of Office that’s out there as a one-time buy; essentially the most present model is Office 2021. Then there’s the subscription model that lives within the cloud and for which you pay a month-to-month or annual payment. When this model was launched in 2011, Microsoft known as it Office 365, later renaming it Microsoft 365 for private and small enterprise subscriptions. At the enterprise stage, each Office 365 and Microsoft 365 plans can be found. In this story, we’ll use “Microsoft 365” as shorthand for all “365” subscriptions except we’re referring to a particular plan.
Why select to purchase it a method and never the opposite? The reply may be complicated, particularly since every suite of instruments contains many of the identical purposes, give or take.
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Microsoft has made its desire clear: The firm believes that “the cloud will power the work of the future” and would adore it if everybody bought Microsoft 365. There are a number of incentives for doing simply that. But you’ve gotten choices.
Here’s assist deciding which model is best for you or your organization.
Microsoft Office: The choices
For private use
Office Home & Student 2021
$150, one-time buy to be used on one laptop
Includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote
Microsoft 365 Personal
$70 a 12 months or $7 a month (1 person, a number of units)
Includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, OneDrive, and Teams
Microsoft 365 Family
$100 a 12 months or $10 a month (5 customers, a number of units)
Includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneDrive, Teams, and Family Safety
For small companies
Office Home & Business 2021
$250, one-time buy to be used on one laptop
Includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook
Office Professional 2021
$440, one-time buy to be used on one laptop
Includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, and Access; works with Teams
Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise
$8.25/person/month (as much as 300 customers)
Includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneDrive, Publisher, and Access
Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Standard, and Premium
Plans vary from $6/person/month to $22/person/month (as much as 300 customers)
Tools included rely on the extent of your subscription. Desktop variations of Word, Excel, and different Office apps require a Standard plan or greater; the Basic plan gives solely internet and cellular variations. All plans embrace Exchange e mail internet hosting, OneDrive, and SharePoint. The Premium plan provides superior safety and administration options.
For enterprises
Office LTSC 2021
Available solely by means of quantity licensing
This Office title stands for Long Term Servicing Channel; that is the industrial model of Office 2021. According to Microsoft, it’s designed for regulated units that may’t settle for updates for safety causes and for techniques that don’t connect with the web. (Note, nonetheless, that it’s the one non-subscription model of Office out there for giant organizations.) Includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Access, and Publisher.
Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise
$12/person/month (as much as 5 units per person); annual dedication required
Includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, OneDrive, OneNote, Access, and Publisher.
Office 365 E1, E3, and E5
Plans vary from $10/person/month to $38/person/month; annual dedication required
Tools included rely on the extent of your subscription. Desktop variations of Word, Excel, and different Office apps require an E3 plan or greater; the E1 plan gives solely internet and cellular variations. All plans embrace Exchange Online, OneDrive, SharePoint Online, and extra enterprise providers. The E5 plan provides superior safety, compliance, and administration options.
Microsoft 365 E3 and E5
Plans vary from $36/person/month to $57/person/month; annual dedication required
These plans provide many of the identical options because the Office 365 E3 and E5 plans, and in addition embrace Windows and extra Microsoft providers akin to Visio.
Other plans
Microsoft gives further Office 365 and Microsoft 365 plans for training, authorities, and nonprofit organizations, and for frontline staff.
How you pay for Office
One huge distinction between the “2021” and “365” choices is the way you pay for them. If you’re shopping for a “perpetual license” (akin to with Office Home & Business 2021 or Office LTSC 2021), you pay a bigger sum than with the subscription’s choices below the Microsoft 365 or Office 365 model, however you accomplish that solely as soon as. When you subscribe to any of the Microsoft 365 or Office 365 plans, you pay yearly or month-to-month.
Office 2021: a perpetual license
Whether you purchase a single copy of Office 2021 in a retail outlet or obtain lots of of seats by way of quantity licensing, Microsoft calls this can be a “one-time buy” since you pay solely as soon as, not each month. (Labels like “perpetual,” which have been extensively utilized by Computerworld, technically word the kind of license quite than cost methodology, however on this case, the form of license is tied as to if it was purchased outright or just “rented.”)
Microsoft defines the time period as when “…you pay a single, up-front cost to get Office applications for one computer.” Up-front is the important thing adjective there. You must ante up all the buy value earlier than you get the software program.
That buy of a license to legally run the software program offers you the proper to make use of that model of Office 2021 in perpetuity. In different phrases, the license has no expiration date, and customers might run the suite for so long as they need. Pay for Office 2021 this 12 months and use it for the subsequent seven years? Fine. Use it to function your house portal within the 12 months 2050? Nothing to cease you. (Except {hardware} compatibility. Though you could possibly most likely discover an previous, refurbished laptop and drag that into house.)
But in order for you new options that come out with the subsequent replace, you’ll have to pay full value once more, no matter that’s, when the subsequent model comes out — if one comes out. There are not any improve choices on the perpetual license packages.
Microsoft 365: Office as a service
Microsoft 365, the acquisition methodology Microsoft would like you select, is a subscription service, the place you pay the software program big month-to-month or yearly. There is a reduction, typically a tempting one, for going with the annual cost plan over the month-to-month one. (All enterprise plans, from Enterprise E1 to E5, require an annual dedication.) And the corporate is at all times sweetening this pot by providing extra apps than you get with the perpetual license merchandise and with a steady provide of recent options.
Like any subscription, Microsoft 365 gives a service — on this case, the proper to run the suite’s purposes and entry the related providers — solely so long as funds proceed. Stop paying, and rights to run the apps expire. This occurs in a progressive manner, supplying you with time to obtain your information or replace your cost plan, whichever you select.
For 30 days after non-payment, your plan might be “Expired.” You will nonetheless have entry to all of your apps and information. If you don’t activate it once more whereas it’s within the Expired stage, it strikes to “Disabled,” the place it is going to keep for 90 days. You received’t have the ability to entry your apps or information till you pay up. If you continue to don’t pay to your plan, will probably be “Deleted.” At that time, it’s gone.
A Microsoft 365 license, then, is contingent on sustained funds. Halt the latter, and the license is revoked. Restart the funds — however don’t wait too lengthy — to revive the license.
How every model of Office is serviced
Although funds outline one distinction between Office 2021 and Microsoft 365, Microsoft’s improvement and launch tempo is in the end extra necessary to customers — and the IT professionals who help them.
Think of Office 2021 as conventional software program — a bundle of instruments that usually don’t change a lot till the subsequent main model. That holds for servicing, too. Microsoft does launch month-to-month safety and high quality updates for the perpetual license variations of Office. (You can examine from inside any Office app if there are updates out there. From, say, a Word doc, go to File > Account and search for Product Information. Then select Update Options and Update Now.)
But Office 2021 doesn’t get the regularly upgraded options and performance that Microsoft 365 does. What you get while you purchase the suite, feature-wise, is it. If you need the updates, sooner or later sooner or later, you’ll have to purchase no matter model Microsoft is promoting as a perpetual license then.
(The firm says of the discharge of Office LTSC 2021, “While this will not be our last perpetual release, we continue to make investments that make it even easier for customers to adopt Microsoft 365.” And in a web based explainer about all Office merchandise, the corporate says, “We are happy to confirm our commitment to another release of the perpetual version of Office in the future, beyond this release.”)
Microsoft often releases characteristic and safety updates for Microsoft 365 apps, although. And it releases them as they occur. As new options and performance accrete, and the purposes in Microsoft 365 evolve, Microsoft will determine it’s time for a brand new model of Office. It will then bundle a few of these options into an upgraded suite for purchasers who proceed to make one-time, up-front purchases. How lengthy they preserve doing this seemingly will depend on how lengthy there’s a demand for these “locked in time” variations.
One different necessary word: Office 2021 and Office LTSC 2021 might be supported with safety updates solely by means of Oct. 13, 2026. That’s simply 5 years of help, down from seven years in Office 2019 and 10 years in prior releases. In distinction, with Microsoft 365 subscriptions, help by no means runs out — so long as you retain paying, in fact.
How Office hooks up with cloud providers
One motive to decide on Office 2021 over Microsoft 365 is web entry. If you don’t have dependable entry to the cloud, can’t be linked to the web for safety causes, or — for no matter motive, possibly you reside on a distant mountaintop — your laptop is usually offline, that is the kind of software program you want.
In reality, web entry is likely one of the fundamental causes Microsoft can’t drive us all to subscribe to Microsoft 365. Microsoft 365 runs in apps which might be downloaded to your laptop, cellphone, or pill, however these apps require near-constant web entry, particularly should you use OneDrive and retailer all of your information within the cloud.
In normal use, Microsoft 365 stops working if it will probably’t connect with the web for 30 days. For some use circumstances, this can be a deal breaker. But the corporate is making efforts to beat this objection to the Microsoft 365 merchandise. Last 12 months, Microsoft launched options for enterprise customers that permit Microsoft 365 preserve working with out subject even whether it is offline for prolonged durations of time. An IT administrator has to set it up, however after that, a person can preserve working, offline, for as much as 180 days.
Office 2021, then again, doesn’t rely as closely on an web connection to function, save information, and self-update. You can join it when you’ve gotten entry and work offline while you don’t. This, as a lot as value and a want to stay to old-school software program distribution fashions is, maybe, essentially the most compelling motive to insist on one of many perpetual license merchandise.
Whichever license you in the end select, you’ll get most of the identical instruments. And the explanations for making one alternative over one other have much less to do with value and options than with the way you or your customers work, help and safety wants, reliability of web entry, on-line storage and collaboration wants, and the way excited (or aggravated) you or your customers are prone to be by new options that flip up, like a present, within the software program.
This article was initially printed in July 2017 and most just lately up to date in June 2022.