5 Best Google Workspace Alternatives (Free + Premium) – Are They Worth Trying?

Google Workspace is a rebranded version of G-suite with some additional features. Regardless, Google workspace can be too costly for small businesses and some enterprises with vast members to afford it.

So, the following article will talk in detail about some Google Workspace alternatives that are economical and offer high-quality services like Google.

Best Google Workspace Alternatives

1. Microsoft365

I would recommend Microsoft365 as the best Google Workspace Alternative in my review. Microsoft's product line collaborates with its office tools, including Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access.

It offers a secure cloud storage platform with Azure Information protection to safeguard your data by adequate labeling. The platform also detects spam and provides a user with an ad-free experience.

Features of Microsoft365:

• Efficient communication: With the help of Microsoft teams, you can smoothly video call up to 300 members at a time. The tool allows you to bring your team’s chat, meetings, apps, and files under the same roof.
• Professional emails and calendars: The platform offers users to customize their domain by business name with a maximum of 50GB of mailbox space. You can also integrate calendars into your mail to schedule meetings and get reminders of all scheduled events.
• Storage facility: It provides a maximum of 1TB of drive space to store all your important files. The documents can easily be shared by limiting their access and generating guest links, making it easy to send them to clients.

Pricing

Microsoft365 bifurcates its plan into four broad categories: home, business, enterprise, and education.

• Business: $5 per user
• Enterprise: $32 per user every month

2. Zoho workspace

Zoho is my next affordable Google Workspace alternative. It has all the essential tools like multiple applications like Email, File Management, Chat, Spreadsheet, Word processor, Presentation, Social intranet, online training, and meetings.

The platform offers a convenient online space where teams can collaborate and converse effectively.

 Features of Zoho workspace:

• Zoho Mail: It is a dedicated Zoho workspace tool to help you efficiently manage your mail. The platform provides up to 100GB of mail storage for every user in its premium plans. You can easily send huge attachments of a maximum of 1GB.  Zoho mail allows S-MIME encryptions to secure all your confidential information and limit the access of users. The calendar tool is integrated with your email, helping you to keep track of all your plans.  

• Zoho Workdrive: The tool provides up to 100GB of storage data per user. The admin can easily create multiple folders and limit their access. The platform can preview up to more than 160 file formats. It offers SSL/TLS encryption to protect your files.
• Zoho Meetings: The platform offers a smooth video calling experience with the capacity to add up to 100 participants. You can also record the meetings and store a maximum of 10 recordings. The tool also allows you to schedule future meetings for easy collaboration.

Pricing

Zoho workspace offers 3 unique plans:

• Standard: $3 per user per month
• Professional: $6 per user per month
• Mail only plan: $1 per user per month

3. Namecheap

Namecheap is a kind of email-only Google Workspace alternative for you. It is basically an email hosting platform that provides customized professional domain names. It offers a secure platform to share all your important business documents like bills, client’s contact, invoices, etc. 

For example, if your business name is ABC, you can switch your normal abc@gmail.com to info@abc.com. You can easily integrate your office suit and maintain a strong backup to recover your information.

Features of Namecheap:

• Storage capacity and aliases: The platform offers an email storage capacity of up to 15GB. The premium plan allows you to create unlimited aliases for your email account so that you receive an email even if someone has misspelt your email address. 
• Security: The admin can also set up a 2-factor-verification system and TOTP (Time based One-time password), which will ask multiple questions every time someone logins to your email account. 
• Syncing: All the email accounts under the Namecheap suit can be synced together to receive and send messages at the same interface without having to open separate email accounts.
• Collaboration: The application allows easy collaborations between platforms like Drive, Document, Spreadsheet, Text, and Presentations. The tool provides a platform where you can keep track of all the important documents and save it in Drive.

Pricing

Namecheap offers 3 pricing plans billed annually:

• Starter: $8.91 per year
• Pro: $25.41 per year
• Ultimate: $41.91 per year

If you want to build a professional email account for your business, Namecheap can be one of the most cost-efficient Google workspace alternatives.

4. Rackspace email

Rackspace email is the best Google Workspace alternative, especially for small businesses scaling slowly. It is an email hosting solution that provides business email, accessed through Outlook, webmail application, or mobiles. 

The platform offers 100% uptime, including 24*7*365 expert support to solve all your queries. It provides a secure platform with an add-free experience.

Features of Rackspace email:

• Two-Factor Authentication: It proffers an extra coat of security to protect your account from all kinds of 3rd-party suspicious activity. The admin can set multiple questions before providing the access to the email.
• Large storage facility: Rackspace provides abundant storage of 25GB of the mailbox and another 30GB to store all your important documents. It also protects all your documents and offers a spam-free account.
• Share calendars and contacts: The platform offers easy integration between your email and calendars. You can easily share a calendar with your teammates for quick collaboration and allow people to free their time according to the meetings.
• Collaborate with apps: It allows you to integrate multiple tools that will improve your business productivity. Some of them are:

1. Instant messaging (chat)
2. Company directory (GAL)
3. Notes and tasks
4. Advanced message-filtering and many more.

Pricing

Rackspace offers 3 unique pricing plans:

• Rackspace email-$2.99 per user per month
• Rackspace email plus-$3.99 per user per month
• Add archiving-$6.99 per user per month

It is a much more affordable alternative than Google's workspace and can be used by all businesses.

5. Fastmail

Fastmail, a professional email builder alternative for Google Workspace. The platform can be accessed on mobiles, web browsers, outlook, thunderbird, and Mac mails. It offers an add-free experience and keeps all your data secure.

Features of Fastmail:

• All-in-one applications: You can integrate calendars and contacts with your email account. The calendar is broadly bifurcated into months, days, and timings, which will allow you to smoothly pre-plan events and meetings.
• Professional domain name: Fastmail is an email hosting platform that provides a custom domain name to make you look like a professional legitimate sender. The admins mostly change their normal domain to the business name and efficiently collaborate with team members. It offers up to 100GB storage per user and over 600 aliases.
• Organise your emails: The platform offers some inbuilt features like pinning emails, listing important people to VIPs, and categorizing emails into various segments. It allows you to keep track of emails and respond accordingly.

Pricing

Like all others, Fastmail offers 3 three paid plans that can be billed monthly and annually:

• Basic: $3 (monthly subscription) and $30 (annual subscription)     
• Standard: $5 (monthly subscription) and $50 (annual subscription)
• Professional: $9 (monthly subscription), and $90 (annual subscription)

If all its features suit your business requirement, Fastmail can be one of your best Google Workspace alternatives.

Which is the Right Google Workspace Alternative For You?

I would personally recommend Microsoft365 as it becomes convenient for home, enterprise, and business usage. Next to it, I would recommend Zoho as it is the cheapest Google Workspace alternative I have ever experienced. NameCheap is a suitable alternative for Google Workspace when you rely on Mail alone.

Google Workspace is among the most trusted suits to help businesses run efficiently. But, if you find trouble accommodating such a high cost for your business, then switching to the above Google Workspace alternatives might help you get all the essential services at an affordable cost.