If you are planning to upgrade your Office or are new to Office your might have noticed that there are two versions available, Office 365 and Office 2019. So the big question is, what are the differences between the two versions?
In short, Office 365 is a subscription-based license, you will have to pay a monthly fee for it. Office 2019 is a one-time purchase. But that is not all, while both versions come with the latest Office apps (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc), Office 365 comes with cloud-based storage (OneDrive), online access and free upgrades.
Office 365 vs Office 2019 compared
Let’s first start with comparing the two products side-by-side, so you can easily see what the big differences are.
Besides the differences between Office 365 and 2019, there are also some differences between home use and business use. So I created two separated comparison tables for you:
For home or personal use
To start with the personal use, I have taken the most used version for Office 365, the home version. There is also an Office 365 Personal plan, which is $30 cheaper a year but is for only one person.
| Office 365 Home | Office 2019 Home & Student | Office 2019 Home & Business | |
| Starting at $99.00 per year |
Starting at $149.99 one-time |
Starting at $249.99 one-time |
|
| Core Details | |||
| Number of installs | 6 | 1 | 1 |
| Supported devices | PCs/Macs, tablets, and phones | PC or Mac | PC or Mac |
| Office Apps | |||
| Office Online | |||
| Word, Excel, PowerPoint | |||
| Outlook | |||
| Publisher (pc only) | |||
| Access (pc only) | |||
| Standard Services | |||
| OneDrive Storage | 6 TB Total (1TB pp) | ||
| Skype | |||
| Updates & Support | |||
| Security updates | |||
| Feature updates | |||
| Support | first 60 days | first 60 days | |
| More info | More info | More info | |
| Buy | Buy | Buy | |
For business use
To compare the business plans, I have taken the cheapest plan from Office 365 Business. This is the most inline with the Office 2019 products. If you go for Office 365 Business Premium, for example, you would also get Exchange Online, SharePoint and a lot of other features.
If you want to know more about these plans, you should check out this comparison.
| Office 365 Business | Office 2019 Home & Business | Office 2019 Professional | |
| Starting at $99.00 per year |
Starting at $249.99 one-time |
Starting at $439.99 one-time |
|
| Core Details | |||
| Number of devices | 5 | 1 | 1 |
| Supported devices | PCs/Macs, tablets, and phones | PC or Mac | PC |
| Office Apps | |||
| Office Online | |||
| Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook | |||
| Publisher (pc only) | |||
| Access (pc only) | |||
| Standard Services | |||
| OneDrive Storage | 1 TB | ||
| Skype | |||
| Updates & Support | |||
| Security updates | |||
| Feature updates | |||
| Support | first 60 days | first 60 days | |
| More info | More info | More info | |
| Buy | Buy | Buy | |
Office 2019
The Home & Student version of Office 2019 is basically only Word, Excel, and PowerPoint that you can install on one computer (PC or Mac). These are the basic Office apps that will be more than sufficient for most people that only write an occasional Word document.
This is the cheapest option given the fact that you probably will do more than 3 to 5 years with a single Office version. But if you want to upgrade later to the new Office version, Office 202x, you will have to pay the full price again.
If you want Outlook as well, you will have to go for the more expensive Office Home & Business 2019 version, which will cost $250 and can still only be used by one person.
Should you buy Office 2019?
The standalone version of Office, Office 2019, is primarily used by companies with volume licenses that are not ready for the transition to the cloud. But also for home users, this version can be interesting.
If you don’t use the Office apps a lot, or you don’t want to be bound to a monthly subscription, then the one-time purchase is a good option.
Keep in mind that Office 2019 is only supported on Windows 10 and the 3 latest versions of macOS. So you can’t use it on Windows 8.1 or Windows 7.
Office 365
Office 365 is the cloud-based version of Office. This doesn’t mean that you will have to be connected to the internet all the time, with Office 365 comes just the normal Office apps (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint) as with Office 2019.
The cloud part in Office 365 means that you can use the Office apps also online in your browser and that you get cloud storage in the form of OneDrive.
Office 365 is a subscription-based license, you only have to pay a small amount every month.
The advantage of Office 365
So what is the advantage of Office 365 for home users and small businesses? Office 365 comes with more apps and features than Office 2019, you will always get the latest features and updates when they come out and get access to 1Tb of OneDrive storage for your documents.
With OneDrive you can access your documents from anywhere in the world. With the mobile apps, you have all your documents in your pocket. You can also use the online version from Office to work on your Word or Excel documents if you don’t have access to the Office apps.
Another advantage of Office 365 Home is that you can use one license for your whole household. You are allowed to install it on 6 devices and with 6 users. Each of them gets 1Tb OneDrive storage.
Which version should you buy?
Personally, I really recommend going for the Office 365 Home version for personal use and Office 365 Business Premium if you are using it commercially.
The small price that you pay more for the Home version is really worth the money. You will also have access to your documents and never have to worry about updating to a new version. Also sharing the license with your household is a great benefit.
For (small) business is Office 365 a real no-brainer. Yes, over the years it’s more expensive. But losing company data or losing work time due to a broken computer is more expensive in the end. With Office 365 you can always access your data from the internet. If a computer is broken, you can simply get another one, log in again, and continue on your document where you have left. (Assuming that you store your files in OneDrive or SharePoint)
