gmail and outlook are the two heavyweights of the email world. Worldwide, Gmail has 1.5 billion users and Outlook has 400 million users. The next most popular email service, Yahoo Mail has more than 200 million users.
what is gmail?
gmail is a free webmail service owned by google. While the service is free, advertising is displayed in your inbox that supports the cost of running Gmail. Google has integrated many of its services with Gmail, including Drive, Docs, and Calendar.
what is outlook?
outlook is both a webmail service and desktop email client owned by microsoft. Users can sign up for a free account at Outlook.com or use a paid version, either by subscribing to Microsoft 365 or by purchasing the Microsoft Office suite of products. Outlook doesn’t just send and receive email, it also includes a calendar, contacts, and the ability to manage tasks.
who needs email?
everyone needs an email account today. the statistics on how many emails are sent per day are staggering. Almost everyone has a personal email account, and most people generally have a work email account as well. often people even receive more than one work email account. Many workplaces use Gmail and Outlook as their email accounts of choice, often subscribing to GSuite or Microsoft 365, Google, and Microsoft’s respective business subscription services.
gmail vs perspective
we compare gmail and outlook in 8 categories to see which offers the best email service.
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- history
- interface
- features
- storage
- pricing
- security
- customer support
- app integrations
gmail vs outlook: history
google was founded in 1998 and released gmail into beta in 2004. gmail only entered a stable version in 2009. gmail was created by paul buchheit who, since the 1990s, had been working on the concept of email through the world wide web. while buchheit had conceived of the idea before the launch of hotmail, the launch of hotmail would come seven years before that of gmail.
Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith founded Hotmail in 1996. Microsoft bought Hotmail the following year, in 1997. Microsoft merged Hotmail with Outlook in 2012, and Hotmail users had the opportunity to change domain names to @outlook.com. Therefore, Outlook hasn’t had as consistent a history as Gmail, which may have led to Microsoft’s confusing array of email offerings that are called “Outlook.”
winner: perspective
gmail vs outlook: interface
gmail can only be accessed as webmail within your browser, but can be accessed from the desktop through third-party applications such as shift. There are also mobile apps for ios and android for gmail. Gmail uses filters and labels as the main ways to organize the emails in your inbox. the search bar, email compose button, and tagged emails are all clearly visible within the interface.
for outlook, the top bar, known as the “ribbon”, contains all the different options you have within that ribbon. then there are different ribbons for all the different views outlook has including: mail. calendar, contacts, tasks and notes. Outlook can be accessed through a browser or on the desktop, as well as through mobile apps for iOS and Android. Although the gmail inbox interface is simpler, it is not as feature-rich as the outlook interface.
winner: gmail
gmail vs outlook: features
outlook is feature-rich, with offerings like “rules” to automatically manage emails as they arrive, customizable email templates, and a “clean” button to automatically remove duplicate messages in an email thread. outlook also has a dedicated “archive” folder for emails you want to keep but no longer want in your main inbox. when emails are archived in gmail, they are moved to a folder called “all mails” instead of one that is actually labeled “archive”, which could be confusing for some users. Gmail lacks some of the features Outlook has due to the fact that Google integrates other products with Gmail. for example, while outlook has a built-in calendar and contacts, gmail integrates with google calendar and contacts, but they are not actually built into gmail.
winner: perspective
gmail vs outlook: storage
Users can upload files to google drive and share them via gmail. outlook uses onedrive, which doesn’t integrate with outlook the way a good drive integrates with gmail. Gmail storage is limited to 15GB for both Gmail and Google Drive. basic g suite accounts have 30gb of storage. Outlook users with a free account also get 15GB of storage with an additional 5GB of storage with a free OneDrive account. Microsoft 365 subscribers get 50GB of storage.
winner: perspective
gmail vs outlook: prices
it is free to create a gmail account. Google’s business-focused offering, G Suite, has several levels of payment plans.
g suite pricing plan:
Many features are the same across all plans, but most importantly, the amount of Google Drive storage available to users changes across plans. this affects the amount of storage users have for emails in gmail.
Basic ($6.00 per user per month) — 30 GB of cloud storage.
Business ($12.00 per user per month): Unlimited cloud storage, unless there are less than 5 users, in which case there is 1TB of storage space. It also includes google cloud search which can be used to search gmail. more advanced security features, including the vault.
Enterprise ($25.00 per user per month): Unlimited cloud storage, unless there are less than 5 users, in which case there is 1TB of storage space. It also includes Google Cloud Search, which can be used to search Gmail. even more advanced security features, including premium cloud identity.
outlook is freely available as a webmail service. But downloading and using it on your desktop requires an outright purchase or a Microsoft 365 subscription. This means that to get the full desktop version of Outlook, you need to buy it along with other Microsoft products you want. you may not need
It’s free to create an account on outlook.com.
outlook premium pricing plan:
outlook premium benefits include no ads, more advanced security features, and specialized support for premium customers.
microsoft 365 home with outlook premium features ($6.99 per month or $69.99 per year for one user)
Microsoft 365 Personal with Outlook Premium Features ($9.99 per month or $99.99 per year for up to 6 people)
microsoft 365 pricing plans:
Microsoft 365 Personal ($6.99 per month or $69.99 per year for one user): Includes full desktop and web versions of Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, and Access. Also includes OneDrive and Skype and 1TB of storage.
Microsoft 365 Family ($9.99 per month or $99.99 per year for up to 6 people): Includes full web and desktop versions of Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, and Access. also includes onedrive and skype and 1 tb of storage.
microsoft 365 business basic ($5.00 per user per month): includes web versions of word, excel and powerpoint, but not outlook. also includes exchange, onedrive, sharepoint and teams and 1tb of storage.
microsoft 365 business standard ($12.50 per user per month): Includes full web and desktop versions of outlook, word, excel, powerpoint, publisher and access. also includes exchange, onedrive, sharepoint and teams and 1tb of storage.
Microsoft 365 Apps ($8.25 per user per month): Includes full web and desktop versions of Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, and Access. Also includes OneDrive and 1TB of storage.
the price plan of the microsoft office suite:
home office & student 2019 ($149.99 one-time cost) : this option does not include outlook, so if you want to buy outlook, there is no option for a one-time purchase.
winner: gmail
gmail vs outlook: security
gmail offers two-step verification. Emails sent through Gmail are automatically encrypted in transit using Transport Layer Security (TLS), as long as the receiving email account also supports TLS. if emails are sent from gmail to an email account that does not support tls, the emails are not encrypted during transit. Both the desktop version and the Microsoft 365 version of Outlook offer the option to encrypt emails, but users should make sure to select that option before sending an email.
winner: gmail
gmail vs outlook: customer service
both gmail and outlook offer direct support from google and microsoft, respectively, as well as offering community support for their email services. Google has an easy to navigate “Help Center” for Gmail as well as having Community Support where Gmail users can help each other with questions and troubleshooting. g suite users have 24/7 customer support from live people. Microsoft offers free online chat support for Outlook users, as well as offering dedicated support for Microsoft 365.
winner: gmail
gmail vs outlook: app integrations
outlook refers to application integrations as “connectors”. available connectors include asana, trello, github, and more. Plugins that work with Outlook include Grammarly, Boomerang, and Evernote. however, the connectors are not available for Outlook on the web. gmail has a lot of useful extensions that can be installed on the chrome browser, including: gmelius (a collaborative inbox tool for teams), boomerang, and giphy. There are also plugins that can be integrated directly into Gmail, including: Slack, Zoom, and Evernote.
winner: gmail
gmail vs outlook: conclusion
outlook won in 3 categories and gmail won in 5 categories. but ultimately gmail and outlook work better for different use cases. If you want a streamlined email experience with a clean interface, Gmail is the right choice for you. If you want a feature-rich email client that has a bit more of a learning curve, but has more options to make your email work for you, Outlook is the way to go.
gmail and outlook in turn
shift makes it easier than ever to manage multiple gmail or outlook accounts. gmail and outlook can be added as primary email accounts in turn. then, once you’ve added your primary email account, you can add additional email accounts. then you will be able to see all your email accounts side by side in the sidebar, no more toggling between open browser windows or logging in and out of multiple email accounts. try switching now to manage your email accounts.