Microsoft 365 vs. Office 2019 vs. Office 2021: What's the difference? Choose the Right One!

1. What exciting new apps has Microsoft released in the fall of 2021?

As we all know, Microsoft Office has become a global standard for productivity because its applications are some of the best Windows 10 applications that can be used to complete work and school assignments. Among them, productivity applications such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint have even been immensely popular among both individuals and businesses for many, many years. 

Every once in a while, Microsoft will release a new version of Office and its applications, which contains a number of enhancements and additional features. These improvements make the already great Office user experience even better and will naturally increase work efficiency. Not long in the past, Microsoft has achieved a lot of updates!

The new applications for 2021 includes: Office 2021, Office LTSC, Windows 11, and the new Microsoft 365!

For new customers who do not know the Microsoft Office productivity application suite, or old customers who do not know the details of the new version upgrade, this article will give you comprehensive information, please continue reading：

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2. What is Office 2021?

Microsoft Office 2021 is a standalone, local (not cloud-based, like Microsoft 365) version of the Microsoft Office software suites, including applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.

You make a one time purchase, and you get to keep on using it as long as you want—on one PC or Mac. Unlike Microsoft 365, which works online, Office 2019 will run offline.

It will continue to get big fixes and security updates, but won’t receive any feature updates after the purchase. 

See it

2.1. What is the origin of Office 2021?

Office 2021 is the latest edition of Microsoft’s famous suite of office software for PC and Mac. Previous editions include Office 2013, Office 2016, Office 2019.

When Office 2016 was first released at the end of 2015, the permanent version and the Office 365 version had the same features. But the two soon diverged: Microsoft began rolling out new features to Office 365 that the perpetual Office 2016 version didn’t get. 

When Office 2019 was released three years later, it included some, but by no means all, of the features that Office 365 had at that time. Since then, perpetual Office 2019 has remained static, while Office 365/Microsoft 365 has continued to get new features. 

Then this year, Office 2021 (and Office LTSC 2021) is no different. The new perpetual release gets a handful of features that were already present in Office 365/Microsoft 365, with many other features left out. 

Like Office 2016 and 2019, perpetual-license Office 2021 users just pay once for the product, but the product doesn't get new feature updates (like Microsoft 365 products). Eventually, the perpetual-license products may not be able to run on a new Windows release. For instance, with the release of Office 2021, Microsoft will also be discontinuing support for Office 2013 and it will not be supported on Windows 11.

2.2. What is the version of Office 2021?

Office 2021 arrives in two versions: one for commercial users called Office LTSC (which stands for Long Term Servicing Channel), and one for personal use. 

• Designed for students and family users, Office Home and Student 2021 is outfitted with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Microsoft Teams for Windows or macOS and will cost $149.99.

• Aimed at the business crowd, Office Home and Business 2021 includes all the programs in the Home and Student edition but adds Outlook for Windows or macOS and will cost $249.99. 

• Office LTSC includes enhanced accessibility features, performance improvements across Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and visual improvements like dark mode support across apps. It’s meant for specialty situations, such as process control devices on the manufacturing floor that are not connected to the internet, as opposed to for entire organizations. 

See them

2.3. Office 2021 vs Office 2019

Office 2021 was released alongside Windows 11 on October 5th. It is the successor to Office 2019, and brings new features to the office suite while retaining price parity with Office 2019.

What are the latest features of Office 2021？

Compared to Microsoft Office 2019, Microsoft Office 2021 boasts several new improvements and enhancements. 

• Real-time collaboration

Office 2021 for personal use includes some Google Doc-style collaboration features that allow for real-time collaboration through OneDrive. 

As early as in Office 2016, Microsoft advertised a key feature - real-time collaboration, but it turns out that the complete real-time collaborative editing experience is exclusively for Office 365 subscribers. In Office 2019, real-time co-authoring is done in Word, but not in Excel or PowerPoint. Non-subscribers must use Excel Online and PowerPoint Online for real-time collaboration. With Office 2021, as long as the collaborative documents are stored on Microsoft's cloud storage service OneDrive, all three desktop clients can finally perform real-time collaborative editing. Everyone working on the document will see the changes made by others.

• Microsoft Teams

Office 2021 users can also get access to Microsoft Teams, a redesigned look for the apps and features previously exclusive to Microsoft 365 like advanced grammar suggestions and Presenter Coach in PowerPoint. You can chat directly from within Office or join a Teams video call.

Please note that the version of Teams included in Office 2021 and Office LTSC 2021 is not a full business version and lacks features such as searching channels and message archives.

• Windows 11 look and feel

Office 2021 is getting a visual update, much like Windows 11, with a rounded window, a more neutral color palette, and overall. Has a soft appearance. Despite its new look, Office 2021 will continue to run on Windows 10.

• Excel

The latest update of Excel is very welcome, Microsoft has added several new functions including XMatch, LET, Dynamic Arrays, and XLookup. XLookup for instance, allows you to find any data within a table by using a search bar-like function, and LET will allow you to assign names to calculation results.

• Outlook

Outlook has also received a couple of updates. There's a new translator in Outlook that will translate messages on the fly, and there's a new global search that allows you to find emails across all your folders and email accounts with several search parameters.

• Other features include new performance improvements for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.

2.4. Can you upgrade from Office 2019?

Unfortunately, it's not possible to upgrade from Office 2019 to Office 2021 without paying full price. With that said, you're in luck if you use Microsoft 365, which is Microsoft's subscription-based alternative to one-time purchases of Microsoft Office. 

Microsoft has previously stated that all Office apps and services are automatically updated with the latest features and improvements through Microsoft 365, which implies that Microsoft 365 users will receive the benefits of Office 2021 through the service. So, Office 365 users will get the free upgrade to Office 2021 once it releases on October 5th.

2.4. Office Home and Student 2021 vs Office Home and Business 2021：How much？

Microsoft Office 2021 comes in two flavors: Office Home and Student 2021 and Office Home and Business 2021.

• Office Home and Student 2021 for $149.99. It comes with "Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Microsoft Teams for PC and Mac."

• Office Home and Business 2021 for $249.99. Other than price, the only difference between this package and the cheaper option is the addition of email service Outlook and the legal rights to use the apps in a commercial context.

Both versions of the suite have to be purchased on a per device basis. Office 2021 users can sign up for free OneDrive accounts, which provides access to 5GB of storage.

Office 2021 is fully compatible with Windows 11, Windows 10, and the three most recent versions of MacOS. The architecture of Office 2021 is as follows: 

• Office 2021 32-bit and 64-bit versions for Windows. 

• Office 2021 64-bit for Mac.

3. What is Microsoft 365?

Microsoft 365 is the new marketing name for the subscription-based service that replaces Office 365.

The service, previously called Office 365 — In April 2020, Microsoft transitioned it into Microsoft 365, a subscription service that added features to the tools suite but required a monthly payment — $7 for an individual plan or $10 for a family of up to six. Despite the name change and upgrades, the prices remain the same. (Note: That price will be increasing in March 2021.) 

Microsoft 365 includes the complete suite of Office applications, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, plus other services that are enabled over the Internet, including extra cloud storage with OneDrive and Skype minutes for home use. Although competition from Google Workspace has become increasingly fierce, Microsoft Office is still widely considered the most powerful bundle of productivity tools on the market.

With Microsoft 365 you get the full, installed Office experience on PCs, Macs, tablets (including Windows, iPad, and Android) and smartphones.

Microsoft 365 plans are available as a monthly or annual subscription and include 5 device installs. With Microsoft 365, upgrades are always included with your subscription.

3.1. Office 365 vs Microsoft 365

Office 365 is a cloud-based suite of productivity apps like Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, and more. 

Microsoft 365 is a bundle of services including Office 365, plus several other services including Windows 10 Enterprise. Each subscription package will also include various levels of services like Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams.  

But wait, there's more! There is also a top of the line flavor called Microsoft 365 E5. It combines the above productivity apps with advanced security, compliance, voice and analytical capabilities. This bundle has Microsoft Defender which claims protection against zero-day malware and phishing. 

As of April 21, 2020, the official branding of Microsoft's productivity suite has changed from Office 365 to just Microsoft 365. In general, the subscription they had on April 20 is the same as the subscription they had on April 21, only with a different name. 

3.2. New Microsoft 365 for 2021 (price)

New Microsoft 365 productivity products for consumers and small businesses are available as of Oct. 5 for purchase via Microsoft subscriptions.

Here are the prices for the new consumer and small business Microsoft 365 subscriptions:

• Microsoft 365 Personal for $6.99 per month or $69.99 per year.

• Microsoft 365 Family for $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year, which supports "families and households of up to six people."

Both of these Microsoft 365 subscriptions give users access to "premium versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, OneDrive, Microsoft Editor, and Microsoft Family Safety for PC, Mac, and mobile. 

In addition, the PC versions of these Microsoft 365 subscriptions come with Access and Publisher.

4. Office 2021 vs Microsoft 365: What’s the difference?

The primary difference between Office 2021 and Microsoft 365 is the way in which customers pay for the services.

Microsoft sells Office in two different ways.

Office 2021 is a one-time purchase version that grants you a perpetual license. It is not even called a non-subscription version, it is called the "perpetual" version of Office. But it does not provide free upgrades for each new version. Therefore, if you purchased Office 2019 and want to jump to Office 2021, you must spend money to purchase a new license.

Microsoft 365 is a subscription-based Office style, which pushes you into an annual subscription, but ensures that you get the latest features when it rolls out.

Naturally, Microsoft would prefer that customers tend to use the subscription-based version of Office, because it can lock users in for the longer haul and ensures a steady stream of income. But some people don't want to be forced into such a subscription, so the company realizes it must continue to offer a one-time purchase version, lest users take their business elsewhere.

In order to attract customers to use Office 2021, Microsoft includes many programs and features that are generally available for Microsoft 365. One of these features is Microsoft Teams, which allows you to chat with other people and make audio or video calls. The company has been promoting Teams recently, because Windows 11 also has built-in chat and meeting tools.

Microsoft provides OneDrive to allow you to store, back up, and synchronize your documents online. Subscription-based Microsoft 365 provides 1TB of OneDrive storage space for each user. In contrast, Office 2021 only has 5GB of OneDrive space, but you can upgrade to 100GB for $1.99 a month.

Other Microsoft 365 features that have been added to Office 2021 include more stock media images, an updated draw tab, a language translator in Outlook, an instant search in Outlook, and dynamic arrays in Excel. Plus, the suite is getting a visual redesign with a more neutral color palette, softer window corners, refreshed tabs in the ribbon, and colorful indicators to let you know who's collaborating on a document with you.

4.1. Office 2021 vs Microsoft 365: features

When choosing Office 2019 or 2021:

• If you object to subscription.

• If you just want to use Word, Excel and PowerPoint on your PC or Mac.

• If you don't need new features.

When choosing Office 365:

• If you want to use OneDrive.

• If you want to always be in the latest version.

• If you want to share the subscription with additional people, because the financial savings are greater than appreciable.

4.2. Office 2021 vs Microsoft 365: plans and pricing

Microsoft 365	Microsoft 365 Business	Microsoft 365 Personal
	View (Get Up To 7% Cash Back at Microsoft Store)	View (Get Up To 7% Cash Back at Microsoft Store)
Price	$98.99	$69.99
Purchase type	Annual subscription	Annual subscription
Install- ations	5 PCs or Macs 5 tablets, 5 phones	1 PC or Mac               1 tablet, 1 phone
Compa- tible with	Windows 7 & up              Mac OS 10.14 & up	Windows 7 & up              Mac OS 10.14 & up
Outlook
Publisher
Access
1TB cloud storage	Per user for 5 users	1 user
60 Skype minutes3	Per user for 5 users	1 user
Always up-to- date
Tech support
License For	Commercial	Personal
License Type	Subscription	Subscription

*Go to aka.ms/systemrequirements for compatible versions of Windows 11, Windows 10 and macOS and for other feature requirements.

Office 2019	Office Home & Student 2019	Office Home & Business 2019	Office Standard 2019	Office Pro- fessional 2019	Office Pro- fessional Plus 2019
	View (Get Up To 7% Cash Back at Microsoft Store)	View (Get Up To 7% Cash Back at  Microsoft Store)	View (Get Up To 7% Cash Back at Microsoft Store)	View (Get Up To 7% Cash Back at Microsoft Store)	View (Get Up To 7% Cash Back at  Microsoft Store)
Price	$109.99	$174.99	$449.99	$256.48	$599.99
Purchase type	One-time purchase	One-time purchase	One-time purchase	One-time purchase	One-time purchase
Install- ations	1 PC or Mac	1 PC or Mac	PC Only	1 PC Only	1 PC Only
Compa- tible with	Windows 10              Mac OS 10.13 & up	Windows 10              Mac OS 10.13 & up	Windows 10 only	Windows 10 only	Windows 10 only
Outlook	——
Publisher	——
Access	——	——	——
Tech support
License For	Personal	Corporate	Commercial	Commercial	Commercial
License Type	Retail	Retail	Open License	Retail	Open License

4.3. Microsoft 365 vs. Office 2019: Which Is the Best Deal?

After calculation, we found that Office 2019 or Microsoft 365 has different values in different time periods, such as the cost of 1, 5 and 10 years. Therefore, which one is the most cost-effective may depend on your needs.

If you only need Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on one device:

• Microsoft 365 Personal is the best value for one year.

• Office 2019 Home & Student is the best value for five or 10 years.

If you also need Outlook, but only on one device:

• Microsoft 365 Personal is the best value for one year.

• Office 2019 Home & Business is the best value for five or 10 years.

If you need Publisher or Access:

• Microsoft 365 Personal is the best value at every time interval.

5 years later, the $350 of Microsoft 365 Personal is still cheaper than the $440 of Office 2019 Professional. 10 years later, $700 for 10 years of Microsoft 365 Personal beats $880 to buy Office Professional twice.

If you add on OneDrive storage and Skype credit:

• Microsoft 365 is the best value for one year.

Without Outlook, Office 2019 is only $5 cheaper than Microsoft 365 for five years. With Outlook, Microsoft 365 Personal is the better value for five years.

Office 2019 is just $10 cheaper than Microsoft 365 Personal at 10 years. However, if you need Outlook, Microsoft 365 is a better value than Office 2019 Home & Business at 10 years.

 If you need 1TB of OneDrive storage, access on mobile devices, or are buying for multiple people:

•  Microsoft 365 offers the best value.

Office 2019 with OneDrive storage is only 100GB. Microsoft 365 with OneDrive storage is 1TB, which is 10 times that amount.

Office 2019 is only good for one PC or Mac. To get it for multiple devices, you'd have to pay at least $150 per computer, plus that amount again after five years to upgrade.

Microsoft 365 Personal lets you install Office on all your devices, and Family lets up to six people install it on all their devices.

4.4. Microsoft 365 vs. Office 2021: Which Is the Best Deal?

Microsoft 365 follows the software-as-a-service business model, whereby customers pay a regular subscription fee for access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook etc. Meanwhile, Office 2021 customers pay a single upfront fee in exchange for a lifetime license.

Office 2021 has the potential to be cheaper in the long run and the apps still benefit from the same kinds of online collaboration features as their Microsoft 365 counterpart.

The downside of choosing Office 2021 over Microsoft 365, however, is that the feature set will only remain current for a limited amount of time (i.e. until the next version is released), whereas Microsoft 365 users will always enjoy the very latest updates and features.

Further, for businesses that would prefer to shift spending from CapEx to OpEx, Microsoft 365 is the obvious choice.

5. Where to download Microsoft Office 2021

As with previous versions of Microsoft Office, before you purchase Office 2021, we expect that you'll be able to download Microsoft Office 2021 from Microsoft's official Office website by logging in to this website first. Because Microsoft provides up to 7% rebate(cashback) through its partner Extrabux, so fans can save a little money!

Office 2021 has been listed on the Microsoft.com, and all versions can be purchased and downloaded directly.

Microsoft 365 has also automatically received visual updates for the app, and will receive Microsoft Teams throughout October and November.

In addition, you can also purchase Office 2021 and subscribe to Microsoft 365 from global retailers (such as the third-party website Newegg), which provide different rebates or discounts, as shown in the following example:

Microsoft Office 2021:

• From $149.99 at Microsoft Store —— get up to 7% cashback at Microsoft Store 

• From $124.99 at Amazon (save 17%) —— get up to 3% cashback at amazon.cn
  

• $149.99 at Newegg (Home & Student) —— get up to 1% cashback at Newegg

• $249.99 at Newegg (Home & Business)

• $149.99 at Staples (Home & Student) —— get up to 5% cashback at Staples 

• $249.99 at Staples (Home & Business)

• $149.99 at Lenovo (Home & Student) —— get up to 3% cashback at Lenovo

• $249.99 at Lenovo (Home & Business)

• $149.99 at Apple (Home & Student for Mac) —— get up to 1.5% cashback at Apple

• $249.99 at Apple (Home & Business for Mac)

• $124.99 at Costco (Home & Student) —— get up to $3 cashback at Costco

• $249.99 at Costco (Home & Business for Mac)

......

Microsoft 365:

• From $69.99/year at Microsoft Store —— get up to 7% cashback at Microsoft Store 

• From $69.99/year at Amazon —— get up to 3% cashback at amazon.cn

......

6. When is Office 2019 the right choice?

Microsoft Office 2019 is a product specifically geared toward volume-licensed commercial customers with a very specific need for on-premises or hybrid software deployment - or who are not yet ready for cloud-based software.

If you are thinking of purchasing a large volume of licenses, your workforce only uses basic Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook in a desktop, and you only use on-premise applications, then Office 2019 is the right choice.

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.

Also, consider that unlike previous versions, Office 2019 is only supported on devices running Windows 10 or the three most recent versions of macOS. If you must use the most up-to-date version of Office, and you're still on Windows 8.1 or Windows 7, you have to purchase an Microsoft 365 subscription.

Microsoft is undoubtedly steering customers towards Microsoft 365 and the subscription-based model, as it allows them to update it with upgrades and patches constantly. Given that Office 2019's support period will end on 14 October 2025 - the same day Office 2016 support ends - there's a strong argument to make that the perpetual-licensed Office suite purchase model is coming to an end and that the cloud-backed Microsoft 365 is the main way forward.

7. When is Microsoft 365 the right choice?

With the rich amount of tools, features, and functionalities, Microsoft 365 enable a new way of increasing productivity in the workplace.

If your organization encourages flexibility and remote work, as well as a strong collaboration through the use of chat, video, and voice conferences then this is the best option for your business.

With a subscription, you'll always have the latest features, fixes, and security updates along with perennial tech support at no extra cost. Purchasing a yearly subscription is recommended because it’s more financially viable.

Also, you can use one license on up to five devices. This includes PC's, Mobile devices, macs, and tablets.

8. Office 2021 vs. Office LTSC

Microsoft recently launched the consumer version of Microsoft Office 2021 alongside Windows 11 on Oct. 5, 2021. Additionally, a special version of Office called Office LTSC that has most of the upgrades from Office 2021 was released on Sept. 16.

Based on comments from Microsoft's Corporate Vice President for Microsoft 365 Jared Spataro, Office LTSC is meant for specific business circumstances rather than individual customers. "We have built Office LTSC for a limited set of specific situations: regulated devices that cannot accept feature updates for years at a time, process control devices on the manufacturing floor that are not connected to the internet, and specialty systems that must stay locked in time and require a long-term servicing channel."

Office LTSC is just for systems that can't tolerate frequent updates. It's considered to be a nonsubscription type of product, despite getting regular feature updates for a total of five years.

So, What is Office LTSC? Office LTSC is the version of Office 2021 designed for businesses. “LTSC” stands for Long Term Service Channel. It’s specifically designed to be used on systems which are static and won’t change over the next 5 or 10 years, such as those not connected to the internet. What does that mean in real terms? Office LTSC is essentially a collection of the Microsoft Office apps without any cloud-connected features. The LTSC model comes with a 10-year support cycle from Microsoft and customers can decide exactly how to receive updates – or even to skip them altogether to maintain the specific features at install.

9. Office LTSC vs. Microsoft 365: which is right for your business?

The 2021 version is not really very useful for most businesses.

Although the home and personal version will be updated for five years, the version for business – Office LTSC – is designed for very specific scenarios, such as closed systems on the factory floor, rather than for daily business use. The lack of cloud features or connectivity means that businesses can’t use Office LTSC alongside the more online-focused way of working that most companies are employing today.
Microsoft would very much prefer NOT to sell perpetual licence versions of Office. The high prices, reduced support and limited features are all signs of that. They only sell Office 2021 because Microsoft doesn’t want people to switch to non-Microsoft alternatives.

Microsoft 365 with it’s annual fee is Microsoft’s preferred option. And while it’s true that a subscription is a longer-term cost, it actually works out about the same over the term of the standalone version’s support.

Of course, the benefit of choosing 365 is that your support from Microsoft (and thus your security) won’t suddenly be switched off after a set number of years. Not only that, but Office LTSC will not  receive any “feature updates” within 2 to 3 years, and even then, customers can pick and choose what they install. It will still receive security updates, however.

Although there is no doubt that Office LTSC and Office 2021 stand-alone products may be a good choice in very specific scenarios and home users, but for the vast majority of businesses, Microsoft 365 is the clear choice.

10. Conclusion

A few years ago, Microsoft pushed out three videos that challenged three pairs of twins to compete against each other using Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. One of the twins used the Microsoft 365 version of the application and the other twin had the Office 2019 version of the application. It goes without saying, the twin using the Microsoft 365 version won hands down.

While Office 2021 might be a good option in some circumstances, Get Support always recommends the subscription-based Microsoft 365 suite, which includes all Office apps (and a lot more).  Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) is a cloud-based, subscription model version of Microsoft’s super popular productivity suite Microsoft Office (in addition to a slew of new apps and services), that allows you to have the latest versions with the latest features -for a monthly fee- without buying a one-time, upfront-cost, newer license with each version release.

Microsoft 365 contains the same core applications (Excel, Word, PowerPoint…etc) as regular versions of Office (Office 2019 being the last one, Office 2021 releasing), and depending on the subscription, it may also include other apps and services such as Power Apps, Planner, OneDrive, Exchange, SharePoint, Power BI, Power Automate, Yammer, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Stream, and a few other business apps & services to manage customer scheduling, invoicing and referrals (in case of a business subscription).

But, if you’re choosing between the 3, there are only two questions you need to ask. First, what apps in the Office Suite do you actually use, and in what ways? Second, do you use Office enough to justify spending money on it on an annual basis? However, if you want to grow with technology, we recommend that you switch your staff to Microsoft 365.

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