# Microsoft 365 151 Hacker News commenters recommended Microsoft 365 and 340 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 2 years (11 owners). **Verdict:** Recommended as an integrated bundle of Office, email, Teams, storage and security that businesses find cheap and easy to run, though critics cite confusing admin, tiers and lock-in. ## Why people recommend it - All-in-one integrated bundle (8 comments): "They use it precisely because it's a) bundled with 365 already and b) already very well integrated into the rest of the entire ecosystem." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46239000)) "The big benefit of the MS package is that you get it all for one price. And that it's integrated so you have less configuration." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47151404)) "You get a lot of stuff "for free" with something like an E5 license: EDR, DLP, MDM, a full cloud IAM system" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48346552)) - Good value for the price (6 comments): "Microsoft is actually offering one of the better deals out there especially if you want to give a significant amount of storage to each family member at a low cost." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46198148)) "Office 365 is cheap and training everyone on another platform will cost more and make it harder to onboard new talent" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47150450)) "to get something nearly as good as 365 would realistically cost 100x as much as just buying from Microsoft" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45842024)) - Strong security and compliance (4 comments): "already having the processor agreements set up - and Microsoft actually at least trying to do the bare minimum regarding compliance - is worth a lot" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50207947)) "The best security choice for any small business that doesn't have a dedicated full time security staff is Microsoft 365." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46082897)) "You get a lot of stuff "for free" with something like an E5 license: EDR, DLP, MDM, a full cloud IAM system" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48346552)) - Real-time collaborative editing (3 comments): "The ability for everyone to work on it simultaneously, with version history and no more document-v12-copy3_FINAL_FINALv2 is most welcome." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46192461)) "Docs in the cloud give you better collab capabilities and remove the need to have fancy networking, VPNs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46197789)) "Multiple people being able to edit the same file simultaneously with no or minimal issues is pretty big" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46202476)) ## What people warn about - Poor Linux support (3 comments): "I keep watching and waiting for Office 365 compatibility improvements but it seems most contributors are focused on gaming support" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48330343)) "they seem to have gone to a lot of effort to make office use a billion microservices that would be a nightmare to run through wine" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47996196)) "They make it as painful as possible, and even disable copy/paste functionality when your User-Agent and Sec-CH headers say Linux." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48887680)) - Confusing admin dashboards (2 comments): "The ones that tell you there's a problem with your MS365 subscription, but don't tell you which one are an especially exciting challenge to deal with." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47700879)) "M365 has become an intangible mess of a multitude of different admin dashboards redirecting you around and complicating things beyond comprehension." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46431390)) - Confusing tiers and pricing (2 comments): "Microsoft's tiers and pricing for Microsoft 365 is completely insane as far as the overwhelming number of different ways to fundamentally buy the exact same software." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49747336)) "saying they had to increase their prices but not mentioning that they could downgrade to a 'classic' subscription. totally misleading under australian consumer law." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46216976)) - Lock-in and subscription pushing (2 comments): "Microsoft-everything on a new ios, macos, windows or android personal computing device is clearly designed to sign people up for subscriptions." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48987332)) "Microsoft has made the world dependent on them. They are one of the biggest corporations that use drug lord tactics to keep its users." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46205096)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [LibreOffice](https://hackerapproved.com/p/libreoffice.md): 345 recommend - [Microsoft Office](https://hackerapproved.com/p/microsoft-office.md): 256 recommend - [Google Workspace](https://hackerapproved.com/p/google-workspace.md): 107 recommend - [OnlyOffice](https://hackerapproved.com/p/onlyoffice.md): 58 recommend - [La Suite numérique](https://hackerapproved.com/p/la-suite-num-rique.md): 25 recommend ## Where to get it - [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Microsoft+365+Family+subscription&tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link) - [Official site](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Microsoft 365", https://hackerapproved.com/p/microsoft-365/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).