{"slug": "google-workspace", "name": "Google Workspace", "category": "communication", "category_name": "Email and chat", "description": "Google's subscription suite of business email, calendar, documents, storage and chat on custom domains.", "recommenders": 6, "commenters": 16, "warners": 5, "score": 2.099, "rising": 0.69, "first": "2025-12-08", "latest": "2026-10-29", "why": "HN commenters like it as a good-value bundle of Gmail, Docs and SSO for small businesses and single-user custom domains, and one finds it much faster than Office 365.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 6, "neutral": 5, "compare": 0, "warn": 5}, "spark": [0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 2], "listed": true, "loved": ["Good value", "Integrated suite"], "caveat": "Spam filtering", "short_quote": "I've used Google Workspace for years and I really like having my email via gmail", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://workspace.google.com/", "pricing": "paid", "aliases": ["Google Workspace"], "verdict": [{"text": "HN commenters like it as a good-value bundle of Gmail, Docs and SSO", "cites": [{"id": 799335472, "item_id": 49958467, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49958467", "by": "65", "date": "2026-10-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've used Google Workspace for years and I really like having my email via gmail", "excerpt": "Unpopular opinion, but I've used Google Workspace for years and I really like having my email via gmail. SSO and spam filtering and Google Docs. I thought about switching to Amazon Workmail but the price I pay for Workspace is worth it.", "context": "", "use_case": "custom domain email", "switched_from": "", "story": "All I wanted was a custom domain email"}, {"id": 742877440, "item_id": 46429840, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46429840", "by": "itake", "date": "2025-12-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I moved from Zoho to Gmail, b/c of their pricing.", "excerpt": "I moved from Zoho to Gmail, b/c of their pricing. Google's basic plan is $7/mo [0], whereas the lowest cost plan with zoho is $25/mo [1]. Zoho's free plan stopped offering custom domains and/or limits imap access. [0] - https://workspace.google.com/lp/business/ [1] - https://www.zoho.com/us/billing/pricing/", "context": "", "use_case": "business email with custom domain", "switched_from": "Zoho", "story": "Bye Bye Big Tech: How I Migrated to an Almost All-EU Stack (and Saved 500\u20ac/Year)"}, {"id": 742856240, "item_id": 46428515, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46428515", "by": "nocchedure", "date": "2025-12-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the value of the Google Workspace* mid-tier (approx. 15\u20ac) is hard to beat", "excerpt": "I\u2019m heavily invested in the Google ecosystem and nothing would make me happier than switching to a privacy-focused European alternative. However, the value of the Google Workspace* mid-tier (approx. 15\u20ac) is hard to beat, I think. I get: - granular domain \\ email controls (blocklists, routing rules, etc.) - 2tb of google drive space - and now Gemini, which is quite nice It\u2019s 2025, and I\u2019m still finding it impossible t", "context": "heavily invested in the Google ecosystem, single-user account", "use_case": "personal domain email and storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bye Bye Big Tech: How I Migrated to an Almost All-EU Stack (and Saved 500\u20ac/Year)"}]}, {"text": " for small businesses and single-user custom domains,", "cites": [{"id": 804675824, "item_id": 50292239, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50292239", "by": "TacticalCoder", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "for SMEs \"Google Workspace\" is a godsend from outter space.", "excerpt": "Not a moat and not big but... for SMEs \"Google Workspace\" is a godsend from outter space. This is what allow little SMEs to not have to suffer that piece of shit that Windows is. I know people running their SMEs (and I helped them set up Google Workspace) from Mac and Chromebooks since years and years and who do not ever want to here again from anything Microsoft. They're basically doing everything inside \"Google Wor", "context": "helps SMEs set up Google Workspace", "use_case": "SME office suite", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google Search is now less than half of Alphabet\u2019s revenue"}, {"id": 742856240, "item_id": 46428515, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46428515", "by": "nocchedure", "date": "2025-12-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the value of the Google Workspace* mid-tier (approx. 15\u20ac) is hard to beat", "excerpt": "I\u2019m heavily invested in the Google ecosystem and nothing would make me happier than switching to a privacy-focused European alternative. However, the value of the Google Workspace* mid-tier (approx. 15\u20ac) is hard to beat, I think. I get: - granular domain \\ email controls (blocklists, routing rules, etc.) - 2tb of google drive space - and now Gemini, which is quite nice It\u2019s 2025, and I\u2019m still finding it impossible t", "context": "heavily invested in the Google ecosystem, single-user account", "use_case": "personal domain email and storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bye Bye Big Tech: How I Migrated to an Almost All-EU Stack (and Saved 500\u20ac/Year)"}]}, {"text": " and one finds it much faster than Office 365.", "cites": [{"id": 777452609, "item_id": 48590788, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48590788", "by": "MBCook", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Google did everything instantly.", "excerpt": "My company recently switched from Google Suite to Office 365. Both are web apps. It\u2019s NIGHT AND DAY. Google did everything instantly. Outlook doesn\u2019t. This morning Outlook decided to spin for 30+ seconds (at which point I gave up) showing a folder. I get a modal pop-up telling me I have to \u201crefresh\u201d teams multiple times a day. Search always fails the first time. Always. Then it works. Some. I agree. It\u2019s not web tech", "context": "", "use_case": "work email and docs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly"}]}, {"text": " The most common complaint is unreliable spam filtering, with both missed spam and legitimate mail lost to it,", "cites": [{"id": 799343456, "item_id": 49958966, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49958966", "by": "hakfoo", "date": "2026-10-04", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Emails I actually needed were being buried below the fold in the spam folder.", "excerpt": "It didn't help that people are seemingly more offended about the possibility of spam on their inbox than on losing a valuable email due to misclassification. There's little to no incentive for providers to ever de-escalate. At my day job, we use Gsuite. I never used it for any non-work purpose, and it wasn't publically published, so any \"spam\" it got was false positives. Emails I actually needed were being buried bel", "context": "uses at day job", "use_case": "work email", "switched_from": "", "story": "All I wanted was a custom domain email"}, {"id": 776048336, "item_id": 48503021, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48503021", "by": "jgalt212", "date": "2026-06-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Not so for Google Workspace. I get more spam and fake invoices and DocuSign contracts than I used to.", "excerpt": "> The first is AI filtering: the systems that decide what\u2019s spam, what\u2019s phishing, and what deserves your attention. Not so for Google Workspace. I get more spam and fake invoices and DocuSign contracts than I used to.", "context": "", "use_case": "email", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Future of Email"}, {"id": 763855969, "item_id": 47740998, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47740998", "by": "NelsonMinar", "date": "2026-04-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Gmail was blocking emails forwarded from Google Workspace.", "excerpt": "I've recently switched my personal email to a brand new domain and am struggling with getting it delivered. And all I'm doing is ~100 emails a week hand written by me to other individuals. I've been doing Internet email for 35 years now, I used to handwrite sendmail.cf for my college. I'm worried the medium is going to fail entirely in 5-10 years because of complexity in spam fighting. Receiving mail: I was using Goo", "context": "has done Internet email for 35 years", "use_case": "forwarding domain email", "switched_from": "", "story": "We have a 99% email reputation. Gmail disagrees"}]}, {"text": " followed by upgrade nagging and clumsy account export.", "cites": [{"id": 771569584, "item_id": 48223099, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48223099", "by": "sschueller", "date": "2026-05-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I already pay a lot, I don't want to pay double just not to be harassed.", "excerpt": "I pay for google \"Starter\" workspace. Recently I started to get harassed to upgrade. Big button in gmail, large notifications on top of my mail in the mobile app etc. Also two other buttons to get me to turn on AI features I don't need. I already pay a lot, I don't want to pay double just not to be harassed. Having buttons to features that I would have to pay extra for is one thing. But having notifications and large", "context": "pays for Starter plan", "use_case": "email and workspace", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google's Antigravity Bait and Switch"}, {"id": 775727792, "item_id": 48482987, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48482987", "by": "danudey", "date": "2026-06-10", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I used to have to reset their password, disable their 2FA, log in as their user, initiate a 'Takeout' request", "excerpt": "Do they have any supported way to export a user's account (e-mail, calendars, etc) for offline archiving yet? I used to have to reset their password, disable their 2FA, log in as their user, initiate a 'Takeout' request to export their account data into an archive, wait until the request was done (between minutes and days depending on the account), download it manually (often in chunks if it was large enough), store ", "context": "admin of a Workspace organization", "use_case": "archiving employee account data", "switched_from": "", "story": "Claude Desktop spins up a VM without no way of stopping it"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Good value", "summary": "Commenters say the price is worth it and cheaper than alternatives like Zoho.", "quotes": [{"id": 799335472, "item_id": 49958467, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49958467", "by": "65", "date": "2026-10-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've used Google Workspace for years and I really like having my email via gmail", "excerpt": "Unpopular opinion, but I've used Google Workspace for years and I really like having my email via gmail. SSO and spam filtering and Google Docs. I thought about switching to Amazon Workmail but the price I pay for Workspace is worth it.", "context": "", "use_case": "custom domain email", "switched_from": "", "story": "All I wanted was a custom domain email"}, {"id": 742877440, "item_id": 46429840, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46429840", "by": "itake", "date": "2025-12-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I moved from Zoho to Gmail, b/c of their pricing.", "excerpt": "I moved from Zoho to Gmail, b/c of their pricing. Google's basic plan is $7/mo [0], whereas the lowest cost plan with zoho is $25/mo [1]. Zoho's free plan stopped offering custom domains and/or limits imap access. [0] - https://workspace.google.com/lp/business/ [1] - https://www.zoho.com/us/billing/pricing/", "context": "", "use_case": "business email with custom domain", "switched_from": "Zoho", "story": "Bye Bye Big Tech: How I Migrated to an Almost All-EU Stack (and Saved 500\u20ac/Year)"}, {"id": 742856240, "item_id": 46428515, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46428515", "by": "nocchedure", "date": "2025-12-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the value of the Google Workspace* mid-tier (approx. 15\u20ac) is hard to beat", "excerpt": "I\u2019m heavily invested in the Google ecosystem and nothing would make me happier than switching to a privacy-focused European alternative. However, the value of the Google Workspace* mid-tier (approx. 15\u20ac) is hard to beat, I think. I get: - granular domain \\ email controls (blocklists, routing rules, etc.) - 2tb of google drive space - and now Gemini, which is quite nice It\u2019s 2025, and I\u2019m still finding it impossible t", "context": "heavily invested in the Google ecosystem, single-user account", "use_case": "personal domain email and storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bye Bye Big Tech: How I Migrated to an Almost All-EU Stack (and Saved 500\u20ac/Year)"}]}, {"label": "Integrated suite", "summary": "Email, Docs, Sheets and SSO in one place let small businesses run everything inside it.", "quotes": [{"id": 804675824, "item_id": 50292239, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50292239", "by": "TacticalCoder", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "for SMEs \"Google Workspace\" is a godsend from outter space.", "excerpt": "Not a moat and not big but... for SMEs \"Google Workspace\" is a godsend from outter space. This is what allow little SMEs to not have to suffer that piece of shit that Windows is. I know people running their SMEs (and I helped them set up Google Workspace) from Mac and Chromebooks since years and years and who do not ever want to here again from anything Microsoft. They're basically doing everything inside \"Google Wor", "context": "helps SMEs set up Google Workspace", "use_case": "SME office suite", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google Search is now less than half of Alphabet\u2019s revenue"}, {"id": 752339793, "item_id": 47021237, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47021237", "by": "czhu12", "date": "2026-02-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "incredibly good their google workspace suite of tools is", "excerpt": "Google should build slack. Its a travesty how incredibly good their google workspace suite of tools is, and then google chat is what sits between it all. If it wasn't for the fact that google bungled an internal communication tool so badly, slack wouldn't even have to exist. For the life of me I cannot understand why they after a decade, has let slack and teams become basically a duopoly in this space. Source: I use ", "context": "", "use_case": "office productivity suite", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenAI Should Build Slack"}, {"id": 799335472, "item_id": 49958467, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49958467", "by": "65", "date": "2026-10-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've used Google Workspace for years and I really like having my email via gmail", "excerpt": "Unpopular opinion, but I've used Google Workspace for years and I really like having my email via gmail. SSO and spam filtering and Google Docs. I thought about switching to Amazon Workmail but the price I pay for Workspace is worth it.", "context": "", "use_case": "custom domain email", "switched_from": "", "story": "All I wanted was a custom domain email"}]}, {"label": "Domain controls", "summary": "Custom-domain email comes with aliases, routing rules and blocklists.", "quotes": [{"id": 742856240, "item_id": 46428515, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46428515", "by": "nocchedure", "date": "2025-12-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the value of the Google Workspace* mid-tier (approx. 15\u20ac) is hard to beat", "excerpt": "I\u2019m heavily invested in the Google ecosystem and nothing would make me happier than switching to a privacy-focused European alternative. However, the value of the Google Workspace* mid-tier (approx. 15\u20ac) is hard to beat, I think. I get: - granular domain \\ email controls (blocklists, routing rules, etc.) - 2tb of google drive space - and now Gemini, which is quite nice It\u2019s 2025, and I\u2019m still finding it impossible t", "context": "heavily invested in the Google ecosystem, single-user account", "use_case": "personal domain email and storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bye Bye Big Tech: How I Migrated to an Almost All-EU Stack (and Saved 500\u20ac/Year)"}, {"id": 742202464, "item_id": 46387654, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46387654", "by": "EGreg", "date": "2025-12-25", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used Google Suite with a domain.", "excerpt": "I never really had this issue because I used Google Suite with a domain. (That\u2019s what it was called back then.) So I can have email aliases under that domain, and even choose the alias for outgoing email. However! This creates an extra security hole. Once I was SIM-swapped (when the attacker calls up a phone company and convinces them to redirect sms to their SIM). I had used it as a second factor at GoDaddy and had ", "context": "", "use_case": "email on own domain with aliases", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google is 'gradually rolling out' option to change your gmail.com address"}]}, {"label": "Speed", "summary": "One commenter found it instant compared with Office 365's slow Outlook.", "quotes": [{"id": 777452609, "item_id": 48590788, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48590788", "by": "MBCook", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Google did everything instantly.", "excerpt": "My company recently switched from Google Suite to Office 365. Both are web apps. It\u2019s NIGHT AND DAY. Google did everything instantly. Outlook doesn\u2019t. This morning Outlook decided to spin for 30+ seconds (at which point I gave up) showing a folder. I get a modal pop-up telling me I have to \u201crefresh\u201d teams multiple times a day. Search always fails the first time. Always. Then it works. Some. I agree. It\u2019s not web tech", "context": "", "use_case": "work email and docs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Spam filtering", "summary": "Users report both legitimate mail sent to spam and more spam getting through.", "quotes": [{"id": 799343456, "item_id": 49958966, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49958966", "by": "hakfoo", "date": "2026-10-04", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Emails I actually needed were being buried below the fold in the spam folder.", "excerpt": "It didn't help that people are seemingly more offended about the possibility of spam on their inbox than on losing a valuable email due to misclassification. There's little to no incentive for providers to ever de-escalate. At my day job, we use Gsuite. I never used it for any non-work purpose, and it wasn't publically published, so any \"spam\" it got was false positives. Emails I actually needed were being buried bel", "context": "uses at day job", "use_case": "work email", "switched_from": "", "story": "All I wanted was a custom domain email"}, {"id": 776048336, "item_id": 48503021, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48503021", "by": "jgalt212", "date": "2026-06-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Not so for Google Workspace. I get more spam and fake invoices and DocuSign contracts than I used to.", "excerpt": "> The first is AI filtering: the systems that decide what\u2019s spam, what\u2019s phishing, and what deserves your attention. Not so for Google Workspace. I get more spam and fake invoices and DocuSign contracts than I used to.", "context": "", "use_case": "email", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Future of Email"}, {"id": 763855969, "item_id": 47740998, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47740998", "by": "NelsonMinar", "date": "2026-04-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Gmail was blocking emails forwarded from Google Workspace.", "excerpt": "I've recently switched my personal email to a brand new domain and am struggling with getting it delivered. And all I'm doing is ~100 emails a week hand written by me to other individuals. I've been doing Internet email for 35 years now, I used to handwrite sendmail.cf for my college. I'm worried the medium is going to fail entirely in 5-10 years because of complexity in spam fighting. Receiving mail: I was using Goo", "context": "has done Internet email for 35 years", "use_case": "forwarding domain email", "switched_from": "", "story": "We have a 99% email reputation. Gmail disagrees"}]}, {"label": "Upsell nagging", "summary": "Paying Starter users get persistent prompts to upgrade and enable AI features.", "quotes": [{"id": 771569584, "item_id": 48223099, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48223099", "by": "sschueller", "date": "2026-05-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I already pay a lot, I don't want to pay double just not to be harassed.", "excerpt": "I pay for google \"Starter\" workspace. Recently I started to get harassed to upgrade. Big button in gmail, large notifications on top of my mail in the mobile app etc. Also two other buttons to get me to turn on AI features I don't need. I already pay a lot, I don't want to pay double just not to be harassed. Having buttons to features that I would have to pay extra for is one thing. But having notifications and large", "context": "pays for Starter plan", "use_case": "email and workspace", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google's Antigravity Bait and Switch"}, {"id": 774007872, "item_id": 48375492, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48375492", "by": "joemi", "date": "2026-06-02", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "At work, we use Google Workspaces so that we have gmail and google docs and google sheets", "excerpt": "At work, we use Google Workspaces so that we have gmail and google docs and google sheets, and the \"features\" noted in this post have all shown up for us. That said, we were able to turn them off and haven't been bothered by them since. I don't remember the process being hard at all. That said, it's still something you need to do to have your settings not be the default settings, but is that necessarily any worse tha", "context": "", "use_case": "work email and docs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left"}]}, {"label": "Account export", "summary": "An admin found archiving a departing user's data a slow, manual Takeout process.", "quotes": [{"id": 775727792, "item_id": 48482987, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48482987", "by": "danudey", "date": "2026-06-10", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I used to have to reset their password, disable their 2FA, log in as their user, initiate a 'Takeout' request", "excerpt": "Do they have any supported way to export a user's account (e-mail, calendars, etc) for offline archiving yet? I used to have to reset their password, disable their 2FA, log in as their user, initiate a 'Takeout' request to export their account data into an archive, wait until the request was done (between minutes and days depending on the account), download it manually (often in chunks if it was large enough), store ", "context": "admin of a Workspace organization", "use_case": "archiving employee account data", "switched_from": "", "story": "Claude Desktop spins up a VM without no way of stopping it"}]}, {"label": "Google Chat", "summary": "One daily user says Google Chat is the weak link, with basic features not working.", "quotes": [{"id": 752339793, "item_id": 47021237, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47021237", "by": "czhu12", "date": "2026-02-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "incredibly good their google workspace suite of tools is", "excerpt": "Google should build slack. Its a travesty how incredibly good their google workspace suite of tools is, and then google chat is what sits between it all. If it wasn't for the fact that google bungled an internal communication tool so badly, slack wouldn't even have to exist. For the life of me I cannot understand why they after a decade, has let slack and teams become basically a duopoly in this space. Source: I use ", "context": "", "use_case": "office productivity suite", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenAI Should Build Slack"}]}], "who": [{"by": "TacticalCoder", "context": "helps SMEs set up Google Workspace", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50292239", "date": "2026-10-29"}, {"by": "xinbenlv", "context": "Xoogler", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46720442", "date": "2026-01-22"}, {"by": "nocchedure", "context": "heavily invested in the Google ecosystem, single-user account", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46428515", "date": "2025-12-29"}], "tags": ["for small businesses", "for custom-domain email", "for single users", "for Mac and Chromebook users"], "use_cases": ["work email and docs", "sme office suite", "work email", "custom domain email", "free hosting/platform", "email"], "compared": [{"slug": "microsoft-outlook", "name": "Microsoft Outlook", "co": 1, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 2}, {"slug": "cloudflare-email-routing", "name": "Cloudflare Email Routing", "co": 1, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "zoho-mail", "name": "Zoho Mail", "co": 1, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "gemini", "name": "Gemini", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "gmail", "name": "Gmail", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "microsoft-teams", "name": "Microsoft Teams", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49956092", "title": "All I wanted was a custom domain email", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46427582", "title": "Bye Bye Big Tech: How I Migrated to an Almost All-EU Stack (and Saved 500\u20ac/Year)", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50291945", "title": "Google Search is now less than half of Alphabet\u2019s revenue", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48962758", "title": "Hardcore IndieWeb: Run your own website 100% independently for only $0.01/day", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48584207", "title": "Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48502321", "title": "The Future of Email", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"neutral": 2, "recommend": 2}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"warn": 1}, "2026-05": {"warn": 1}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 1, "warn": 2, "recommend": 1}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 2, "warn": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 804675824, "item_id": 50292239, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50292239", "by": "TacticalCoder", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "for SMEs \"Google Workspace\" is a godsend from outter space.", "excerpt": "Not a moat and not big but... for SMEs \"Google Workspace\" is a godsend from outter space. This is what allow little SMEs to not have to suffer that piece of shit that Windows is. I know people running their SMEs (and I helped them set up Google Workspace) from Mac and Chromebooks since years and years and who do not ever want to here again from anything Microsoft. They're basically doing everything inside \"Google Wor", "context": "helps SMEs set up Google Workspace", "use_case": "SME office suite", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google Search is now less than half of Alphabet\u2019s revenue"}, {"id": 799343456, "item_id": 49958966, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49958966", "by": "hakfoo", "date": "2026-10-04", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Emails I actually needed were being buried below the fold in the spam folder.", "excerpt": "It didn't help that people are seemingly more offended about the possibility of spam on their inbox than on losing a valuable email due to misclassification. There's little to no incentive for providers to ever de-escalate. At my day job, we use Gsuite. I never used it for any non-work purpose, and it wasn't publically published, so any \"spam\" it got was false positives. Emails I actually needed were being buried bel", "context": "uses at day job", "use_case": "work email", "switched_from": "", "story": "All I wanted was a custom domain email"}, {"id": 799335472, "item_id": 49958467, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49958467", "by": "65", "date": "2026-10-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've used Google Workspace for years and I really like having my email via gmail", "excerpt": "Unpopular opinion, but I've used Google Workspace for years and I really like having my email via gmail. SSO and spam filtering and Google Docs. I thought about switching to Amazon Workmail but the price I pay for Workspace is worth it.", "context": "", "use_case": "custom domain email", "switched_from": "", "story": "All I wanted was a custom domain email"}, {"id": 783484048, "item_id": 48967753, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48967753", "by": "blfr", "date": "2026-07-19", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Most massive platforms that I use for free (Google Workspace, Cloudflare Pages, even Oracle Cloud always free tier) have outlived many low cost solutions I tried.", "excerpt": "Not really, not for 1\u00a2/day. Most massive platforms that I use for free (Google Workspace, Cloudflare Pages, even Oracle Cloud always free tier) have outlived many low cost solutions I tried.", "context": "", "use_case": "free hosting/platform", "switched_from": "", "story": "Hardcore IndieWeb: Run your own website 100% independently for only $0.01/day"}, {"id": 777452609, "item_id": 48590788, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48590788", "by": "MBCook", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Google did everything instantly.", "excerpt": "My company recently switched from Google Suite to Office 365. Both are web apps. It\u2019s NIGHT AND DAY. Google did everything instantly. Outlook doesn\u2019t. This morning Outlook decided to spin for 30+ seconds (at which point I gave up) showing a folder. I get a modal pop-up telling me I have to \u201crefresh\u201d teams multiple times a day. Search always fails the first time. Always. Then it works. Some. I agree. It\u2019s not web tech", "context": "", "use_case": "work email and docs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly"}, {"id": 776048336, "item_id": 48503021, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48503021", "by": "jgalt212", "date": "2026-06-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Not so for Google Workspace. I get more spam and fake invoices and DocuSign contracts than I used to.", "excerpt": "> The first is AI filtering: the systems that decide what\u2019s spam, what\u2019s phishing, and what deserves your attention. Not so for Google Workspace. I get more spam and fake invoices and DocuSign contracts than I used to.", "context": "", "use_case": "email", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Future of Email"}, {"id": 775727792, "item_id": 48482987, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48482987", "by": "danudey", "date": "2026-06-10", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I used to have to reset their password, disable their 2FA, log in as their user, initiate a 'Takeout' request", "excerpt": "Do they have any supported way to export a user's account (e-mail, calendars, etc) for offline archiving yet? I used to have to reset their password, disable their 2FA, log in as their user, initiate a 'Takeout' request to export their account data into an archive, wait until the request was done (between minutes and days depending on the account), download it manually (often in chunks if it was large enough), store ", "context": "admin of a Workspace organization", "use_case": "archiving employee account data", "switched_from": "", "story": "Claude Desktop spins up a VM without no way of stopping it"}, {"id": 774007872, "item_id": 48375492, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48375492", "by": "joemi", "date": "2026-06-02", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "At work, we use Google Workspaces so that we have gmail and google docs and google sheets", "excerpt": "At work, we use Google Workspaces so that we have gmail and google docs and google sheets, and the \"features\" noted in this post have all shown up for us. That said, we were able to turn them off and haven't been bothered by them since. I don't remember the process being hard at all. That said, it's still something you need to do to have your settings not be the default settings, but is that necessarily any worse tha", "context": "", "use_case": "work email and docs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left"}, {"id": 771569584, "item_id": 48223099, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48223099", "by": "sschueller", "date": "2026-05-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I already pay a lot, I don't want to pay double just not to be harassed.", "excerpt": "I pay for google \"Starter\" workspace. Recently I started to get harassed to upgrade. Big button in gmail, large notifications on top of my mail in the mobile app etc. Also two other buttons to get me to turn on AI features I don't need. I already pay a lot, I don't want to pay double just not to be harassed. Having buttons to features that I would have to pay extra for is one thing. But having notifications and large", "context": "pays for Starter plan", "use_case": "email and workspace", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google's Antigravity Bait and Switch"}, {"id": 763855969, "item_id": 47740998, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47740998", "by": "NelsonMinar", "date": "2026-04-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Gmail was blocking emails forwarded from Google Workspace.", "excerpt": "I've recently switched my personal email to a brand new domain and am struggling with getting it delivered. And all I'm doing is ~100 emails a week hand written by me to other individuals. I've been doing Internet email for 35 years now, I used to handwrite sendmail.cf for my college. I'm worried the medium is going to fail entirely in 5-10 years because of complexity in spam fighting. Receiving mail: I was using Goo", "context": "has done Internet email for 35 years", "use_case": "forwarding domain email", "switched_from": "", "story": "We have a 99% email reputation. Gmail disagrees"}, {"id": 752339793, "item_id": 47021237, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47021237", "by": "czhu12", "date": "2026-02-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "incredibly good their google workspace suite of tools is", "excerpt": "Google should build slack. Its a travesty how incredibly good their google workspace suite of tools is, and then google chat is what sits between it all. If it wasn't for the fact that google bungled an internal communication tool so badly, slack wouldn't even have to exist. For the life of me I cannot understand why they after a decade, has let slack and teams become basically a duopoly in this space. Source: I use ", "context": "", "use_case": "office productivity suite", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenAI Should Build Slack"}, {"id": 747527073, "item_id": 46720442, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46720442", "by": "xinbenlv", "date": "2026-01-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "we used Gmail and Google Workspace at Google", "excerpt": "Xoogler here too, yes, we used Gmail and Google Workspace at Google. You can search for an exact string if you use quotes. I think you can also filter out logos", "context": "Xoogler", "use_case": "productivity suite", "switched_from": "", "story": "Do people at Google use Gmail?"}, {"id": 742877440, "item_id": 46429840, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46429840", "by": "itake", "date": "2025-12-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I moved from Zoho to Gmail, b/c of their pricing.", "excerpt": "I moved from Zoho to Gmail, b/c of their pricing. Google's basic plan is $7/mo [0], whereas the lowest cost plan with zoho is $25/mo [1]. Zoho's free plan stopped offering custom domains and/or limits imap access. [0] - https://workspace.google.com/lp/business/ [1] - https://www.zoho.com/us/billing/pricing/", "context": "", "use_case": "business email with custom domain", "switched_from": "Zoho", "story": "Bye Bye Big Tech: How I Migrated to an Almost All-EU Stack (and Saved 500\u20ac/Year)"}, {"id": 742856240, "item_id": 46428515, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46428515", "by": "nocchedure", "date": "2025-12-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the value of the Google Workspace* mid-tier (approx. 15\u20ac) is hard to beat", "excerpt": "I\u2019m heavily invested in the Google ecosystem and nothing would make me happier than switching to a privacy-focused European alternative. However, the value of the Google Workspace* mid-tier (approx. 15\u20ac) is hard to beat, I think. I get: - granular domain \\ email controls (blocklists, routing rules, etc.) - 2tb of google drive space - and now Gemini, which is quite nice It\u2019s 2025, and I\u2019m still finding it impossible t", "context": "heavily invested in the Google ecosystem, single-user account", "use_case": "personal domain email and storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bye Bye Big Tech: How I Migrated to an Almost All-EU Stack (and Saved 500\u20ac/Year)"}, {"id": 742202464, "item_id": 46387654, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46387654", "by": "EGreg", "date": "2025-12-25", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used Google Suite with a domain.", "excerpt": "I never really had this issue because I used Google Suite with a domain. (That\u2019s what it was called back then.) So I can have email aliases under that domain, and even choose the alias for outgoing email. However! This creates an extra security hole. Once I was SIM-swapped (when the attacker calls up a phone company and convinces them to redirect sms to their SIM). I had used it as a second factor at GoDaddy and had ", "context": "", "use_case": "email on own domain with aliases", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google is 'gradually rolling out' option to change your gmail.com address"}, {"id": 739137440, "item_id": 46196090, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46196090", "by": "SomeHacker44", "date": "2025-12-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use Google Workspace apps which can read those files.", "excerpt": "I would prefer unbundling this. I do not use Microsoft Office apps; I use Google Workspace apps which can read those files. I do heavily use OneDrive space though. I want to pay only for that. And cannot. I would love to find a OneDrive replacement that works well both on Linux and Windows (and Android, iOS).", "context": "", "use_case": "office documents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices"}]}