Office Web Apps platform comparison overview

 

Applies to: Office 2010

Topic Last Modified: 2014-03-11

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Microsoft Office Web Apps are online companions to Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. They enable people to view, share, and work on documents with other people online across personal computers, mobile phones, and the web.

There are three different ways you can get Office Web Apps. Business customers who are licensed for Microsoft Office 2010 through a Volume Licensing program can run Office Web Apps on-premises on a server that runs Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 or Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. For more information, see Microsoft Volume Licensing. Microsoft also offers a hosted SharePoint Online service that can run Office Web Apps. Office Web Apps are also available to consumers through OneDrive. By comparing the capabilities of Office Web Apps in three different environments, you can help determine the best approach for your organization.

Note

Outlook Web App is not covered in this article as it is provided with Microsoft Exchange Server or Exchange Online. For more information, see Getting started with Outlook Web App in Office 365 or What's new for Outlook Web Apps in Exchange 2013.

The following table provides a summary of the capabilities of Office Web Apps on OneDrive, on Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products if they are installed on-premises, and Office Web Apps on SharePoint Online. For the most current capabilities of Office Web Apps on SharePoint Online, see Office 365 Service Description for Office Web Apps.

Capability OneDrive* SharePoint 2010 installed on-premises** SharePoint Online***

Audience

For personal use

For business use

For business use

Storage space

25 GB

Configurable by IT

Configurable by IT

File size limits

50 MB per file for Word, PowerPoint, and OneNote: 2 MB for Excel

Configurable by IT

10 MB to render in Excel Web App. 250 MB upload limit for Word, PowerPoint, OneNote and Excel files.

Pricing

Free

Office 2010 volume license

Volume license for Office 2010, or Office Professional Plus 2013, or subscription for Office 365 ProPlus

Ad Supported

Backup and restore

Document life cycle management

IT admin control

Ability to create new documents†

Configurable by IT if Office desktop applications are not installed on the active computer.

Configurable by IT if Office desktop applications are not installed on the active computer.

Browsers supported

Windows: Internet Explorer 7 or later versions, Firefox (latest released version), and Chrome (latest released version)

Mac: Safari (latest released version), Firefox (latest released version)

Linux: Firefox (latest released version), Chrome (latest released version)

Windows: Internet Explorer 7 or later versions, Firefox (latest released version), and Chrome (latest released version)

Mac: Safari (latest released version) (limited functionality), Firefox (latest released version)

Linux: Firefox (latest released version) Chrome (latest released version)

Office 2010, Service Pack 1 (SP1) supports Chrome (latest released version) on Windows and Linux.

Windows: Internet Explorer 8 or later versions, Firefox (latest released version) and Chrome (latest released version)

Mac: Safari (latest released version), Firefox (latest released version)

Linux: Firefox (latest released version), Chrome (latest released version)

Mobile support

Word, Excel, and PowerPoint Web Apps

Word, Excel, and PowerPoint Web Apps

Word, Excel, and PowerPoint Web Apps

Mobile browsers supported

Internet Explorer: Windows Phone 7 or later versions

Safari 5: iPhone 3G and 3GS, iPhone 4 (viewing), and Android 2.2 (viewing)

Safari 5.1: iPad (limited viewing and editing capability)

Safari 6 or later versions: iPad versions 2 and 3 (full functionality)

Internet Explorer: Windows Phone 7 or later versions

Safari 4 & 5: iPhone 3G or 3GS, iPhone 4 (viewing)

Other browsers: BlackBerry 5.x and later versions, Nokia S60 3.x and 5.0, and Android 1.6, 2.1, and 2.2 (viewing)

Internet Explorer: Windows Phone 7 or later versions

Safari 5: iPhone 3G or 3GS, iPhone 4 (viewing)

Safari 5.1: iPad (limited viewing and editing capability)

Safari 6 or later versions: iPad versions 2 and 3 (full functionality)

Other browsers: BlackBerry 5.x and later versions, Nokia S60 3.x and Nokia S60 5.0, and Android 4.0 or later versions (viewing)

Note

For capabilities of Office Web Apps on Office 365 pre-service upgrade, see Office 365 for Enterprise pre-service upgrade Service Descriptions.
† For information about how to create new documents, see Using Office Web Apps to Create New Files.