Chromebooks are flying off shelves like hotcakes. Education establishments are choosing these durable laptops to complement their 1:1 program. Google offers two G Suite editions to schools: G Suite for Education and G Suite Enterprise for Education. In this blog, we’re going to highlight the main difference between the two editions.

Update (2021) : Google has rebranded G Suite to Google Workspace. G Suite Enterprise for Education is now known as Google Workspace for Education. G Suite Enterprise is now Google Workspace Enterprise.

Similarities between G Suite Editions

Just like any G Suite account, the education editions have access to Gmail, shared calendars, video and voice conferences, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and forms. The education editions also have classroom collaboration with Google Classroom, unlimited cloud storage, device management, 24/7 support, and security and administrative controls. Further, regardless of the edition, you need to sign up to a G Suite account to gain access to the apps.

The Difference in Price

Similar to any Google service, Google offers a freemium version. They position the G Suite for Education edition for free for teachers and students. The G Suite Enterprise for Education is $48/user/year for faculty, staff and students.

What more do you get with G Suite Enterprise?

Increased Security Functionality

Although the freemium version includes security elements, the enterprise edition has a large focus on security and administrative controls. For example, it is possible to manage phishing attacks for hundreds of inboxes from your G Suite Enterprise for Education security center. And it’s possible to view activity across your domain from that dashboard. Other enhanced security features include an investigation tool, anomaly detection, advanced protection program and security sandbox.

Thoughts

For large school districts, the security features seem to be worth the extra cost. Onboarding hundreds or thousands of new devices is no small feat. The security center can help prevent losing data and control of the devices.

More Data analysis

Another feature of the enterprise edition is access to Gmail logs and admin reports in BigQuery. Thus, providing data to make informed decisions about devices and usage.

Thoughts

This feature is useful if your establishment already looks at this data. Too often, we purchase additional software for projects we HOPE to work on. Therefore, if you’re not looking into this data already, only consider this feature when you need it.

Communication for Large Groups.

Both editions have access to Google hangouts. However, The Enterprise edition can have larger meetings with up to 250 people. They also have a live streaming option that can host up to 100 000 viewers. And finally, you can record the meetings.

Thoughts

This seems like great features. Having large meetings seems to be a superior feature in comparison to competitors and would be mostly used by universities. Normally, teachers don’t record their sessions. It doesn’t seem to be a key feature for K-12 and school districts.

Final Thoughts

Enterprise edition is worth the investment for increased security, analytical data and meetings that include many attendees. What part of the enterprise edition is worth the cost?

Resources
https://www.vizor.cloud/chromebooks/
http://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/domain_licenses.pdf