Both write documents. The real differences show up once you look at how each one handles collaboration, formatting, and what happens when you’re not online.
Real-time collaboration
Google Docs was built around simultaneous editing from day one — multiple people typing in the same document, seeing each other’s cursors, with changes saved automatically as they happen. Word can do this too through OneDrive or SharePoint, but it’s an added layer on top of a tool originally designed for one person working alone, and it can feel slightly less seamless, especially with a large or complex document.
Formatting power
Word wins clearly here. Page layout control, styles, long-document tools (an auto-updating table of contents, footnotes, section breaks with different settings per section), and print-ready precision are all considerably deeper in Word. Google Docs handles simple documents well but starts to feel limited the moment a document needs real structural complexity — a thesis, a formatted report, a document headed for print.
Working offline
Word’s desktop app works completely offline by default. Google Docs needs offline mode explicitly turned on ahead of time in each browser, and it’s easy to forget until you’re somewhere without a connection and it’s too late.
Price
Google Docs is free, full stop, with a Google account. Word requires either a one-time purchase or a Microsoft 365 subscription, which also bundles Excel, PowerPoint, and cloud storage.
Which one should you use
For anything collaborative and relatively simple — shared notes, a draft several people are actively co-writing — Google Docs is usually the smoother experience. For long, formatting-heavy, or print-bound documents — reports, theses, anything with a real structure — Word still has more depth. Plenty of people end up using both: Docs for quick shared drafts, Word for anything that needs to look finished.