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Microsoft Office SharePoint Server vs Office 365 comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 29, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Office SharePoint...
Ranking in Content Collaboration Platforms
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
4.3
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Office 365
Ranking in Content Collaboration Platforms
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
152
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Content Collaboration Platforms category, the mindshare of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is 3.7%, down from 9.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Office 365 is 10.2%, up from 4.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Content Collaboration Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Office 36510.2%
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server3.7%
Other86.1%
Content Collaboration Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Daniel Giacomelli - PeerSpot reviewer
Security and Compliance at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Has transformed how I manage documents through metadata and automation while enabling structured collaboration
Microsoft should restore some functionalities from older versions of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2003 and 2010. Specifically, bringing back something similar to SharePoint Designer would be beneficial. SharePoint Designer was both advantageous and challenging - developers found it limiting and preferred Visual Studio, while non-developers struggled to use it effectively. A new tool for configuring webpage design and development for content pages would be valuable. The current system is too basic. While integration of filtered lists and libraries is possible, it requires knowledge of Python or jQuery. A WYSIWYG editor would be preferable to requiring programming knowledge or Visual Studio.
BasilJiji - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Collaboration has transformed how our teams work and Copilot now drives faster daily decisions
The interface for the security and compliance center could be simplified. It changes frequently, which can make it somewhat difficult for admins to stay up-to-date on where specific settings are located. The compliance center modification or improvement of Office 365 needs to be introduced. The rest of the features feel acceptable to me. The reason it is not a ten is because of the complexity of managing the vast array of admin settings, which requires a specialized IT team. Even though it meets industry standards for decent security compliance such as SOC and HIPAA, the complexity of managing the admin settings needs to improve.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable feature is that it is very usable. I can navigate it, I can have a media call, I can have a call with my project team, so we can chat with every team kind of like WhatsApp. Any time there are projects or other things, we can chat in a secure way. It's automation-specific secure."
"The ability to create simple web pages with diagrams and links is valuable, particularly for intranet work and creating wiki pages for a team to show how we do certain things."
"The best features of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server are the integration between SharePoint, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, and email."
"The integration with security tools in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is one of the significant pluses since it alerts the IT team if anyone tries to redirect an email, which is illegal for us."
"It is a decent tool for collaboration, especially if you are already using other Office products."
"The support from Microsoft is very quick and they are very proactive."
"The ability to work through a web browser without requiring installation on devices is particularly beneficial."
"The solution's most valuable aspects are its collaboration capabilities, its communications site and the innovation within the product itself."
"We have been using Microsoft for quite some time for our internal purposes, and we are predominantly relying on Microsoft tools and services for internal communications and email exchange."
"Microsoft 365 operates seamlessly in the background, allowing us to perform tasks across different Microsoft applications."
"Office 365 is a stable product, and I find it very useful for collaboration, especially when I use Excel to elaborate data that I later use with Power BI."
"The technical support is outstanding."
"The collaboration tools in Office 365 enhance my team's workflow immeasurably, and they are absolutely top class."
"The ability to work with people remotely, collaborate online, and share files are the main benefits I receive from Office 365."
"The most valuable features of Office 365 for me include online file sharing and real-time document editing where multiple collaborators can work on the same document and see changes in real-time."
"The pivot table feature is most valuable because it helps me understand large volumes of data in a very short time."
 

Cons

"The GUI is outdated."
"The search feature needs improvement. I can never find the information I need when I use it."
"Regarding the setup for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, I have to rate it lower, maybe a seven out of 10, as it is a little bit more complex and not so easy to use in some use cases."
"This solution is not very stable. It is useful to arrange data but it's not the best for big data. Sometimes we have issues with our reports as a result."
"The permission management features need improvement."
"The solution needs to be more collaborative. I believe they are just coming up with the themes for this right now."
"I think these tools do a pretty good job. There is only one area of improvement. Maybe Microsoft can invest a little bit more into the ease at which integration can be done with other third party applications."
"The velocity and speed of information retrieval in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server could be improved."
"There are several additional features we would like to see, such as advanced features of SAN protection in Office 365. The main thing is the SAN protection; we would like to see a lot of advanced features added because we had a lot of spam attacks."
"There are some complexities to the initial setup if you use some of the more advanced features."
"Could include integration with other single sign-on solutions."
"The security should be improved."
"Their support is so terrible and unusable except during dire emergencies."
"The feature to convert PDF file to a Word document needs improvement as well as the feature to save the file automatically when typing, without using the save command."
"There was a problem with the owner of a Team; although it was listed as an owner, he couldn't do whatever an owner can do."
"We have found that, with Teams, if you are including one more person who is not in the company ecosystem, supposedly I'm inviting them as a guest in the chat. However, when I do that, I can't share files."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are some aggressive discounts offered by Microsoft for organizations that are not for profit, which we are, and it makes it quite attractive to consider."
"Pricing plans may be flexible depending on volume usage and your corporate relationship with Microsoft."
"One of the reasons why we don't recommend the cloud version of SharePoint is the cost. With the on premise version, you pay for the license once. For the cloud version, there is a recurring fee. It is very expensive. They expect everyone to pay $20 or $30 per user per month."
"It can be expensive for on-premises deployments, especially when you have to support SQL Server as your backend database. That's where the cost comes into play. SQL Server has its own licensing, which Microsoft keeps on changing. Therefore, it can become costly. In the earlier versions of SharePoint, version 2007 or 2010, they had an express version where the SQL Server licensing was free. It wasn't like a full-blown SharePoint. It was only a slimmed-down version. It used to be whatever your hardware costs. You would install the free software and work with it, but you were very limited in what you could do in SharePoint. If you wanted the SharePoint Enterprise Server with all the bells and whistles, then you had to pay more to get the SQL Server license based on the number of users or servers. The subscription model is different for cloud deployments. Licensing is per user and per month. The cost also depends on the storage required. If you have a lot of sites or documents, then you need to expand it based on your needs."
"The price of Office 365 is very expensive."
"For the moment, we are paying on a monthly basis because we are still adapting the support and how we want to proceed. I think we will move to paying for the annual license."
"I would rate the solution 3 out of 5 for the price. I think Microsoft presents a good solution concerning the price."
"The pricing is high and has actually caused us to limit the number of licenses we purchase due to budgeting."
"I think that we pay $9.99 USD per user, monthly."
"We have a license to use this solution. We have an E3 license which covers many different solutions."
"Good reporting and good value subscriptions for international calls."
"​The pricing/licensing is easy to manage."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise17
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business62
Midsize Enterprise29
Large Enterprise70
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server?
I am not aware of the pricing, so I cannot say if the solution is expensive or quite affordable.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server?
My expectation when I start using a Microsoft product is that it would be easy to incorporate diagrams and such from other Microsoft Office products. Incorporating a diagram I've embedded in a slid...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server?
I produce content about the work I'm doing inside the company, making information about IT architecture, work processes within IT architecture, and security reviews of applications or infrastructur...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Office 365?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Office 365 is that it is moderate.
What needs improvement with Office 365?
Office 365 can be improved by increasing support, which currently is not efficient and takes a lot of time to resolve issues. It has been observed that support personnel often lack hands-on experie...
What is your primary use case for Office 365?
Email and collaboration are the main use cases for Office 365 at Omagi Media Labs. It is used for internal and external communication in daily work. Groups and Teams groups are created and used in ...
 

Also Known As

Office SharePoint Server, MS Office SharePoint Server
Microsoft Office 365, Office 365 Enterprise, Office 365 Enterprise E1, Office 365 Enterprise E3, Office 365 Enterprise E5, Office 365 ProPlus, Office 365 Business, Office 365 Business Essentials, Office 365 Business Premium, Office 365 F1
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Del Monte Foods, Unicredit Leasing, Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council, Nokia Czech Republic, Perkins Eastman, JLL, ICA, óxito Software, Dorset Software, PKP Cargo, Arcapita Bank B.S.C., AVE CZ, Chesapeake Energy
Me & the Bees Lemonade
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Office SharePoint Server vs. Office 365 and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,565 professionals have used our research since 2012.