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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
3rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
4.2
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Office 365
Ranking in Content Collaboration Platforms
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
150
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Content Collaboration Platforms category, the mindshare of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is 4.7%, down from 10.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Office 365 is 9.6%, up from 5.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Content Collaboration Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Office 3659.6%
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server4.7%
Other85.7%
Content Collaboration Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Daniel Giacomelli - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Gary Cook - PeerSpot reviewer
Access to advanced features boosts productivity despite pricing concerns in developing regions
I need to do maintenance for Office 365 very seldom, once a year. In the maintenance process for Office 365, we have about 12 people involved. For the maintenance side of Office 365, only one person is involved. Looking at Office 365's pricing, I would give it a 4 on a scale from 1 to 10. My overall rating for Office 365 is an 8 out of 10, but for the product itself, I would give it a 10. I would definitely recommend Office 365 to other businesses, probably a 9 out of 10 for recommendation. This is only because of its price and the fact that they do not take into account developing countries such as South Africa, where they should give us more favorable prices or local prices. We do not have a partnership with Microsoft, which is a sore point for us. We have reached out to Microsoft South Africa, and they are very hard to contact and largely uncooperative. We are a B-Level 2 and a B-Level 1, which are local affirmative action ratings that companies get. Level 1 is the highest, and Level 8 is the lowest. We hold amongst the highest BEE ratings, but we have not found Microsoft South Africa to be forthcoming or very open. We should have a partnership with them, and we run Power BI as we are a Power BI shop now. I strongly would want to see a box within Office 365 for our team to have ChatGPT through OpenAI as well. We use Excel as a data source for many tasks and find that it integrates really well with Python. We write a lot of Python code and use Excel as a data sheet many times, and we operate through SQL and other zero elements as well. From an Office 365 viewpoint, we find that with Copilot and Python and Excel's provision for Python, it is very useful.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution's most valuable features is its document management. It allows sharing with external users and integrates well with Office apps and Microsoft Flow."
"The forms aspect of the solution, for example, the creation of surveys, is its most valuable aspect."
"The solution is pretty easy to use for the most part."
"This solution has provided us with a collaborative workspace to allow everyone to work together and be on the same page."
"The implementation and configuring of the resolution are very easy in the online version."
"The level of stability is good."
"The features for low-code and no-code capabilities in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server are among the best, which are very user-friendly and not seen in any other cloud services, such as S3 from AWS and blob storage from Azure."
"Microsoft Office SharePoint Server's document management significantly improves collaboration within my organization."
"Adaptable solution with a good interface. It's easy to set up and easy to use."
"It has more features than somebody would expect, and it is worth taking a deeper look into the features available."
"​Great impact on project management and team collaboration."
"Teams has been really valuable recently as a feature of Office 365 when I've been working on projects where I've needed to collaborate with quite a large group of people."
"I like all of the features."
"Using Office 365 has allowed us to go digital and onboard people seamlessly for working at home during the COVID pandemic."
"The cloud service and Skype are the most valuable features."
"If you have a global solution, you can go from one product to the other very easily. And then you can share data between all the different tools of Office which is good because participation and sharing is very good. That's the most important aspect of Office 365."
 

Cons

"Workflows could be simplified."
"I would like to see the integration with Teams reinforced."
"The product is behind in development and lacks some features."
"The ability to preview files in different formats should be expanded to include formats such as embedded postscript (EPS), AutoCAD, and Adobe Acrobat PDF."
"It is a bit restrictive to develop in the cloud version. A lot of features are in the cloud now, and you have to develop on the outside. As far as the platform and the programming side of things are concerned, it is moving more towards configuration management rather than programming. When we are doing solutions, we are basically just configuring it to make solutions happen rather than actually using the Visual Studio code and developing from scratch in the cloud. It is almost like creating an app. You have created an app for your phone, but the app doesn't really sit on your phone. It sits somewhere on a server, and the database sits on another server. The app is just pulling and pushing information. The whole development has changed. We used to install things directly on the server and then run the application from the server. Now, it is more of a modular architecture."
"The user interface needs improvement because there is a lot of stuff in there. I use five to eight navigation buttons. It should be more user-friendly. Frequently used menu items should be arranged in a proper way. That would be helpful."
"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."
"The document management features of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server are not very good compared to OneDrive."
"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."
"I would like to see better integration with Teams, and better usability with SharePoint."
"We have had some connectivity issues."
"It needs improvements around its compatibility with non-Microsoft products."
"One of the big changes is when Microsoft updates anything, they will switch where some of the settings are and where to find them, which becomes a little frustrating because you're used to it in one spot and it's someplace else."
"Sometimes the synchronization between the desktop and online is a little bit slow."
"It would be a fantastic opportunity if their solution could be used in combination with VoIP software, allowing you to combine VoIP software and Office 365 on a single platform."
"I'd like to see them add more features in the future in order to continue to advance the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"Most of the time, we purchase Microsoft Exchange licenses, which are less expensive and provide only an email platform and 50 gigabytes of email storage for free."
"The pricing is high and has actually caused us to limit the number of licenses we purchase due to budgeting."
"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."
"The pricing is good for all the features that we receive, e.g., Skype for Business."
"Good reporting and good value subscriptions for international calls."
"​The pricing/licensing is easy to manage."
"The price of Office 365 is very expensive."
"The pricing is not really high, but one can get the software with the license key for free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
18%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Performing Arts
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business62
Midsize Enterprise29
Large Enterprise68
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server?
There are areas that could be improved with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. My company has more than 5,000 collaborators. The question of how Microsoft Office SharePoint Server can be a better ...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server?
The regular use cases with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server are to share files and to plug them into websites in collaboration features from Office 365. The advanced search functionality is accep...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Office 365?
My experience with the pricing, licensing, or setup costs with Office 365 is that it's the same thing; I'm not really involved with the pricing, so that's not my area of responsibility.
What needs improvement with Office 365?
I don't think of any areas that could be improved or things that I would want to see in the next releases of Office 365. Microsoft could improve their support; I don't deal with Office 365 or Offic...
What is your primary use case for Office 365?
The main use cases for Office 365 are both for our clients and internal use.
 

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: September 2025.
869,952 professionals have used our research since 2012.