Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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
5th
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 March 2026, in the Content Collaboration Platforms category, the mindshare of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is 3.6%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Office 365 is 9.9%, up from 4.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Content Collaboration Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Office 3659.9%
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server3.6%
Other86.5%
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 solution's most valuable features is its document management. It allows sharing with external users and integrates well with Office apps and Microsoft Flow."
"It's a very robust product."
"From my partner perspective, the best advantages of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server are that it's easy to use, and we can easily communicate, share documents, and assign permissions to specific people."
"The solution is pretty easy to use for the most part."
"It is a decent tool for collaboration, especially if you are already using other Office products."
"Microsoft Office SharePoint Server's document management significantly improves collaboration within my organization."
"The best features of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server are the integration between SharePoint, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, and email."
"The collaboration, the ability for multiple users to work on a single document."
"We use it for documentation management, to collaborate with Microsoft Teams, web calls, web conference calls, chats, and as a documentation repository mainly. We have an Office pack suite to be able to write documentation, make spreadsheets, and create PowerPoints."
"Office 365 has excellent facilities, it's familiar, and it's easy to comprehend when sending messages."
"Office 365 is scalable and easy to integrate with APIs, which is very beneficial for the operations we conduct."
"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."
"Office 365 is reliable and enhances productivity by allowing my team to use the same documents with multiple versions."
"I find OneDrive valuable because I'm able to have all my documents in one place and I can access them from anywhere."
"The most beneficial aspect of Office 365 for me is its compatibility across companies, ensuring seamless communication and collaboration because the majority of people use the product."
"The best features with Office 365 include the ability to access email anywhere since it's not an on-premises server, it's in the cloud, which saves us on storage and exchange administration, making it a significant change going from on-premises, which we were for the longest time, to the cloud, so it's definitely a benefit."
 

Cons

"I would like to see the integration with Teams reinforced."
"Technical support could be improved. They are not fast enough, especially when we'll go deeper in the product itself. More complex issues make it very tough to find someone that can help you."
"The permission management features need improvement."
"I would like to see more Agile techniques and seamless integration with other applications."
"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."
"Sharepoint doesn't integrate well with Oracle, and we use a lot of Oracle products at our company. Therefore, it makes more sense for us to go to Oracle instead of continuing to use Sharepoint."
"The search feature needs improvement. I can never find the information I need when I use it."
"Workflows could be simplified."
"I rate the support of Office 365 a four out of five."
"If two people update the same file, it causes issues."
"It could be more user-friendly for inexperienced people."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 could use some customization, but this area for improvement is trivial."
"It seems like every other week when we log into the administrative portals, it doesn't matter which one, it could be the active directory portal, it could be the exchange admin center or SharePoint admin center, it seems like Microsoft is consistently updating with new versions of the admin centers, which can be frustrating."
"In the next release, I would like to have a more intuitive tutorial."
"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."
"I would like to see better integration with Teams, and better usability with SharePoint."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Pricing plans may be flexible depending on volume usage and your corporate relationship with Microsoft."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The pricing is not really high, but one can get the software with the license key for free."
"The pricing is good for all the features that we receive, e.g., Skype for Business."
"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."
"Licensing, billing, and accounting are available from the management interface."
"Licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis, or we prepay them."
"Good reporting and good value subscriptions for international calls."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Content Collaboration Platforms solutions are best for your needs.
883,824 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

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: February 2026.
883,824 professionals have used our research since 2012.