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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
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 is scalable. You can do both horizontal and vertical scaling."
"What I appreciate most about Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is how it centralizes information and collaboration in one place."
"Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is a scalable solution because our applications are not staying in one place, year on year we are increasing users, so definitely it can scale with what we need."
"This solution has provided us with a collaborative workspace to allow everyone to work together and be on the same page."
"Ability to collaborate with others in one location."
"The forms aspect of the solution, for example, the creation of surveys, is its most valuable aspect."
"The collaboration, the ability for multiple users to work on a single document."
"The solution is pretty easy to use for the most part."
"The Copilot integration in Office 365 stands out by providing various different kinds of support to daily users utilizing AI help on other products."
"Office 365 is very easy to use and it's fast, with functionalities that allow for seamless simulations, and the collaboration features, especially when working with technology sectors, are highly useful."
"Office 365 has AI capabilities that improve our processes, as we are using Copilot to assist us in writing documents."
"Teams is really helpful because my university uses Microsoft Outlook, and integrating with Teams and coordinating with my team members is very useful."
"The most valuable features of Office 365 include its ecosystem integration capabilities, allowing for seamless usage across different platforms."
"The recent Microsoft 365 integration with Copilot is certainly very useful and effective, specifically for enterprise customers as it provides more than a 5x boost to productivity."
"Office 365 is scalable and easy to integrate with APIs, which is very beneficial for the operations we conduct."
"The collaboration tools in Office 365 enhance my team's workflow immeasurably, and they are absolutely top class."
 

Cons

"The velocity and speed of information retrieval in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server could be improved."
"Workflows could be simplified."
"The product could be improved by accommodating different technologies, particularly integration."
"The solution needs to enable better sharing capabilities between users and external users. Several users also have problems with linking their emails to their Microsoft account."
"The ability to preview files in different formats should be expanded to include formats such as embedded postscript (EPS), AutoCAD, and Adobe Acrobat PDF."
"Making it more intuitive could help teams adopt it faster and use it more effectively by being more user-friendly."
"The product is behind in development and lacks some features."
"I would like to see more Agile techniques and seamless integration with other applications."
"It needs improvements around its compatibility with non-Microsoft products."
"Sometimes the configurations of the error troubleshooting are pretty problematic and there are a lot of issues that happen even if you follow the step-by-step guides. They can work on fixing this issue. If there are a lot of issues in your Windows or your Office or anything, you restart your PC and it works. They need to get rid of this need."
"Office 365 can be improved by increasing support, which currently is not efficient and takes a lot of time to resolve issues."
"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."
"There are some complexities to the initial setup if you use some of the more advanced features."
"It could be more user-friendly for inexperienced people."
"I haven't used Copilot too much because I don't have a license for that at the moment."
"Constantly evolving with new features, which can be challenging for users."
 

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."
"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."
"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."
"Licensing, billing, and accounting are available from the management interface."
"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."
"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."
"We have a license to use this solution. We have an E3 license which covers many different solutions."
"​The pricing/licensing is easy to manage."
"The pricing is good for all the features that we receive, e.g., Skype for Business."
"I think that we pay $9.99 USD per user, monthly."
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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
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: February 2026.
883,692 professionals have used our research since 2012.