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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 ability to work through a web browser without requiring installation on devices is particularly beneficial."
"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."
"Ability to collaborate with others in one location."
"What I appreciate most about Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is how it centralizes information and collaboration in one place."
"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 software is friendly to use for mixing data and analyzing it."
"The most valuable features for us are their document management list and hybrid forms. and We also use third party ad-dons to achieve workflows and other recent apps."
"I like that it is cloud-based, wherefrom any computer I can access my documents and continue working."
"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."
"Practically, we could implement remote learning very fast, and it was very helpful, Teams especially."
"Office 365 brings a very strong return on investment through time savings and different efficiencies."
"Office 365 fulfills our basic requirements for developing documents and basic forms; it provides a lot of facilities and options, which are very helpful, and I use it for document creation which saves a lot of time compared to other document creation tools."
"It includes Office 365 applications such as Excel, Outlook, and Word."
"The way the ERP presents information for the user is very good."
"The most innovative feature of Office 365 is the Power Apps, which allows us to automate literally everything that we want automated. For example, sending attachments to specific folders on SharePoint, adding people's SharePoint when certain apps are performed, or emailing certain people at certain instances, such as when you've done a follow-up with the CRM and you need a marketing email to be sent out at a particular point."
 

Cons

"The search feature needs improvement. I can never find the information I need when I use it."
"I would like to see more Agile techniques and seamless integration with other applications."
"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 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."
"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."
"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 product is behind in development and lacks some features."
"Searching information internally in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server could be better because when we get a lot of information, it is difficult to find."
"As a private user, I do not appreciate the cloud features, but I doubt that this is something Microsoft would consider a feature request."
"The security should be improved."
"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."
"If two people update the same file, it causes issues."
"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."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 could use some customization, but this area for improvement is trivial."
"The online applications have limited functionality compared to the local applications."
"I'm not sure if there are areas of improvement. For us, it's working quite well."
 

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."
"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."
"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."
"The pricing is not really high, but one can get the software with the license key for free."
"We have a license to use this solution. We have an E3 license which covers many different solutions."
"Licensing, billing, and accounting are available from the management interface."
"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."
"The pricing is high and has actually caused us to limit the number of licenses we purchase due to budgeting."
"​The pricing/licensing is easy to manage."
"Licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis, or we prepay them."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Financial 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.
882,207 professionals have used our research since 2012.