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Microsoft 365 Business vs Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 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 365 Business
Ranking in Content Collaboration Platforms
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
246
Ranking in other categories
Mobile Device Management (MDM) (2nd)
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
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Content Collaboration Platforms category, the mindshare of Microsoft 365 Business is 2.1%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is 4.7%, down from 10.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Content Collaboration Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server4.7%
Microsoft 365 Business2.1%
Other93.2%
Content Collaboration Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

CharlesBrewer - PeerSpot reviewer
Price and reliability need improvement while general tasks are streamlined
The pricing for Microsoft 365 is too high, and quality-wise, it does not meet high standards. The operating system is outdated and inadequate. Microsoft has very poor security, and Defender is ineffective. In terms of collaboration and file sharing, OneDrive is very clunky and has frequent sync issues. It also crashes a lot and is unreliable.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I never have had any problems with any kind of situation where I couldn't get my documents. It is very, very reliable and very consistent."
"It's strictly in the cloud, so the company doesn't need to invest in hardware to install their Active Directory. So I find that it's a cost-effective alternative."
"The flexibility of the solution has been great."
"Ease of collaboration and sharing documents."
"The initial setup is very simple and straightforward."
"The features such as meetings connected with Microsoft Teams and the integration is fabulous."
"Both stability and performance are valuable features. The user experience is pretty good on all this."
"We are satisfied with technical support."
"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."
"It is a decent tool for collaboration, especially if you are already using other Office products."
"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."
"The solution is pretty easy to use for the most part."
"It's a very robust product."
"The most valuable feature is the "Alert Me", which provides the ability to set an alert when content is either added or changed and that the alerts can be either real-time or aggregated for the day or the week."
"The forms aspect of the solution, for example, the creation of surveys, is its most valuable aspect."
"The level of stability is good."
 

Cons

"The pricing of the solution could be better."
"I would prefer to use Microsoft Outlook rather than Office 365 because of the way features are available in Outlook. There are times it becomes difficult to get to certain features through Office 365. For example, if you want to recall an email that you have accidentally send across to someone this is not very easily available through Office 365. The shortcuts available through Outlook are not there in Office 365 Business."
"We would like to see the solution use more artificial intelligence bots in future releases."
"As an example, there isn't a clean transfer to a Google Doc outside of hosting it as a .docx file."
"No assistance with initial setup."
"It could be cheaper, but I don't know if this is possible."
"Previously, it was on concurrent basis access, but currently, it's on named user access. That's the biggest challenge we have, but we are looking to integrate SharePoint whereby we can have a portal where we can have the non-core users access via Sharepoint. That's what I'm looking to have an update on. So the cost is a bit of an issue."
"The technical support process could be a bit more secure. The information should stay within the ticketing system itself and not be passed via email."
"Making it more intuitive could help teams adopt it faster and use it more effectively by being more user-friendly."
"The solution is like a CRM, so the initial setup is complex. It takes a few days to deploy the solution and the length of time depends on how large the company's topology is and what the client's demands are."
"The areas around security, such as protection, need to be included."
"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."
"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."
"Workflows could be simplified."
"The search feature needs improvement. I can never find the information I need when I use it."
"Searching information internally in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server could be better because when we get a lot of information, it is difficult to find."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool’s licensing and pricing are interconnected. There are different levels of licensing."
"The product’s price could be improved. There are additional costs involved apart from standard licenses."
"The price is fine."
"Depending on which plan you purchase, there are a plethora of applications available to you."
"Licensing fees are paid annually."
"The price of the solution is fair but as a company, we would like it always to be cheaper. There is a license for this solution and the type depends on the organization."
"The organization is responsible for the license."
"Microsoft 365 Business will be good to have if you have a large organization where you have more than 3000 employees. Other cheaper solutions, like Gmail, are easily available in the market."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Performing Arts
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business111
Midsize Enterprise44
Large Enterprise100
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft 365 Business?
The product's initial setup phase was straightforward.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft 365 Business?
I have no idea about the pricing of Microsoft 365 Business, since I'm not the party concerned.
What needs improvement with Microsoft 365 Business?
I don't have knowledge about the benefits of Advanced Threat Protection within Microsoft 365 Business, such as the Defender, because I think we don't have that. Currently, I can't think of anything...
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...
 

Also Known As

Microsoft 365 E3, Microsoft 365 E5, Microsoft 365 F1, MS 365 Business
Office SharePoint Server, MS Office SharePoint Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Urban Agriculture Co., The Detroit Wallpaper Co., TransBlue Facility Management, Garner Food Company
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft 365 Business vs. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
871,469 professionals have used our research since 2012.