SharePoint Online vs On Premise

According to Microsoft, more than 200,000 organisations and 190 million people have SharePoint for intranets, team sites and content management.

With SharePoint, you can create a central information hub for your business, so everyone can tap into the same documents and resources. Anytime, anyplace, anywhere.

Today, we’re going to be comparing two setup variations of SharePoint:

SharePoint Online vs On Premises

SharePoint Online

SharePoint Online, part of the Microsoft 365 office suite, is a powerful web-based application used for seamless collaboration and information exchange across a business.

With SharePoint Online, Microsoft provides the necessary data redundancy protections through its servers and data centers. Just like SharePoint On Premises, SharePoint Online allows users to store, share and manage content seamlessly via a multi tenant server.

Put simply: It is the cloud version of the SharePoint platform.

SharePoint Online is licensed on a per-user basis. You can purchase SharePoint Online as a standalone plan or included as part of Microsoft 365 plans.

SharePoint (Plan 1)

This is an entry level product targeted towards SMEs, which includes:

• Get SharePoint features for small-to-mid-sized businesses
• Share files securely and co-author in real time inside or outside your organisation
• Manage content in document libraries with versioning and access control
• Search and discover relevant people and important content when you need it most

It includes the following apps and services:

• SharePoint – Create team sites to share information, files, and resources
• OneDrive – Save, access, edit, and share files and photos wherever you are
• Microsoft Lists – Stay on top of it all with the smart information tracking app

Microsoft 365 Business Standard

This product includes everything from Plan 1, plus:

• Desktop, web, and mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook
• Chat, call, and video conference with Microsoft Teams
• Business-class email
• Manage customer appointments
• Easily host webinars
• Attendee registration and reporting tools
• Tools to create personalized documents and professional layouts
• New: Collaborative workspaces to co-create using Microsoft Loop
• New: Video editing and design tools with Clipchamp

It includes the following apps and services:

• Word – Create impressive documents and improve your writing with intelligent assistance features
• Excel – Simplify complex data and create easy-to-read spreadsheets
• PowerPoint – Easily create polished presentations that stand out
• Outlook – Manage your email, calendar, tasks, and contacts together in one place
• Microsoft Teams – Bring everyone together in one place to meet, chat, call, and collaborate
• SharePoint – Create team sites to share information, files, and resources
• OneDrive – Save, access, edit, and share files and photos wherever you are
• Microsoft Lists – Stay on top of it all with the smart information tracking app
• Exchange – Work smarter with business-class email and calendaring
• Clipchamp – Create and edit professional-looking videos with easy-to-use tools
• Microsoft Loop – Co-create with workspaces that bring all the parts of a project together

SharePoint On Premise

SharePoint On Premises is when your in-house IT or IT support manage SharePoint in your local environment, i.e. Company data centre. For SharePoint On Premises, intranet sites are licensed using a Server/CAL (Client Access License) model.

SharePoint Server 2019 is required for each running instance of the software, and CALs are required for each person or device accessing a SharePoint Server.

Options include:

SharePoint Standard CAL

The Standard CAL delivers the core capabilities of SharePoint:

• Sites: a single infrastructure for all your business websites
• Communities: an integrated collaboration platform
• Content: enterprise content management (ECM) for the masses
• Search: people and expertise search, visual previews, visual best bets

SharePoint Enterprise CAL

The Enterprise CAL delivers the full capabilities of SharePoint:

• Sites: a single infrastructure for all your business websites
• Communities: an integrated collaboration platform
• Content: ECM for the masses
• Search: standard search features plus entity extraction, video search, item recommendations
• Business solutions (includes Access Services and InfoPath Services)
• Business Intelligence for everyone (includes Power View, PerformancePoint Services, Excel Services, and Visio Services)

Why should I use SharePoint?

According to a study, 86% of business owners and staff attribute workplace problems to inadequate or poor communication tools. SharePoint addresses the very heart of this problem.

Check out some of the benefits below:

• Work smarter: Create new, all-electronic working processes, so your people can focus on their work instead of shuffling paper.
• Knowledge sharing: Open up new possibilities for collaboration, allowing your team to share ideas, spark connections and develop innovations.
• Keep everyone in the loop: The ideal way to share company news and important guidance for teams.
• Electronic document management: All your information is available to everyone, everything is searchable and automatic version control shows you exactly who changed what and when.
• Free up your workflows: Create and manage new workflows for the vital tasks you do every day, so you can handle them quicker and easier than ever before.
• Safe and secure: Set profiles and permissions for everyone in your team, so they can only access the data they need.
• SharePoint is a scalable solution that grows with your business.

What are the main differences between SharePoint Online and On Premise?

• Dedicated Hardware

SharePoint Online: Uses Microsoft Cloud data centres. Does not need dedicated onsite hardware.

SharePoint On Premise: Requires purchase of onsite dedicated hardware.

• Updates & Infrastructure

SharePoint Online: Automatic updates and patches are carried out by Microsoft.

SharePoint On Premise: Maintained by your internal IT team and kept up to date with patches and other updates.

• Data Backups

SharePoint Online: Backups are managed by Microsoft, with limitations. Read about Microsoft’s Shared Responsibility Model when backing up Office/Microsoft 365.

SharePoint On Premise: Backups will need to be created, tested, and managed by your IT support team within your local environment.

• Data Storage

SharePoint Online: Data is cloud based.

SharePoint On Premise: Data is stored on your local network.

• Data Security

SharePoint Online: Data is maintained according to industry-specific security standards.

SharePoint On Premise: You will be responsible for the security of your data.

• Costs

SharePoint Online: Part of your Microsoft 365 plan. Billed monthly per user.

SharePoint On Premise: You’re looking at the purchase and upkeep of hardware, along with the cost of licenses, etc.

• Customisations

SharePoint Online: Limited customisations.

SharePoint On Premise: Unlimited customisations.

• External Users

SharePoint Online: Can be easily expanded with a variety of Azure services, to connect external users.

SharePoint On Premise: Infrastructure for connecting external users must be built and adjusted manually.

• Scalability

SharePoint Online: Microsoft takes care of scalability.

SharePoint On Premise: Scalability is your responsibility.

• New Tools

SharePoint Online: Tools and functions are continuously introduced and updated by Microsoft.

SharePoint On Premise: Tools and functions are made available by your IT support team when available.

What is a SharePoint hybrid?

With a SharePoint hybrid, productivity services in SharePoint Online can be integrated with an on premise SharePoint Server to provide unified functionality and access to data.

If you want to gradually move your existing on-premises SharePoint Server services to the cloud, you can have a staged migration path by extending high-impact SharePoint Server workloads to SharePoint Online. Ultimately, benefitting from Microsoft’s built-in redundancy.

A hybrid environment allows trusted communications between SharePoint Online and an on premises server. Once established, you can configure integrated functionality between services and features such as Search, Follow, and user profiles.

When should I choose SharePoint Online?

SharePoint Online is your best choice when looking to build a scalable intranet. It saves costs and reduces complexity.

With this option, you avoid spending time and money on creating the necessary infrastructure. It has many multi-purpose features:

• Centralised management
• Customisable
• Documentation and collaboration
• Create new SharePoint online sites
• Integration into existing applications
• Increase in protection
• Easy usage/support for design
• Easy usage/support for design

When should I choose SharePoint On Premise?

An on premises solution is the best choice if you already have a dedicated infrastructure. It is ideal if your business has the following requirements:

• High compliance standards
• High customisation requirements
• More storage space than Microsoft offers
• Greater control over the architecture of your SharePoint farms
• Intranet to be available only on your business network

Final thoughts

Ultimately, your decision will depend on your business requirements for business continuity, compliance standards, information security, and digital transformation. Online and On Premises are similar in terms of basic functional coverage.

SharePoint On Premise is dependent on your internal capabilities and regulatory requirements. It allows more direct control over your information and compliance standards. However, it brings with it greater complexity.

SharePoint Online is simpler to setup and manage. We really hope you enjoyed our comparison to SharePoint Online vs On Premise.

Did you know?💡

As a Microsoft Gold Partner, we specialise in SharePoint development.

We can help with SharePoint advice, installations, migrations, support, backup solutions and anything else in between. Get in touch today or give us a call on +44 (0)1603 431200.