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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
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
245
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
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Content Collaboration Platforms category, the mindshare of Microsoft 365 Business is 1.7%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is 5.9%, down from 10.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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.
Jaufre Rouanet - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration enhances workflow while user support requires improvement
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server should add some 'tip of the days' and small videos to help users grow within their experience with SharePoint. More integration with Copilot and with the AI platform would be great. Additionally, having the ability in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server to summarize when bringing in SharePoint folders would be beneficial, providing extracts, analysis, proposals, and summaries of those documents.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's easy to use."
"The storage portion of the solution is very good. It has a very large capacity."
"I like that Microsoft 365 Business is very easy to use. It's a very good solution."
"The solution has been stable over the years."
"The solution is scalable."
"The flexibility of the solution is excellent."
"The most valuable features are that it is quite robust and is a collaborative model."
"It is easy to use."
"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."
"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 software is friendly to use for mixing data and analyzing it."
"The implementation and configuring of the resolution are very easy in the online version."
"The solution's most valuable aspects are its collaboration capabilities, its communications site and the innovation within the product itself."
"This solution has provided us with a collaborative workspace to allow everyone to work together and be on the same page."
"It's a very robust product."
"The most valuable feature is that it is very usable. I can navigate it, I can have a media call, I can have a call with my project team, so we can chat with every team kind of like WhatsApp. Any time there are projects or other things, we can chat in a secure way. It's automation-specific secure."
 

Cons

"We would like to see the solution use more artificial intelligence bots in future releases."
"It's a bit complex in itself when you get into items such as security or compliance."
"Teams is, in some respects, lagging behind Skype for Business in some telephone-related features"
"The solution could improve by allowing more integration."
"The backup option should be included in Microsoft 365 Business."
"The integration is good but could be better."
"There should be less power consumption of the PC resources while using this solution. We have professional systems and Teams can run slow at times. We also need to restart Teams in the middle of the meetings sometimes, this could improve in a future release."
"In the next release of this solution, there is a need to improve the integration with other platforms."
"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 search feature needs improvement. I can never find the information I need when I use it."
"The solution needs to be more collaborative. I believe they are just coming up with the themes for this right now."
"Workflows could be simplified."
"The product could be improved by accommodating different technologies, particularly integration."
"Many of our customers would like to see an OCR feature, so it would be very good to have this in a future release."
"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 ability to preview files in different formats should be expanded to include formats such as embedded postscript (EPS), AutoCAD, and Adobe Acrobat PDF."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The base price is reasonable, but when it comes to the specialized tools for servers, the cost can become quite high."
"The cost is on the high end, particularly when you have multiple users."
"It could be cheaper. It's cloud-based, and we pay a yearly subscription."
"As a customer, I would like the licensing fees should be cheaper."
"There would be licensing costs because Microsoft 365 Business requires a product key and a license to be present in order to use its products."
"In general, it could be cheaper."
"We pay a monthly licensing fee."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Retailer
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
The solution might be considered pricey for some, however, the comprehensiveness of the suite justifies its cost. It is generally still worth the money and is cost-effective when considering the pr...
What needs improvement with Microsoft 365 Business?
Every year, they are increasing their price significantly. The price has more than doubled now. Once you start using this product, it becomes difficult to switch to alternatives. Microsoft should b...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server?
The pricing for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is very reasonable, and the cost is not a significant concern.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server?
While I don't have significant issues with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, there is one area that could potentially be improved. In previous years, there were some challenges when integrating w...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server?
The solution is primarily used for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server collaboration and document sharing, with edits across teams.
 

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: July 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.