SharePoint Online Versus On-Premises

Compared to SharePoint Server on-premises, SharePoint Online promises lower upfront cost and greater scalability, especially for collaboration. SharePoint Online is a Microsoft-hosted Office 365 service based on SharePoint Server 2013 for Web-based document storage, collaboration, search, content management, business intelligence, and other functions. SharePoint Online cannot yet match SharePoint Server for every SharePoint function, and the online service poses additional risks and costs. However, even organizations determined to keep SharePoint on-premises might want to understand SharePoint Online’s capabilities to avoid investing in the wrong SharePoint technologies.

Decision Overview

A decision to adopt SharePoint Online should consider the same factors as for any other Office 365 service. In general, Office 365 services require higher, regular fees paid to Microsoft but offer lower infrastructure investment and better scalability than on-premises systems. However, the organization must trust Microsoft that the Office 365 services remain available and will not lose the organization’s data, and the organization must ensure it can protect proprietary information and comply with any relevant regulations for data in the services.