Office 365 Vs SharePoint 2019 Brief Comparison

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As a cloud platform user, you might have come across the debate between SharePoint 2019 and Microsoft 365. After the release of SharePoint 2019, there were herds of articles related to SharePoint 2019 vs Microsoft 365, and which one is better amongst them. Also, organizations were struggling to choose between on-premises, Microsoft 365 cloud, or build a hybrid scenario for their content.

We analysed the whole scenario and tried to compare both SharePoint 2019 and Microsoft 365 to understand which platform is better for your organization. In this article, we are going to brief about both SharePoint 2019 and Microsoft 365 platforms.

What Is Microsoft 365 (SharePoint Online)?

Also known as SharePoint Online, Microsoft 365 is a cloud-based service offered by Microsoft to help organizations share and collaborate with partners, customers, and colleagues. It allows you to access internal sites, documents, and other information in an organization from anywhere on your mobile or desktop.

SharePoint Online consists of three categories: Newsfeed, OneDrive, and Sites. The microblogging feature of SharePoint Online allows users to engage in conversations, post pictures, and videos and documents, and mention other users in the Newsfeed. As an administrator, you can easily customize and configure the sites for mobile devices. If you want to configure SharePoint Online for your organization, then visit Microsoft’s official website.

What is SharePoint 2019?

SharePoint 2019 is an on-premises environment provided by Microsoft to make it easy for businesses to organize, share, and manage documents and streamline business processes. It aims to improve the overall SharePoint experience for on-premises and hybrid users. You can download SharePoint Server 2019 from the official website of Microsoft to check features of SharePoint Server 2019.

Comparison Between Microsoft 365 and SharePoint 2019

The latest upgrade to SharePoint Server is pretty impressive as Microsoft has focused on improving user experience and design of SharePoint 2019. But it is still not easy to decide whether to move to the cloud or stay on-premises. So, let’s have a look at the step-by-step comparison between SharePoint 2019 and Microsoft 365 to understand which platform is better for your organization.

#1 User Experience

Well, there will be improvements related to user experience in SharePoint 2019. But the current scenario clearly shows how Microsoft 365 is a better choice for organizations.

Microsoft 365	SharePoint 2019
OneDrive (Next Gen. Sync Client) Modern – Sites, Pages, Lists/Libraries, Hub Sites, SharePoint Home Large File Support Extended Character length SharePoint Framework (SPFx) Microsoft Teams Yammer Power Apps & Flow Delve Stream Planner	OneDrive (Next Gen. Sync Client) Modern – Sites, Pages, Lists/Libraries, Hub Sites, SharePoint Home Large File Support Extended Character length SharePoint Framework (SPFx)

#2 Administration

SharePoint 2019 offers the ability to control every aspect of the service. In contrast, everything cannot be controlled by an administrator in Microsoft 365. However, it offers you more advanced features than ever before. Below is a listing of current features that have become available for administrators.

Microsoft 365	SharePoint 2019
SharePoint & OneDrive Administrativenter – Sharing, Storage, Sync, Device Access Security & Compliance Center – Classifications, Data Governance, Threat Management, Reports	Newest IIS APIs Newest PowerShell Updated Health Analyzer Recycle Bin Restore Improvements Advanced Hybrid Scenarios

#3 Pricing

SharePoint 2019 is the sole server that runs in the physical machine and requires a physical environment to run properly. Office 365 is the collection of cloud services and SharePoint Online is the part of its business and enterprise plans. The pricing of each product is dependent on the number of users using the services.

Microsoft 365		SharePoint 2019
Home	$69.99/per year for a single. $99.99/ per year for up to 6 users.	SharePoint Standard CAL – $180 per license. SharePoint Enterprise CAL – $90 per license.
Business	Basic – $5.0/user per month. Standard – $12.50/user per month. Premium – $20.0/user per month. Microsoft 365 Apps for business – $8.25/user per month.
Enterprise	E3 – $32.0/user per month E5 – $57.0/user per month F3 – $8.0/user per month

How to Decide between Microsoft 365 and SharePoint 2019?

Office 365 is the best subscription plan provided from Microsoft that has covered complete applications in a package and offers numerous benefits to a business in a nominal price. SharePoint Online is also a part of Office 365 business and enterprise plans. SharePoint Server 2019 is the on-premises server and requires various physical requirements. Both services from Microsoft have their benefits and the business can choose them based on their needs.
SharePoint 2019 is best when –

• For a secure collaboration between the members, you require a tight security for the data.
• Data types should be configurable.
• A custom workflow for customization of data.
• The user wants to create a complex design environment for websites or site collections.

Office 365 is best when –

• When collaboration is uncomplicated, and sharing is important for the users.
• You need a great storage space and OneDrive for Business provided ample space.
• Better communication is required.

Wrap Up

The above points clearly show the different features of both SharePoint Server 2019 and Microsoft 365. As you can see, Microsoft is completely focused on increasing the uses of Microsoft 365, that’s why there are more advanced features in it. Well, moving to cloud or stay at on-premises doesn’t depend on the features. It depends on your business requirements.

So, if your organization need a more hybrid and independent environment, then SharePoint 2019 is the way to go. However, if you want something more advanced and secure option for your organization, then there is no better choice than Microsoft 365 cloud.