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SharePoint vs OneDrive
Quick Summary:
SharePoint vs OneDrive
In a single sentence, SharePoint is for Team collaboration and storage space. On the other hand, OneDrive is for individual collaboration and storage space.
Now, if you want to know in more details then check the entire post on SharePoint vs OneDrive.
What is SharePoint?
SharePoint is a team collaboration and document storage platform from Microsoft. Apart from being a document storage and collaboration platform, SharePoint is also a highly customizable website. Furthermore, it has additional features such as rich meta data, database solution with SharePoint lists, highly customizable forms, Power Apps app integration and automation solution with Power Automate workflows.
If you want to learn more about SharePoint then check this SharePoint for beginners tutorial.
Features of SharePoint:
- Robust and highly secure customer facing web site
- Highly customizable document storage solution
- Fully customizable List data storage
- Desktop syncing
- 3rd party app integration
- PowerApps canvas app integration
- Power Automate flow for automation solution
- Can be connected to Teams(if group is available)
- Custom HTML, JavaScript add-ins can be developed
What is OneDrive?
Similar to SharePoint, OneDrive is also a document storage and collaboration platform, however it has some limitations over SharePoint. Some of the limitations are, OneDrive doesn’t have customizable webpages and lists. And it is not very easy to add new metadata column in OneDrive.
In short, OneDrive is for end users and not for using as team communication/collaboration platform.
If you want to learn more, then check this What is OneDrive beginners guide.
Features of OneDrive
- Simple Cloud Document storage solution
- Desktop syncing
- Power Automate automation solution
- Power Apps integration with OneDrive hosted excel files
SharePoint Vs OneDrive: Which is Free?
OneDrive has a free version but SharePoint doesn’t come with free licensing or version. To use the OneDrive free version sign-in/register in to OneDrive.
Similar to Google Drive or Drop Box, OneDrive has free version but it has only 5 GB of storage space. Also you cannot use Power Automate with the free OneDrive version.
If you are not aware of Power Automate, check my beginners guide on Power Automate and its features.
Unlike OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox, SharePoint doesn’t have any free license or version. You need to have dedicated Office 365 license to use SharePoint. However if anyone has shared with you(add you to) a SharePoint site then you can access it with that account but with limited capabilities.
SharePoint Vs OneDrive: Which is better?
Both SharePoint and OneDrive have excellent features but they are meant for different usage scenarios. So it is not possible to define one better over other. However, as per my understanding and experience from clients usage, If you are trying to setup a private cloud storage then use OneDrive. And if you are trying to setup cloud storage for team, then it is better to use SharePoint because of its features.
So depending upon your requirement choose the one whichever suites you best.
SharePoint Vs OneDrive: Comparison
Although both SharePoint and OneDrive comes under O365 application suit of Microsoft but they have some differences and similarities. Check the below table to understand it better.
| Features | SharePoint | OneDrive |
|---|---|---|
Document Library |  | |
List | |  |
Desktop Sync | | |
Custom Metadata Column | | |
@Mentions | | |
External user access | | |
Storage Space | 25TB per site collection | Personal: 5GB Enterprise: 1TB default, can be increased |
Ideal usage | Team collaboration | Personal cloud storage |
As you can understand that both SharePoint and OneDrive are meant for document storage but SharePoint has some additional features. So choose as you need.
Conclusion: SharePoint vs OneDrive
I have been a SharePoint and OneDrive admin for 3+ years and I understand what users requirements are and what they are looking for. Hence I would like to share with you some of my experiences with you so that you can make decisions on what to choose, SharePoint or OneDrive.
Scenario 1: You are a team lead and want to create a centralized document repository for your team. In this case, I would recommend you to use SharePoint. Although OneDrive can be used but I recommend using SharePoint as it will allow you to manage permissions more efficiently and also it has more storage space.
Scenario 2: You are working in a team and need to share large files with your team on a daily basis.
For this scenario both OneDrive and SharePoint can serve the purpose but I would recommend SharePoint. This is because, OneDrive comes with 1TB storage space and SharePoint comes with 25TB per site collection. Hence you do not need to delete older files very often if you use SharePoint.
Scenario 3: You need to send few files to your coworkers(internal and external) on a daily or weekly basis.
Use OneDrive as you do not need to have custom metadata or do not need to manage permissions that often.
Anyways, as a rule of thumb always remember how the data needs to be managed. If you need metadata information or want to have different views for different users and need to share with large audience then use SharePoint, otherwise, go with OneDrive.
That’s all I have for SharePoint vs OneDrive, I hope this post has helped you to understand the differences and similarities between them. I hope now you can decide whether to use OneDrive or SharePoint easily.
Anyways, thank you very much for reading. And if you are interested, please check our other posts here.
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