As SharePoint Online matures into a viable alternative to its on-premises counterpart, many people are asking the question Which version is right for my organization? As is usually the case, the answer is “It depends”. Too often we see this decision being made solely on one criteria (i.e. cost) and not taking into account all of the factors involved. Here I am going to focus on what I regard as two of the main factors to consider: setup/cost/maintenance and customizability.
SharePoint Online is still very new and is changing on a regular basis. The Office 365 Road Map is a great resource and I would encourage everyone to consult it regularly. Also, by “on-premises”, I simply mean “not SharePoint Online”. A SharePoint 2013 farm may be hosted in a mega datacenter, but for the sake of simplicity, I am calling that an on-premises installation.
That being said, here are some of the main factors that I think are important when comparing SharePoint Online to SharePoint 2013 on-premises environments.
Setup/Maintenance/Cost
Obviously, this is a big one. Installing SharePoint 2013 on-premises requires multiple servers in a datacenter, software licenses, installation, bandwidth, upgrades, maintenance, user licenses, etc. Typically, this also involves at least one person whose job is dedicated to keeping the SharePoint farm running. On the other hand, a SharePoint Online environment can be setup in a matter of hours. Also, as with all cloud-based applications, Microsoft bears the cost and burden of maintaining servers, bandwidth, datacenters, etc. Furthermore, the cost of SharePoint Online is charged as a fixed monthly fee based on number of users, storage requirements, etc.
Customizability
In my experience, many organizations get so caught up in the aforementioned advantages of SharePoint Online that they fail to ask enough questions about whether or not SharePoint Online will be able to meet their needs from a business process standpoint.
With on-premises versions of SharePoint, you can deploy server-side code, deploy files to the file system, alter web config files, deploy custom Master Pages, and just about anything else you need to do to meet the needs of your organization. With SharePoint Online, you can’t do any of these things. Even simple things like making branding changes to a Master Page require a whole new level of complexity and must be done using jQuery and JavaScript Injection. Why? Because at any time, Microsoft may deploy a new version of the SharePoint Online Master Page that wipes out any of the customizations you have made directly to the file.
To be clear, SharePoint Online sites CAN be customized with branding, workflows, custom forms and functionality, etc. However, all of these business processes need to be examined beforehand to make sure that the plan for implementation is realistic and can be accomplished.
Neither SharePoint 2013 on-premises or SharePoint Online provide “one size fits all” solutions and organizations must take all factors into consideration when determining which one will best meet their needs. SharePoint Online definitely provides a great option for those organization wanting to roll out a basic collaboration environment in a quick, less expensive manner. However, those organizations whose business processes require more robust applications need to accurately assess whether or not SharePoint Online can be customized to meet their needs before taking the proverbial plunge.
