What is OneDrive?Īs mentioned above, SharePoint existed for quite some time as a team collaboration tool. To read more about SharePoint history, evolution, and use cases, please check out this article as well. So any given SharePoint site in SharePoint was typically accessed by a number of users/employees (team members).Įxample of Document Management Capabilities available in SharePointĮxample of SharePoint Site Permissions (where multiple team members have access to the same site) Besides being the one-stop shop for any content within the organization, it is important to note that it was created as a team collaboration platform. Of course, SharePoint also stores other content like lists, calendars, and tasks, but these were the primary use cases. Historically it was used by organizations for two primary use cases: Intranet Portals and Document Management. We have had SharePoint since 2001, so for more than 20 years now.

Links to OneDrive and SharePoint applications from Microsoft 365 App Launcherįrom the historical perspective, it makes sense to start with SharePoint. So today, I would like to clarify once and for all the difference between SharePoint and OneDrive.

Although they happen to be capable of doing similar things when it comes to document management, the two are fundamentally different and exist for different reasons within Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Though I originally published the article comparing SharePoint and OneDrive back in 2015, I still get a lot of inquiries from my loyal followers and confusion about the difference between SharePoint and OneDrive.

Private onedrive