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SharePoint vs Sitecore – Choosing the Right CMS

Samira Mirza

Sep 05, 2016

2 minute read

SharePoint or Sitecore? This is one of the questions our clients ask us most frequently, especially when they’re planning an intranet or an extranet. The next question that naturally follows is if they can use both the platforms together and how. If you’re also weighing one platform against the other, this post is for you.

Both Sitecore and SharePoint can deliver highly engaging intranets. Sitecore’s biggest intranet strengths include personalized customer experience, strong content management, robust security model, and customized dashboards. SharePoint, on the other hand, is one of the most popular platforms available for intranet systems. SharePoint’s biggest intranet strengths include streamlined processes, rich integration with Microsoft Office, modern user interface, better user experience, enterprise search, and mobile productivity.

So, how to choose between the two? Both SharePoint and Sitecore are diverse technologies that overlap in their capabilities and needs, but they largely sit in different buckets. Whether you are looking a public-facing website or an internal intranet, deciding on a technology platform requires many considerations.

Here’s a quick list of things that will help you determine when to choose Sitecore for your projects and when to stick to SharePoint:

When to choose Sitecore?	When to choose SharePoint?
To build public facing websites and informal intranets	Data is processed and only structured information is captured and organized in schemas.
Ideal for users who carry out deep analysis such as data scientists and need advanced analytical tools.	To build intranets, extranets, and static public-facing sites with low effort on branding
For integration with third party apps	For integration with other Microsoft Products and third party apps
For a marketing driven platform	For an IT driven platform
For an external content focus	For an internal content focus with enterprise-level security requirements
For A/B testing	For building a static, brochure-style website
To get customer insights	To promote internal collaboration
If you can afford the Sitecore upfront cost	If your budget can sustain SharePoint implementation

SharePoint & Sitecore – Best together!
SharePoint and Sitecore can easily co-exist within the same organization, and, in fact, they do in many companies. Solutions like Sitecore extend SharePoint investments by seamlessly integrating with SharePoint to repurpose any content for the web. The core reason behind using SharePoint and Sitecore together is to leverage Sitecore’s web content management system (WCMS) capabilities to receive the maximum returns on your SharePoint and Sitecore investments.

If you’re using Sitecore for your website and SharePoint for your intranet, one of the biggest questions you may have on mind is “How do you surface SharePoint publicly?” SharePoint is difficult to brand and customize even for a developer, so if you really want to surface content from SharePoint to your Sitecore website, integrating both the platforms might be a pretty good idea.

Need help with an intranet or an extranet project?

At Grazitti Interactive we offer best-in-class website development services using the latest CMS’s like SharePoint, Sitecore, WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and more with advanced technologies such as PHP, ASP.net, AJAX, JavaScript, jQuery’, AngularJS, etc. Companies like Tidemark, Appcelerator, Cloudwords, Feverbee, MobileIron and many others trust us with their web development needs. For more information about our design and development services, feel free to reach out to us at [email protected].