What Is SharePoint? Sites, Libraries & How It Works

This is a working reference on SharePoint — the same material our SharePoint consulting team uses when onboarding new tenants and farms. It covers what SharePoint is, the core building blocks (sites, document libraries, lists, pages), how it fits inside Microsoft 365, the difference between SharePoint Online and SharePoint Server, and what licensing includes it.

What is SharePoint

SharePoint is Microsoft's platform for storing, organizing, and sharing files and information inside an organization. It exists in two forms: SharePoint in Microsoft 365 (commonly called SharePoint Online), a cloud service hosted by Microsoft, and SharePoint Server, the same product line installed and run on an organization's own servers. Microsoft's own one-line definition is on the What is SharePoint support page.

In practice, SharePoint is the file and content layer of Microsoft 365. Every team site, every intranet page, every file tab in Microsoft Teams, and every shared document library is SharePoint underneath. Users interact with it through a browser, the SharePoint mobile app, the OneDrive sync client, and the Office desktop applications.

Core concepts

The feature-by-plan detail for all of the above is maintained in the SharePoint service description on Microsoft Learn.

How SharePoint fits in Microsoft 365

SharePoint does not stand alone in Microsoft 365; other services store their content in it:

• Microsoft Teams — every team gets a connected SharePoint team site. Files shared in a channel land in that site's document library; the Files tab in Teams is a view of it, as described in Microsoft's Teams and SharePoint documentation.
• OneDrive — individual storage built on the same platform. OneDrive holds one person's files; SharePoint holds files owned by a team or the organization. The boundary, and when to move files from one to the other, is covered in our SharePoint vs OneDrive comparison.
• Microsoft 365 Groups — creating a group (through Outlook, Planner, or Teams) provisions a SharePoint site for it automatically.

SharePoint Online vs SharePoint Server

The current on-premises release is SharePoint Server Subscription Edition, documented in the official Subscription Edition documentation; versions, update cadence, and upgrade paths are covered in our SharePoint Server Subscription Edition guide. Hybrid configurations connect an on-premises farm to SharePoint Online for search and OneDrive redirection.

Common uses

• Intranet — communication sites and hub sites publishing company news, policies, and department pages.
• Document management — team document libraries with metadata, versioning, retention, and controlled sharing replacing file servers.
• Forms and workflows — lists as the data layer, with Power Automate flows handling approvals, notifications, and record updates, and Power Apps supplying custom forms.
• Team file storage behind Teams — the default location for channel files across the organization.

Versioning, co-authoring, and search

Versioning is on by default in document libraries: SharePoint keeps prior versions of each file (500 by default in SharePoint Online), and any version can be viewed or restored, per Microsoft's versioning documentation. This is the practical answer to accidental overwrites and most ransomware-adjacent file damage.

Co-authoring lets multiple people edit the same Word, Excel, or PowerPoint file simultaneously, in the browser or the desktop apps, with changes merging in near real time. It works because the file lives in SharePoint or OneDrive rather than on a local disk.

Search in SharePoint Online is Microsoft Search: it indexes sites, files, lists, and people, respects each user's permissions (results only include what that user can open), and surfaces results in SharePoint, Office.com, and Bing work search.

Permissions and administration

Access is governed by site membership (Owners, Members, Visitors), sharing links, and item-level permissions — a model with enough edge cases that we maintain a separate SharePoint permissions reference covering inheritance, sharing-link types, and external access. Tenant-wide settings — site creation, storage quotas, sharing policies, retention — live in the SharePoint admin center, which is included with every plan that includes SharePoint.

Licensing: what includes SharePoint

SharePoint is included in the Microsoft 365 business plans (Business Basic, Business Standard, Business Premium) and the enterprise plans (E3, E5, and the F1/F3 frontline plans), so most organizations already own it. Current bundles and pricing are on the SharePoint plans comparison page, which as of this writing lists only Microsoft 365 bundles — Microsoft no longer markets new standalone SharePoint Online plans there, though existing standalone Plan 1/Plan 2 subscriptions continue and still appear in the service description. SharePoint Server is licensed separately (server plus CALs) under the Subscription Edition model.

FAQ

Is SharePoint the same as OneDrive?

No. Both store files on the same platform, but OneDrive is one person's storage and SharePoint holds team- and organization-owned content. Files shared with a team belong in SharePoint.

Do I need a separate license for SharePoint?

Usually not. Any Microsoft 365 business or enterprise plan that includes SharePoint covers it; Business Basic at the low end already does.

Is SharePoint a document management system?

It performs that role: metadata columns, versioning, check-in/check-out, retention labels, and permission control cover the core DMS feature set for most organizations.

Does SharePoint Server still exist?

Yes. SharePoint Server Subscription Edition is the current on-premises release, updated through versioned releases rather than new boxed products.