What each option is
SharePoint is the part of Microsoft 365 that stores documents and publishes pages for teams. Sites are assembled from libraries, lists and ready-made page parts, access follows your company directory, and files open in the Office apps people already use.
A custom portal is a web application built for a particular audience and a particular set of tasks. A customer signs in and sees their orders, invoices, documents or cases, drawn live from your systems, and can pay, request or approve without sending an email.
The two options at a glance
| SharePoint | Custom portal | |
|---|---|---|
| Best at | Documents, news and team sites for employees | Self-service for customers, partners or members |
| Sign-in | Your Microsoft directory. Outside people join as guests by invitation | Any method you choose, including email, phone or a national identity service |
| What outside users can do | Guests are limited to basic collaboration on what is shared with them | Whatever you design: view, pay, book, upload, approve |
| Data from business systems | Lists and libraries, with connectors and Power Platform tools for more | Read and written directly through your systems' interfaces |
| Design | Within SharePoint's layouts and page parts, plus custom extensions | Your brand, your layout, your flows |
| Licensing | Included for staff in Microsoft 365 | No per-user license. Build, hosting and maintenance |
| Upkeep | Microsoft runs the service. Your administrators govern sites and permissions | You or your partner run and update the application |
Guest abilities and licensing are defined by Microsoft and are revised from time to time. These points were checked against Microsoft's documentation when this comparison was reviewed.
When each one fits
Use SharePoint when
- The audience is your own employees
- The content is policies, templates, news and project files
- People should edit documents together in Office
- You already hold Microsoft 365 licenses for everyone
- Your IT team can govern sites and permissions
Build a custom portal when
- The audience is customers, suppliers, members or tenants
- Users need figures from your ERP, CRM or billing system
- They must act: pay an invoice, raise a request, approve a quote
- The portal is part of your service and should look like it
- Thousands of outside users will sign in
Where Power Pages fits
Microsoft's answer for websites used by people outside your organization is Power Pages, part of its Power Platform. Sites are built with low-code tools on data held in Dataverse, visitors sign in through a provider you choose, and capacity is bought by the number of signed-in or anonymous users each month.
It suits organizations that already run Dynamics 365 or Power Platform, have staff who know those tools and need a portal close to that data. It suits less well when your data lives in other systems, when the design must go beyond its templates, or when per-user capacity for a large audience costs more than owning the software.
Using both together
The two are not rivals inside one company. Staff keep working in SharePoint, where contracts, drawings and reports are filed. The customer portal shows each customer the documents meant for them by reading those libraries through Microsoft's interface, with the portal deciding who sees what.
That way nobody copies files between systems, and nobody outside is given a seat in your internal workspace. Our client portal development page describes how we build this kind of connection.
A worked example
An engineering firm with two needs
The firm is invented. It has 150 staff and 300 active clients.
- The first needStaff could not find current templates, standards and project files, which were scattered across shared drives.
- The decisionSharePoint. The firm already had Microsoft 365, and the need was documents for employees.
- The second needClients kept emailing to ask for drawings, inspection reports and invoice status on their projects.
- The decisionA custom portal. Each client signs in, sees only their projects, downloads approved documents and views invoices from the accounting system.
One company, two audiences, two tools. The portal reads its documents from the same libraries the staff use.
A checklist to decide
SharePoint or a custom portal
0 of 8 checkedTicks only in the first three point to SharePoint. Ticks in the last five point to a portal built for the purpose.
What to do next
Write down who will sign in and the three things they most need to do. If the answer is staff finding documents, configure what you already own. If it is customers serving themselves, describe the portal to us and we will outline how we would build it and what it would connect to.
Common questions
Can customers log in to SharePoint?
They can be invited as guests, which lets them open and work on what has been shared with them. Microsoft's documentation describes guests as limited to basic collaboration. That works for sharing a folder with a few partners. It does not give customers a branded place to see their account, pay or raise requests, which is what most people mean by a customer portal.
Is SharePoint free with Microsoft 365?
It is included in most Microsoft 365 business and enterprise plans for your licensed staff, so there is no extra fee to use it internally. Websites for outside audiences are a different product, Power Pages, with its own capacity-based licensing. Check your plan and Microsoft's current licensing guide before assuming an external site is covered.
Can a custom portal use SharePoint for its documents?
Yes. The portal can read from and write to SharePoint libraries through Microsoft's programming interface, while handling sign-in and permissions for customers itself. Staff keep filing documents where they always have, and customers see only what the portal releases to them. It is usually the best arrangement for firms that already live in Microsoft 365.
When is Power Pages the right answer?
When your data is already in Dataverse or Dynamics 365, your team knows the Power Platform, and the portal's needs match what its templates and low-code tools provide. In that setting it is faster than custom work. When the data is elsewhere, the design is specific or the audience is very large, compare its monthly capacity cost and its limits with a custom portal.