SharePoint vs Power Pages: when to use each

Every week some client asks us the same: "SharePoint or Power Pages for my external portal?". Short answer: it depends on who logs in, what they do inside, and what data they touch. Long answer, this article.

The rule we use

If users are internal (employees, contractors with M365 account), SharePoint. If they are external (citizens, customers, suppliers) and you need flexible or anonymous authentication, Power Pages. The line is authentication.

When SharePoint is the right answer

• Users with existing M365 accounts, without provisioning friction.
• Need for native semantic search across organizational content.
• Deep integration with Teams, Outlook, OneDrive, Viva.
• Governance and retention unified with the rest of the internal intranet.

When Power Pages wins

• Massive external users with non-corporate identities (citizens, B2C customers, candidates).
• Need for public forms with complex logic and integrated payment.
• Dataverse data modeling with row-level granular security.
• Long processes with multiple states (requests, claims, partner onboarding).

Real cost, not marketing cost

In a recent project for a Colombian public entity, 50,000 citizens/month accessing 50+ digital procedures: SharePoint would have required premium licensing + custom front-end + B2C. Power Pages with standard licensing and national digital identity authentication put us 38% below 3-year TCO.