Microsoft SharePoint vs Microsoft Teams: What are the differences?

## Introduction

1. **Integration with Office 365:** SharePoint is closely integrated with Office 365, providing a comprehensive suite of tools for document management, collaboration, and communication. Teams, on the other hand, offers a more focused platform for team collaboration and communication, with features like chat, file sharing, meetings, and integrations.

2. **Team-based vs. Site-based Collaboration:** Microsoft Teams is designed for team-based collaboration, where users can create teams, channels, and have discussions within those specific groups. SharePoint, on the other hand, is more site-based, where users collaborate within sites and can create subsites, lists, libraries, and pages within those sites.

3. **Document Management:** SharePoint is primarily a document management platform, offering robust features like version control, metadata, workflows, and records management. Microsoft Teams, while it also allows file sharing and collaboration on documents, lacks some of the advanced document management capabilities of SharePoint.

4. **Communication Channels:** In Microsoft Teams, users can communicate through channels within a team, facilitating focused discussions and collaboration. SharePoint, on the other hand, offers more traditional communication methods like blogs, wikis, discussion boards, and news feeds within a site.

5. **Customization and Development:** SharePoint allows for extensive customization through workflows, forms, web parts, and custom solutions developed using SharePoint Framework. Microsoft Teams, while it does offer some customization options like tabs and connectors, is more limited in terms of development capabilities compared to SharePoint.

6. **Security and Compliance:** SharePoint provides advanced security features like information rights management, encryption, and data loss prevention to ensure data security and compliance. Microsoft Teams leverages the security features of Office 365, including compliance tools like eDiscovery and legal hold, but may not offer the same level of granular control as SharePoint.

In Summary, Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Teams have key differences in integration with Office 365, collaboration methods, document management capabilities, communication channels, customization and development options, and security and compliance features.