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SharePoint is a web-based collaborative platform primarily used for building corporate intranets, document and content management, and file sharing. Developed by Microsoft, it is primarily used as part of the hosted service Microsoft 365, but it can also be hosted by an IT department or service provider, using an on premises version called “SharePoint Server”. Launched in 2001,[8] SharePoint was originally licensed under the Microsoft Office Server suite (alongside Microsoft Exchange), and a feature limited version was bundled with Windows Server. These were unified under the SharePoint brand in 2010. The feature limited version, SharePoint Foundation, was discontinued in 2013. SharePoint today is primarily distributed as part of Microsoft 365, with the SharePoint Server available on a Microsoft 365 billing subscription.

According to Microsoft, as of March 2026, more than one billion users interact with SharePoint each year, with around two billion files uploaded and two million sites created daily.[9]

Application

The most common uses of SharePoint include:

Enterprise content and document management

Main articles: Enterprise content management and document management

SharePoint allows storage, retrieval, searching, archiving, tracking, management, and reporting on electronic documents and records. Many of the functions in this product are designed around various legal, information management, and process requirements in organizations. SharePoint also provides search and “graph” functionality.[10] SharePoint allows collaborative real-time editing[11] and encrypted/information-rights-managed[12] synchronization by providing the underlying technical infrastructure for Microsoft OneDrive.[13]

SharePoint is often used to replace or supplement an existing corporate file server, and is typically coupled with an enterprise content management policy.[14]

Intranet and social network

Main articles: Intranet portal and Social network

A SharePoint intranet or intranet portal is a way to centralize access to enterprise information and applications. It is a tool that helps an organization manage its internal communications, applications and information more easily. By providing the tools to capture and share explicit knowledge in an organisation, Microsoft claims organizational improvements in employee training, employee engagement, business process management, organizational communication, and crisis management.[15][16] These capabilities are usually centered around “Communication sites” (previously, “Publishing sites”).[17]

Group collaboration

SharePoint contains team collaboration groupware capabilities, including: document / file management, project scheduling (integrated with Outlook and Project), and other information tracking.[18] This capability is centred around “team sites”. Team sites are created whenever a Microsoft Teams team is created, but they are also created independently of these, and have been a feature of SharePoint since 2001.

File hosting service (personal cloud)

Main articles: Personal cloud and File hosting service

SharePoint sites are the hosting infrastructure for OneDrive For Business, which allows storage and synchronization of an individual’s personal work documents, as well as public/private file sharing of those documents.

Custom web applications (SharePoint Server)

Historically, SharePoint Server’s custom development capabilities provided an additional layer of services that allowed for rapid prototyping of integrated (typically line-of-business) web applications.[19] SharePoint provided developers with integration into corporate directories and data sources through standards such as REST/OData/OAuth. Enterprise application developers used SharePoint’s security and information management capabilities across a variety of development platforms and scenarios.

Configuration, integration, and customization

Web-based configuration

SharePoint is primarily configured through a web browser. Capabilities for the management of a SharePoint site are “security trimmed”, meaning that editing capabilities simply appear in place when permissions are granted. A “Site Collection Administrator” has the highest level of permission to manage an individual SharePoint sites.

Admin Center

An administration center for configuring organisation-wide settings is usually available to SharePoint Administrators, who are responsible for managing the underlying infrastructure.

In the cloud, this is called the “SharePoint Admin Center”. Features include:

  • Tenant-wide policy controls around sharing/permissions, access control, apps, APIs, and security controls.
  • Tenant-wide configuration of content services: search, managed metadata, content types, and other governance.
  • Tenant-wide health and security reports, service health checks, migration features, and hybrid configuration.[20]

In SharePoint Server, this is called the “central administration site”, and it contains significantly more features are available for the administration and health of the SharePoint server farm. Because they are not operated as a shared resource, features like the search crawler are more controllable and configurable.

Command line tools

Microsoft SharePoint’s Server and SharePoint Online have multiple command line or PowerShell utilities available to ease administration.

  • Microsoft also provides an official PowerShell module for cloud, as well as for SharePoint Server. These are supported only on Windows.
  • The open source PnP PowerShell is managed by Microsoft, and is widely used in cloud hosted environments. It is available on PowerShell for Windows, Mac and Linux.
  • A broader, cross-platform Microsoft 365 CLI (also open source) is also available.

Integrating with SharePoint

  • The Microsoft Power Platform provides significant extensibility for SharePoint Online, especially Power Automate.
  • Microsoft Graph provides an API endpoint for Microsoft 365 that is frequently used for SharePoint Online.
  • SharePoint provides various APIs, including REST, ODATA, and object models.[21]

Developing on SharePoint Online

The SharePoint Framework (SPFx) is the supported model for client-side customisation in SharePoint Online and the only option that fully integrates with the modern user experience.[22] It uses TypeScript on Node.js with React as the default UI framework, and has been generally available since February 2017. New major versions ship roughly annually, aligned with the current Node.js LTS; SPFx 1.22 is the stable release as of April 2026 and runs on Node 22.[23]

For server-side custom development, the supported pattern is to host the code in Azure, secured with Entra ID through App Service Authentication (“Easy Auth”); which passes authentication through to the service.[24]

Sandboxed solutions and the Provider-hosted Add-in model are retired in SharePoint Online.

Developing on SharePoint Server

SharePoint Server supports SPFx, but lags the cloud by several minor versions and runs on older Node.js and React releases.[25]

Several deprecated earlier extensibility models remain installable on SharePoint Server:

  • Add-in model (2013): SharePoint-hosted and provider-hosted apps served through a SharePoint proxy. Retired in the cloud on 2 April 2026.[26][27]
  • Sandboxed solutions (2010): user-deployable, security-restricted code packages with resource quotas. Code execution disabled in SharePoint Online in 2014; declarative-only packages still installable on Server.[28]
  • Farm solutions (2010): fully trusted assemblies installed at the farm level.
  • Service applications (2010): services exposed through SharePoint’s SOA bus at the farm level.

SharePoint Designer

Main article: SharePoint Designer

SharePoint Designer is a desktop application for editing SharePoint sites, pages, and workflows. It is deprecated; Designer 2013 was the final release and remains the primary editor for legacy SharePoint 2013 workflows, which retire in SharePoint Online on 2 April 2026 but continue to function on SharePoint Server.[29] Power Automate and Power Apps are the supported replacements for new development.

Security, administration and compliance

Cloud edition

Microsoft 365 provides legal compliance features through their Microsoft Purview product, Microsoft Intune Endpoint Management, and the SharePoint admin center, where retention policies and sharing policies can be administered by the SharePoint Administrator.[30]

Some legacy features such as in-place retention can be configured without the additional cost of Purview.[31]

SharePoint Server

SharePoint’s architecture enables a ‘least-privileges’ execution permission model.[32]

SharePoint Central Administration (the CA) provides a complete centralized management interface for web and service applications in the SharePoint farm, including Active Directory account management for web and service applications. In the event of the failure of the CA, Windows PowerShell is typically used on the CA server to reconfigure the farm.

Security and patching issues

Microsoft SharePoint Server has a manual patching arrangement that is widely regarded as convoluted and complex.[33] Over the years, it has been subject to numerous critical security vulnerabilities, which are frequently exploited in the wild.[34] As a consequence, is no longer considered best practice to host SharePoint Server with public facing internet access.

ToolShell (2025)

A zero-day exploit chain dubbed “ToolShell”, combining CVE–2025-49704, CVE–2025-49706, CVE–2025-53770 and CVE–2025-53771, began targeting government agencies, universities, and businesses in the United States, China, and Europe using on-premises SharePoint servers on 18 July 2025.[35][36] The attackers chained the four CVEs to take control of SharePoint servers and extract ASP.NET machine keys, enabling persistent access including back doors for follow-on attacks.[37][38]

Microsoft issued initial updates for SharePoint Server Subscription Edition and SharePoint Server 2019 on 20 July 2025;[37][39] the first patch was found to be incomplete and Microsoft re-released fixes within the same week.[40] A CISA alert was issued on 20 July 2025.[41][42]

Microsoft attributed the exploitation to Chinese state-sponsored advanced persistent threat groups it tracks as Linen Typhoon, Violet Typhoon and Storm-2603, with reported targets including the National Nuclear Security Administration.[43][44]

Farms

A SharePoint farm is a logical grouping of SharePoint servers that share common resources.[45] A farm typically operates stand-alone, but can also subscribe to functions from another farm, or provide functions to another farm. Each farm has its own central configuration database, which is managed through either a PowerShell interface, or a Central Administration website (which relies partly on PowerShell’s infrastructure). Each server in the farm is able to directly interface with the central configuration database. Servers use this to configure services (e.g. IIS, windows features, database connections) to match the requirements of the farm, and to report server health issues, resource allocation issues, etc…

Web applications

Web applications (WAs) are top-level containers for content in a SharePoint farm. A web application is associated primarily with IIS configuration. A web application consists of a set of access mappings or URLs defined in the SharePoint central management console, which are replicated by SharePoint across every IIS Instance (e.g. Web Application Servers) configured in the farm.

Service applications

Service applications provide granular pieces of SharePoint functionality to other web and service applications in the farm. Examples of service applications include the User Profile Sync service, and the Search Indexing service. A service application can be turned off, exist on one server, or be load-balanced across many servers in a farm. Service Applications are designed to have independent functionality and independent security scopes.[46]

Site collections

A site collection is a hierarchical group of ‘SharePoint Sites’. Each web application must have at least one site collection. Site collections share common properties (detailed here), common subscriptions to service applications, and can be configured with unique host names.[47] A site collection may have a distinct content databases, or may share a content database with other site collections in the same web application.[46]

History

Origins

SharePoint evolved from projects codenamed “Office Server” and “Tahoe” during the Office XP development cycle.

“Office Server” evolved out of the FrontPage and Office Server Extensions and “Team Pages”. It targeted simple, bottom-up collaboration.

“Tahoe”, built on shared technology with Exchange and the “Digital Dashboard”, targeted top-down portals, search and document management. The searching and indexing capabilities of SharePoint came from the “Tahoe” feature set. The search and indexing features were a combination of the index and crawling features from the Microsoft Site Server family of products and from the query language of Microsoft Index Server.[48]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c “SharePoint updates”. Microsoft Learn. Office updates. Retrieved 2026-03-06.
  2. ^ “Microsoft SharePoint”. App Store. Retrieved 2025-12-08.
  3. ^ “Microsoft SharePoint”. Google Play. Retrieved 2025-12-08.
  4. ^ “Microsoft SharePoint 3.41.00”. APKMirror. 2025-12-01. Retrieved 2025-12-08.
  5. ^ “Hardware and Software Requirements for SharePoint 2019”. Microsoft TechNet. Microsoft Corporation. July 24, 2018. Retrieved October 23, 2018.
  6. ^ “System requirements for SharePoint Server Subscription Edition”. Microsoft Documentation. Microsoft Corporation. November 2, 2021. Retrieved January 24, 2022.
  7. ^ “Install or uninstall language packs for SharePoint Servers 2016 and 2019”. Microsoft Docs. Microsoft Corporation. Archived from the original on December 18, 2018. Retrieved December 17, 2018.
  8. ^ “Leading Systems Integrators Ready for the Availability of Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server” (Press release). Microsoft. March 28, 2001. Retrieved April 18, 2026.
  9. ^ “SharePoint at 25: How Microsoft is putting knowledge to work in the AI era”. Microsoft 365 Blog. March 2, 2026. Retrieved April 18, 2026.
  10. ^ “SharePoint – Team Collaboration Software Tools”. Microsoft Office. Retrieved May 19, 2015.
  11. ^ MachelleTranMSFT. “How sync works – SharePoint in Microsoft 365”. learn.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2025-09-26.
  12. ^ maggierui. “Cloud data security measures in SharePoint & OneDrive – SharePoint in Microsoft 365”. learn.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2025-09-26.
  13. ^ MachelleTranMSFT. “Restore a deleted OneDrive – SharePoint in Microsoft 365”. learn.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2025-09-26.
  14. ^ Rand Group (April 22, 2020). “SharePoint versus Network File Share (NFS)”. Retrieved April 22, 2020.
  15. ^ “SharePoint Look Book”. Microsoft Adoption. Retrieved 2025-09-26.
  16. ^ “Search Customer Success Stories | Microsoft Customer Stories”. www.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2025-10-01.
  17. ^ “Create a communication site in SharePoint – Microsoft Support”. support.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2025-10-01.
  18. ^ Australia, Linktech (2022-02-04). “Five remote work problems Microsoft 365 solves”. Linktech Australia. Archived from the original on 2022-05-18. Retrieved 2022-06-11.
  19. ^ SharePoint 2013 development overview. Msdn.microsoft.com (July 16, 2012). Retrieved on 2014-02-22.
  20. ^ Microsoft Docs Team (20 November 2023). “Hybrid Configuration Wizard in the SharePoint Online admin center”. Microsoft Learn. Retrieved 17 October 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  21. ^ SharePoint 2010 for Developers. SharePoint website. Microsoft Corporation. Retrieved August 13, 2011.
  22. ^ “Overview of the SharePoint Framework (SPFx)”. Microsoft Learn. Retrieved April 18, 2026.
  23. ^ “SharePoint Framework Platform & Toolchain Compatibility Reference”. Microsoft Learn. Retrieved April 18, 2026.
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  26. ^ “Retirement of SharePoint Add-Ins”. Microsoft Learn. Retrieved April 18, 2026.
  27. ^ “SharePoint Add-Ins and Azure ACS retirement FAQ”. Microsoft Learn. Retrieved April 18, 2026.
  28. ^ “Deprecation of custom code in sandboxed solutions”. Microsoft Learn. Retrieved April 18, 2026.
  29. ^ “SharePoint 2013 workflow retirement”. Microsoft Learn. Retrieved April 18, 2026.
  30. ^ maggierui. “SharePoint governance overview – SharePoint in Microsoft 365”. learn.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2025-09-26.
  31. ^ Klein, Joanne (2019-01-06). “Modern vs Classic IN PLACE Records Management in SharePoint”. Joanne C Klein. Retrieved 2025-09-26.
  32. ^ Holme, Dan. “Least Privilege Service Accounts for SharePoint 2010”. SharePoint Pro Magazine. Penton Media. Retrieved August 13, 2011.
  33. ^ Comments, Stefan Goßner– 87 (2020-02-11). “SharePoint Patching Best Practices”. Stefan Goßner. Retrieved 2025-09-26.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  34. ^ Unit 42 (2025-07-31). “Active Exploitation of Microsoft SharePoint Vulnerabilities: Threat Brief (Updated August 12)”. Unit 42. Retrieved 2025-09-26.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  35. ^ Nakashima, Ellen; Sanchez, Yvonne Wingett; Menn, Joseph; Balz, Dan; Allison, Natalie; Tharoor, Ishaan; Lynch, David J.; Kilgore, Adam (2025-07-20). “Global hack on Microsoft product hits U.S., state agencies, researchers say”. The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2025-07-21.
  36. ^ Date, Jack (July 21, 2025). “Microsoft SharePoint under ‘active exploitation,’ Homeland Security’s CISA says”. ABC News. Retrieved 2025-07-21.
  37. ^ a b online, heise (2025-07-21). “Kritische Sharepoint-Sicherheitslücke: Erste Patches für “ToolShell” sind da” [Critical Sharepoint security vulnerability: First patches for “ToolShell” are available]. Security (in German). Retrieved 2025-07-21.
  38. ^ “China-backed hackers used Microsoft flaw in attacks, defenders say” Washington Post, 22 July 2025, retrieved 22 July 2025
  39. ^ “Microsoft SharePoint zero-day breach hits on-prem servers”. CSO Online. July 21, 2025. Retrieved 2025-07-21.
  40. ^ McMillan, Robert; Volz, Dustin (July 24, 2025). “A Failed Microsoft Security Patch Is the Latest Win for Chinese Hackers”. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved July 24, 2025.
  41. ^ Whittaker, Zack (2025-07-21). “New zero-day bug in Microsoft SharePoint under widespread attack”. TechCrunch. Retrieved 2025-07-21.
  42. ^ “Microsoft Releases Guidance on Exploitation of SharePoint Vulnerability (CVE-2025-53770)”. CISA. 2025-07-20. Retrieved 2025-07-21.
  43. ^ Titcomb, James (2025-07-23). “Chinese hackers suspected of breaching US nuclear weapons agency”. The Daily Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2025-07-23.
  44. ^ Labiak, Mitchell; Jamali, Lily (2025-07-23). “Microsoft servers hacked by Chinese state-backed groups, firm says”. BBC News. Retrieved 2025-07-25.
  45. ^ “MSDN Conceptual Overview”. October 20, 2016.
  46. ^ a b “Logical architecture components (SharePoint Server 2010)”. Technet. Microsoft. Retrieved August 13, 2011.
  47. ^ “Host-named site collection architecture and deployment (SharePoint 2013)”. Retrieved April 25, 2017.
  48. ^ “Sharepoint History”. MSDN. Microsoft corporation. October 5, 2009. Retrieved December 2, 2010.