One of the most significant benefits of SharePoint On-Premises is that it enables its owners to bring in custom features in many different ways, using both server-side and client-side customization methods. With SharePoint 2019, customization is limited only by your IT specialists’ imagination and skill.
Unlike SharePoint Server, Office 365 doesn’t accept server-side customization due to the shared nature of the hosted infrastructure. As for client-side tuning, extensive customization has always been considered risky, since major code changes can wreak havoc. For instance, regular updates from Microsoft’s side can break customizations, resulting in time-consuming and costly testing and troubleshooting.
It doesn’t mean that Office 365 is impossible to customize, though. Many of the customization tasks possible in SharePoint 2019 are also achievable in Office 365. Here are a few examples, along with brief descriptions of the approaches required, which are similar for both products.
- Branding: You can customize branding elements such as logos, colors, headers, and footers using the Composed Looks feature.
- Navigation: You can specify navigation links to add new elements to site navigation.
- Workflows: You can use Microsoft Flow (the successor to SharePoint Designer) to create custom workflows. However, to access Flow from SharePoint 2019, you will need to include an on-premises gateway in your system architecture.
- Forms: SharePoint forms can be customized using PowerApps. Again, an on-premises gateway is required for SharePoint 2019.
Customizations within SharePoint 2019 and Office 365 versions are also possible with SharePoint Framework (SPFx). SPFx simplifies the development process considerably, particularly in Office 365, and enables SharePoint developers to build responsive, mobile-ready apps using an adapted development environment.
To summarize the customization and development aspect of SharePoint vs Office 365, it’s fair to say that SharePoint 2019 offers more flexibility. Alternatively, if you prefer keeping things simple, Office 365 may be a more suitable choice.