SharePoint communication site vs team site

Do you want to know which one should you choose, SharePoint team site or communication site for your intranet? This tutorial is all about the SharePoint communication site vs team site. We will see the difference between sharepoint communication site vs team site.

Also, we will discuss:

• Why should we choose team sites in SharePoint?
• Why should you choose SharePoint communication sites?
• SharePoint Online team site vs communication site
• Difference between sharepoint communication site vs team site
• How to create a team site and communication site in SharePoint Online?
• How to create a team site and a communication site in SharePoint Online?

When you should choose a team site in SharePoint?

As the name suggests, in SharePoint, we create a team site for a particular team. For example, in your organization, you might have various teams working with various projects.

We can create a team site for a project team or workgroup, so that they can collaborate on the project, plan tasks, track status, exchange ideas, etc. within the team members.

Based on the permission, users can create, edit or view documents within the team site. Apart from the particular project report or team, other teams will not have access to the SharePoint team site.

Your team members can able to collaborate with each other in the team site in SharePoint Online.

For a mid-size or large-size organization, you will have a lot of team sites in your Office 365. Because, you need to create separate sites for each team, or project and imagine how many projects or teams will be there in your organization. To secure your project information from other team members, you should organize your SharePoint sites like this.

Since every team site will have one or more SharePoint site owners, it will be easier for your team to manage the permission. Like, if someone leaves the company or leaves the project, then the site owner should remove the permission of the user from that SharePoint team site.

All users in a SharePoint team site will have same access which is Members access. Microsoft also allows you to share with external users, read an article on, SharePoint Online external sharing tutorial.

A few examples that you can consider for creating a team site:

• Team sites for various departments like you can create individual team sites for your HR, Finance, Training, Marketing, etc.
• Sometimes, if your team is very big and a global organization, then you can create different team sites for HR USA, HR Canada, HR UK, etc.
• Create an individual team site for each project in your organization. For, example, you can create different team sites for Project A, Project B, Project C, etc.

You can check out an article on, Create a site collection in SharePoint Online and How to change SharePoint Online site URL.

When we should create a communication site in SharePoint

Now, let us try to understand, why we should create a communication site in SharePoint Online.

In an organization, we will create a communication site when we want to share information with the entire organization or with a large organization.

For example, if your IT team wants to share information about Laptop requests, information on laptops, etc. Then this information will not be specific to any team or project, it will be for the entire organization. Here, we should create a communication site in SharePoint Online.

Another example, you can create a communication site for your HR people. They can share the information, like HR policy details with the entire organization.

Here are a few scenarios, we should consider of creating a communication site in SharePoint Online.

• An ideal scenario to create a communication site is to share your corporate news and events.
• Share company HR policies details with your organization
• Company IT equipment request details, etc.

If you want to create a communication site in SharePoint, check out Create a communication site in SharePoint using PowerShell.

Read: How to create a team in Microsoft Teams

SharePoint communication site vs team site

SharePoint communication site vs team site? Here are a few differences between in team site and communication site in SharePoint Online.

SharePoint Team Site	SharePoint Communication Site
Team sites are specific to a particular team or workgroup.	SharePoint communication sites are not specific to any team, rather they will be for the entire organization.
In this case, all members can create and edit the contents.	In the case of a communication site, there will be a small group of people who will create and publish the content, but a large audience will consume it.
By default a SharePoint team site is private. You have to give access to the user with whom you want to share the information or documents.	By default a communication site is public.
For security, we use Office 365 groups or Microsoft 365 groups on a team site.	In communication sites, we use SharePoint groups.
In a SharePoint team site, by default, external sharing is enabled, if required, you can disable it.	External sharing in a communication site is disabled by default. But it can be enabled by the SharePoint admins.
Another major difference between sharepoint communication site vs team site is that when you create a SharePoint team site, by default the left navigation will appear.	In a SharePoint communication site, by default top navigation will be there.
Can create subsites in SharePoint team sites.	This is another difference between sharepoint communication site vs team site, it is not possible to create subsites in SharePoint communication sites.
When you create a team site, you will get a planner, shared calendar, Office 365 group, OneNote notebook, shared mailbox, and also you can connect to the Microsoft teams.	But in a SharePoint communication site, it will just create a communication site without anything.

A typical SharePoint team site looks like below:

A SharePoint online communication site look like below:

You may like the following SharePoint tutorials:

• Site collection administrator in SharePoint
• SharePoint Online regional settings
• SharePoint site owner
• Disable content on a SharePoint site to be searchable
• Create site column in SharePoint using Rest API and PowerShell
• Delete SharePoint Site + PowerShell
• How to change SharePoint Online Modern Site Theme
• Customize Modern SharePoint Online Site

I hope you got an idea on SharePoint team site vs communication site or sharepoint communication site vs team site:

• Difference between sharepoint communication site and team site
• Difference between team site and communication site in SharePoint
• Team site vs communication site in SharePoint
• When you should choose a team site in SharePoint Online
• When you should create a SharePoint communication site