Hub Site vs Subsite in SharePoint: Key Differences and When to Use Each

The short answer on hub site vs subsite: a hub site links separate site collections that share navigation, theme and search, while a subsite lives inside its parent site’s URL, permissions and settings. For new work, Microsoft recommends hub sites.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how a hub site vs subsite setup differs in structure, URLs, permissions, navigation and search, when each one fits, how to list both with PnP PowerShell, and how to move a subsite into a hub.

Here’s the quickest way to see what you already have:

Connect-PnPOnline -Url "https://contoso-admin.sharepoint.com" -ClientId $clientId -DeviceLogin
Get-PnPHubSite | Select-Object Title, SiteUrl

It returns every hub site registered in your tenant, with its URL.

What Is a Hub Site in SharePoint?

A SharePoint hub site is a normal site that a SharePoint admin registers as a hub. Other sites then associate with it and pick up its navigation bar and theme.

Each associated site stays its own site collection, whether it’s a team site or a communication site. If you’re unsure which to use, see the team site vs communication site comparison.

On our tenant, TS-Legal is associated with Corporate Hub. The hub bar at the top reads Corporate Hub | Home | Google.com, and Site information shows the association:

The site’s own content and permissions didn’t change. It just gained the shared hub bar and joined the hub’s search scope.

What Is a Subsite in SharePoint?

A SharePoint subsite is a site created inside another site. It shares the parent’s site collection, so its URL, storage and many features sit under that parent.

Our SPGuides team site has one subsite, Training. You can see it on the Subsites tab of Site contents:

To add one, open Site contents > New > Subsite. The full steps are in my guide on how to create a subsite in SharePoint:

That opens the classic New SharePoint Site form. Notice the URL field: the new address is built on top of the parent site’s URL:

So Training lives at /sites/SPGuides/Training. If the parent site moves or gets deleted, the subsite goes with it.

Hub Site vs Subsite: Key Differences

Here’s how a SharePoint hub site vs subsite compares on the points that matter in daily admin work:

Area	Hub site (with associated sites)	Subsite
Structure	Flat: every site is its own site collection	Nested inside a parent site collection
URL	/sites/TS-Legal stays the same after any re-org	/sites/SPGuides/Training, tied to the parent
Permissions	Each site keeps its own; association changes nothing	Inherits from the parent unless you break inheritance
Navigation	Shared hub bar, up to three levels	Can reuse the parent’s top navigation
Search	Hub search scope across all associated sites	Searches within the site collection
Theme	Associated sites take the hub theme	Set per site
Re-org	Change the hub association in a few clicks	Content must be moved to a new site
Microsoft 365 group / Teams	Group-connected team sites can join a hub	No group of its own
Who creates it	SharePoint admin registers the hub; allowed site owners associate	Site owners, if the admin allows subsites
Limits	2,000 hubs per tenant; one hub per site	2,000 subsites per site collection

Permissions are the big one for me. With subsites, one careless change on the parent can flow down to every child, which is why our SharePoint permissions best practices guide favors separate sites.

Hub roll-up is security trimmed. People only see news and documents from associated sites they already have access to.

When Should You Use a Hub Site Instead of a Subsite?

I pick a hub almost every time a department, region or project needs its own owners but should still feel connected. Think an HR hub with separate Benefits, Payroll and Training sites.

A hub also suits:

• Teams that get re-organized often, since a site can switch hubs without a URL change
• Sites that need their own retention or sensitivity settings
• Any team that works in Microsoft Teams, because each team already has its own site
• Intranets where people need one search box across related sites

A subsite still makes sense for a small, short-lived area that truly belongs to one site and should share its permissions, or for an older classic site you’re maintaining. More layout ideas are in our SharePoint tutorials.

How to Check Hub Sites and Subsites with PnP PowerShell

Before planning any change, I list what already exists. You’ll need PowerShell 7 and the module; see how to install PnP PowerShell if it’s new to you.

Hub cmdlets need the tenant admin site, so connect there first. Then list the hubs and the sites associated with one of them:

Connect-PnPOnline -Url "https://contoso-admin.sharepoint.com" -ClientId $clientId -DeviceLogin -PersistLogin
Get-PnPHubSite | Select-Object Title, SiteUrl | Format-Table -AutoSize
Get-PnPHubSiteChild -Identity "https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/CorporateHub"

Subsites are read per site. Connect to the parent site and get its subwebs:

Connect-PnPOnline -Url "https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/SPGuides" -ClientId $clientId -DeviceLogin -PersistLogin
Get-PnPSubWeb | Select-Object Title, ServerRelativeUrl

I ran both against our tenant in PowerShell 7. Here’s the output:

It shows our two hubs, Corporate Hub and QMS Hub, the TS-Finance and TS-Legal sites under Corporate Hub, and one subsite: Training at /sites/SPGuides/Training.

To audit every site in the tenant, the same connection works with the script to get all SharePoint Online sites using PnP PowerShell.

Can You Convert a Subsite to a Hub Site Structure?

Not with one button. SharePoint Online can’t promote a subsite into its own site collection, so the move is a small migration:

1. Create a new team or communication site for the subsite’s content.
2. Move libraries with Move to, and lists and pages with a migration tool.
3. Associate the new site with the hub in Settings > Site information > Hub site association.
4. Update links, then delete the old subsite once people have switched.

You can script the first step too: here’s how to create a site in SharePoint Online using PnP PowerShell. Cross-site moves are capped at 100 GB and 30,000 files per operation, so split big libraries.

The parent site can become the hub itself, as long as it isn’t already associated with another hub.

Hub Site and Subsite Limits, Errors and Fixes

“We do not support automatically switching context to the tenant administration site”

I hit this when I ran Get-PnPHubSite while connected to a normal site with -DeviceLogin. Connect to https://contoso-admin.sharepoint.com instead and run it again.

The Subsite option is missing

Your admin chose Disable subsite creation for all sites on the classic settings page. That hides the command and also blocks subsites created by URL or API.

A site can’t be registered as a hub

Sites already associated with another hub can’t become hubs. Remove the association first, and remember the 2,000-hub tenant limit counts every hub.

Hub navigation doesn’t appear

On a classic team site, the hub bar only shows on modern pages. Associating a site also doesn’t add it to the hub navigation; the hub owner adds that link.

I’d read these next if you’re reorganizing SharePoint sites:

• SharePoint Site Owner [Complete Tutorial]
• SharePoint Site Left Navigation or Quick Launch
• How to Delete SharePoint Site?
• How to Get SharePoint Online Site Details Using PowerShell

Frequently Asked Questions