SharePoint intranet software: the best options in 2026

Most organisations who have invested in Microsoft 365 also choose to launch an intranet based on SharePoint Online, which is part of Microsoft 365. This makes perfect sense — SharePoint is dominant in the intranet space, and many of the world's best intranets are built on it. SharePoint is a highly flexible and scalable solution, relatively easy to use, and it means you can also deliver a more integrated experience involving Teams, Copilot, Viva Engage and other M365 tools. You're also making the most of your M365 investment.

If you are implementing SharePoint as the core software for your intranet, you actually have several different options. And these different choices are important to know about because the decisions you make about your SharePoint intranet software now can make all the difference to the long-term success of your intranet, impacting areas such as adoption, cost, findability and governance.

In this guide we're going to cover all the main options relating to SharePoint intranet software and the things you need to know.

What are my choices for SharePoint intranet software?

There are really four key options for SharePoint intranet software:

1. SharePoint Online straight out of the box
2. SharePoint Online plus a SharePoint in-a-box intranet product
3. SharePoint Online plus a standalone in-a-box intranet product that integrates with SharePoint
4. Customising SharePoint Online

Let's explore each of these options in turn.

1. SharePoint Online straight out of the box

One option is to deliver your intranet just using SharePoint Online straight out of the box with no additional web parts, customisation or software. This is attractive because it has the lowest upfront costs and presents easy ongoing maintenance and day-to-day management, at least from a technical perspective. IT teams are particularly keen on this option as on paper it seems optimal from an implementation and cost point of view while also being a solid choice for an MVP intranet.

Disadvantages of native SharePoint

However, the advantages of this are deceptive. SharePoint Online alone simply does not meet the intranet requirements of the majority of organisations, and certainly not for medium-sized businesses, enterprises or those with multiple locations or complex structures. An intranet that just relies on out-of-the-box SharePoint is only really suitable for smaller organisations of 100 people or less, and then only if they have very straightforward needs.

Intranet teams using just SharePoint will find some frustrating gaps in terms of core intranet features usually focusing on:

• the ability to apply governance and keep content up to date
• less support for internal communicators
• design constraints
• limitations around particular features.

Ultimately value and adoption may be impacted. Total costs will also potentially rise with more central control and even customisation required, largely due to what is missing in SharePoint.

2. SharePoint in-a-box products

Because using native SharePoint alone is often not adequate to deliver an intranet that will deliver sustained value and adoption, a wide number of additional solutions have evolved to fill the gaps. This class of software, known as SharePoint intranet in-a-box solutions, usually wholly or mainly built on SharePoint itself, sits as a layer on top of SharePoint, adding value through additional features, web parts and templates that support a great intranet experience. For transparency, Lightspeed365 is an example of a SharePoint intranet in-a-box product.

In-a-box features

A good SharePoint in-a-box product should:

• ensure all your data is still kept within your intranet tenant, so ticks existing security, compliance and data sovereignty requirements
• integrate seamlessly with SharePoint and the rest of Microsoft 365, so preserves the powerful integrative powers of native SharePoint
• add extra features to support internal communications and messaging
• support better content governance and intranet management
• add additional design options
• provide essential missing features such as an app launcher
• power more advanced personalisation
• add value in areas such as additional templates for different content types
• support integration with Microsoft Copilot.

The combination of these capabilities makes the delivery of an intranet easier and faster, improving time to market, ensuring content governance, supporting easier management and avoiding customisation. While a SharePoint in-a-box intranet product will mean extra licensing costs on top of SharePoint and may result in some up-front integration costs, overall, the total cost of ownership is usually actually reduced, avoiding the need for additional resources or development.

Choices of in-a-box solutions

The in-a-box market is now mature and there are a lot of solutions, and while these have some common core features, they vary a lot in price and approach. Some SharePoint in-a-box solutions while keeping all your data in SharePoint also may have code which sits outside your Microsoft 365 tenant. The layer on top of SharePoint can also sometimes mean an entirely different design and editing experience; some people prefer that, although other solutions like Lightspeed365 preserve the modern SharePoint editing experience and build on it, rather than replace it.

Costs are also determined partly by how many features you want to pay for. For example, at Lightspeed365 by design we do not duplicate SharePoint features that already work well out of the box, although sometimes we enhance them through additional configuration options. But essentially this approach means costs are reduced because you are not paying twice for features they already have in SharePoint.

3. Standalone intranet in-a-box products that integrate with SharePoint

There are a number of standalone intranet in-a-box products that are neither based on SharePoint nor have a dependency on it. These solutions provide all you need to produce an intranet and can be used by organisations that don't have access to SharePoint at all.

However, because so many organisations do use SharePoint for document management and sharing information, some standalone intranet in-a-box products can integrate with SharePoint in different ways so you can search for and access SharePoint content through the intranet.

For example, perhaps your organisation stores policies in SharePoint libraries. A standalone intranet in-a-box product that integrates with SharePoint could still potentially allow these policies to be integrated into your intranet search or even into a policies site.

Advantages and disadvantages

Strictly speaking these standalone solutions aren't SharePoint intranet software, but they are another option. While some of these standalone solutions are strong and may have some unique features that are attractive — for example a standalone app for frontline employees — they do have some disadvantages compared to pure SharePoint intranet in-a-box products. For example:

• integrations with Microsoft 365 will be far less mature, which can undermine adoption, particularly with Microsoft Teams
• your data will sit outside your Microsoft 365 tenant causing issues with security and data sovereignty
• costs will be higher because you are paying for additional hosting and likely duplication of features
• your intranet will likely need more configuration which can take longer to market.

4. Customisation

A decade ago, in the days when classic SharePoint was widely adopted, most SharePoint intranets were highly customised. While that meant features were more fine-tuned to requirements and design was closer to desired branding, SharePoint intranet projects racked up huge costs, took 18 months to deliver and were then very difficult to evolve. We don't know anyone who wants to return to those bad old days!

Why most avoid customisation

Now most IT teams try to avoid customisation if they can, because it incurs extra costs, risks, effort and technical debt, and intranets become much harder to scale. However, customisation is sometimes necessary for the following reasons:

• integrations with legacy, custom-built or uncommon software not covered by out-of-the-box connectors
• particular design and branding options
• individual requirements not met by out of the box SharePoint or an in-a-box product — often popular features on a previous iteration
• specific business processes, perhaps in an individual line-of-business.

Light vs heavy customisation

If customisation is a necessity, then it is usually possible to contain it to individual web parts to ensure it is kept light, leaning on native SharePoint and in-a-box product features for the vast majority of functionality. Light customisation will incur technical debt and ongoing management; however, two or three custom web parts are going to be much easier to manage and cheaper than a heavily customised environment.

Some teams will have requirements that might need heavier customisation spanning significantly more than isolated web parts. In particular, these might revolve around delivering more complete solutions delivered through the intranet, for example based around specific work processes such as onboarding or relating to customer service.

Heavy customisation will incur heavy costs, significant effort and will impact the future scalability of the platform, but has the potential to deliver value. When considering heavier customisation, it is always worth thoroughly investigating the ability to use existing SharePoint and in-a-box features which are always surprisingly flexible.

How to choose the right SharePoint intranet software

There are always going to be several different criteria to take into account when considering the right approach and type of intranet software.

The table below charts some of the key criteria and related questions, with comparisons of the four main options.