SharePoint site types: team, communication, or hub site?
SOLUTION GUIDE
SharePoint has two main site types. Use a team site where a group works on files together, and a communication site where a few people publish information for many readers. A hub site isn't a third type: it's an existing site that connects a family of related team and communication sites with shared navigation, news, and search. Microsoft now recommends hubs instead of subsites for organising them.
What are the SharePoint site types?
Team sites and communication sites are the two you create. A hub is something an admin turns an existing site into. This comparison follows Microsoft's planning guidance:
| Team site | Communication site | Hub site | |
|---|---|---|---|
| For | Working together | Publishing to an audience | Connecting related sites |
| Who writes | Every member | A few authors | The hub owner sets navigation and theme; each site's own members write its content |
| Who reads | The members | Many people, often the whole organisation | Anyone with access to the sites in it |
| Microsoft 365 group | Yes by default, which brings Teams, Planner, and a shared mailbox | No | Whatever the original site had |
| Permissions | Group membership, plus SharePoint groups | SharePoint groups | Unchanged: joining a hub doesn't change a site's permissions |
| Who creates it | Users, unless your organisation restricts it, or IT | Users, unless your organisation restricts it, or IT | A SharePoint administrator registers an existing site as a hub |
| Examples | A project team, a department's working files, a committee | Policies and procedures, travel guidance, a sales resource site | An HR hub joining benefits, recruitment, and training sites |
Team site or communication site: how do you decide?
Ask who will change the content. If most of the people using the site will add and edit files, it's a team site. If a small group publishes and everyone else reads, it's a communication site. A few more questions settle the edge cases:
- Does the group need Teams, Planner, or a shared mailbox? Then it needs a Microsoft 365 group, which means a team site. Creating a team in Microsoft Teams creates the team site for you.
- Is it mainly news, pages, and finished documents? A communication site, which gives you full-width page layouts made for reading.
- Will the audience be most of the organisation? A communication site. Team sites work best for a defined group of members.
- Do you need a team site without the Microsoft 365 group? Admins can create one, for example for an archive or a store of files that doesn't need Teams.
Choose carefully at the start. There's no switch to turn a modern team site into a communication site, or back, so changing your mind means creating a new site and moving the content.
What is a hub site, and when do you need one?
A hub site is a team or communication site that a SharePoint administrator has registered as a hub, so that other sites can join it. Microsoft describes hubs as the "connective tissue" of an intranet. Sites that join a hub get:
- Shared navigation and branding across the family of sites.
- Roll-up of news and activity from the joined sites onto the hub.
- A shared search scope, so people can search just that family of sites.
Joining a hub doesn't change anyone's access. People only see rolled-up content from sites they already have permission to read. Each site can join one hub at a time, and an organisation can have up to 2,000 hubs.
You need a hub when a business function spans several sites. Microsoft's own example is HR: separate sites for benefits, pay, recruitment, and training, joined by an HR hub that gives everyone one place to start. Finance, IT, Legal, and regional offices follow the same pattern. Small organisations with only a handful of sites may not need a hub at all.
Should you still use subsites?
No, not for new structure. Microsoft recommends hub sites instead. Subsites are still supported as a classic feature, but they cause two lasting problems:
- They fix your structure in the URL. A subsite's address includes its parent site, so a reorganisation breaks the links. With hubs, a site can move to a different hub without changing its address.
- Policies apply to the whole site collection. Many settings, including retention and classification, cover every subsite under the top site whether each one needs them or not.
The modern pattern is flat: a separate site for each unit of work, connected by hubs.
Where do Microsoft Teams channels fit?
Every team in Microsoft Teams has a team site behind it. Files in standard channels are stored in that site, in a folder for each channel. Private and shared channels are different: each one gets its own separate SharePoint site, so that only the channel's members can reach its files. If you plan sites and permissions in SharePoint, remember that a team with private channels is several sites, not one.
Moving from a file server: which site type for which share?
Most file servers map onto SharePoint like this:
| On the file server | In Microsoft 365 |
|---|---|
| A department share, such as Finance or HR | A team site for the department, often with a library for each main area |
| Project or client shares | A team site per project, or a library per project in one team site |
| A read-only share of policies, forms, and templates | A communication site |
| Personal home drives (often H:) | Each user's OneDrive, not SharePoint |
| A folder tree that tied departments together | A hub per department or function, joining its sites |
When you're deciding between many sites and many libraries, permissions are usually the deciding factor. Give a group its own site when it needs different owners or members. Use extra libraries within one site when the same people work across all of it. A single site can hold up to 2,000 lists and libraries. Our guide to replacing your file server with SharePoint covers the wider migration.
Whatever structure you choose, people don't have to learn it to find their files. Cloud Drive Mapper maps document libraries from team sites and communication sites, files in Teams channels (including private and shared channels), and each user's OneDrive to the drive letters they already know. Finance can still open S:\Finance, while the files live in SharePoint and keep its permissions, versioning, and co-authoring. Our guide to mapping SharePoint Online as a network drive compares the options.
Frequently asked questions
Can you convert a team site to a communication site?
Not for modern sites. There's no switch between the two types, so the usual route is to create a communication site and move the content you want to publish.
How many hub sites can you have?
Up to 2,000 per organisation. Most organisations need far fewer: one for each main business function or region is a common starting point.
Can a site belong to more than one hub?
No. A site can join only one hub at a time. You can still link to it from other hubs' navigation, and hubs can be associated with each other to widen search.
Does joining a hub change a site's permissions?
No. Each site keeps its own permissions. Content rolled up on the hub only appears to people who can already open it.
Is a hub site the same as a home site?
No. A home site is the landing page an organisation sets for its intranet. It can also be a hub, but it doesn't have to be.
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