SharePoint vs Google Drive for a small team

Disclosure first: SharePoint is what I build on, so read this knowing my bias. The Drive section below lists where Google is the easier pick, and I mean it.

Short answer: pick SharePoint if your team uses Microsoft 365, Teams and Excel; pick Google Drive if it uses Gmail, Docs and Sheets. Either stores files and shares them well; SharePoint also adds typed lists and permission control for trackers. The tool your people already open every day is the natural home, and switching only for a feature list is a weak reason.

Drive and SharePoint in plain terms

Google Drive is Google's file storage and sharing service. Files live in My Drive or in shared drives. Google's help page says shared drives are shared spaces where teams store, search and access files, and that files in a shared drive belong to the team, not to one person. They stay in place when a member leaves.

SharePoint is part of Microsoft 365. Microsoft says it helps organizations share and manage content, knowledge and applications. It has document libraries for files, team sites, pages, news and Lists. Lists are tracker tables, with columns such as choice, date and person. Microsoft says users need a license that includes SharePoint to use it.

What Google Drive does better

Be honest about this part. Google Drive is a strong tool for a small team.

Simplicity. Drive, Docs and Sheets share one look. A new person can share a file in a few clicks: pick the file, choose Share, enter a name.
Plain pricing page. Google lists its plans on one public page: https://workspace.google.com/pricing. As of October 22, 2026, that page lists pooled storage per user: 30 GB on Business Starter, 2 TB on Business Standard and 5 TB on Business Plus.
Files owned by the team. Shared drives keep files in place when someone leaves. In SharePoint you get the same result by keeping files in a team site library, which takes a little planning. Google says of shared drives: "Even if members leave, the files stay exactly where they are."
Easy search filters. Google's help page lists filter chips for type, people and date, and operators such as owner:, type: and before:.
No install. Everything works in the browser.

What SharePoint does better

Structured tracking. SharePoint Lists give you typed columns, views and a form for each record. Microsoft says lists support Text, Number, Choice, Currency, Date and Time, Lookup, Yes/No and Calculated columns. A spreadsheet has no record form.
Size. Microsoft says a list can have up to 30 million items and a library up to 30 million files and folders.
Large files. Microsoft says each uploaded file can be up to 250 GB.
Permissions at several levels. Microsoft documents site groups (Owners, Members, Visitors), shareable links, and unique permissions on individual items.
Fit with Microsoft 365. Teams, Outlook, Excel and Power Automate work with it. Microsoft says a team site is by default part of a Microsoft 365 group, which includes a mailbox and shared calendar.

The short version, row by row

Swipe sideways to see all columns.

Topic	Google Drive	SharePoint
File sharing	share a file or folder with up to 600 people by email; roles are Viewer, Commenter, Editor	share a file or folder by link or by name; levels include Can edit, Can review (Word only), Can view
Editing together	Docs, Sheets and Slides can be edited on up to 100 open tabs or devices at once	Word and Excel co-authoring when the file is stored in SharePoint Online and people use supported apps
Search	filter chips and operators such as owner: and type:	Microsoft says it includes Microsoft Search integration
Permissions	folder access passes down to the files inside it	site groups, links, and unique permissions on items
Tracking records	Sheets, with dropdown lists and protected ranges	Lists with typed columns, views and forms
Size limits	Sheets up to 20 million cells; other files up to 5 TB	list up to 30 million items; file up to 250 GB
Storage model	pooled storage per user, by plan	1 TB plus 10 GB per license purchased for business plans, with up to 25 TB per site

Google Drive: Google's help page says you can share a single file with up to 600 individual email addresses. Roles are Viewer, Commenter and Editor. Owners can stop editors from changing permissions, and can stop viewers from downloading. Access given on a folder passes down to the files inside it.

SharePoint: Microsoft says you can share one item or folder at a time. To share several files, put them in a folder and share the folder. Link types are Anyone, People in your organization, People with existing access and People you choose. Microsoft says to avoid Anyone links unless absolutely necessary. Your admin may limit some options.

Editing together

Google Drive: Google says Docs, Sheets, Slides and Vids files can be edited on up to 100 open tabs or devices at a time. Past that, only the owner and some editors can edit.

SharePoint: Microsoft says Excel co-authoring needs a workbook stored in OneDrive or a SharePoint Online library, a supported file format and a supported app. Changes show up for other people within seconds when AutoSave is on. If two people change the same cell, the last change saved generally wins. A person on an unsupported version can cause a "File is locked" message for everyone. If that is your problem today, see "Excel file locked by another user: what to do".

Search

Google Drive: filter chips for type, people and date, plus operators such as owner:, sharedwith:, type: and before:. You can combine chips with words.

SharePoint: Microsoft lists Microsoft Search integration, result sources and a search schema among SharePoint features. What a person can find depends on what they have permission to open.

Permissions

Pick the place for a file by who should see it, not by who made it. In both tools, give access to a group, not to many single people, so changes are easy to make later.

Google Drive: shared drives suit team files. Access on a folder passes down. You cannot give someone less access to a file than they have to its parent folder.

SharePoint: Microsoft says team sites are best managed through the Microsoft 365 group or Teams team. Communication sites use Owners, Members and Visitors groups. Giving someone access to a site gives them access to all site content. To share one file, use a shareable link. Microsoft documents a supported limit of 50,000 unique permissions on items in a list or library, with a recommended limit of 5,000. A view is not security. If some people must not see an item, use permissions.

Structured tracking: Lists vs Sheets

This is the biggest difference for a team that tracks work.

Google Sheets: a spreadsheet with cells, formulas and charts. Google says you can turn cells into a dropdown list, and a dropdown rejects values that are not on the list by default. You can protect a sheet or range so only chosen people can edit it. Google's page says protection should not be used as a security measure, because anyone with access can still copy or export the data. Google says a spreadsheet can hold up to 20 million cells.

SharePoint Lists: each row is one item with typed columns. Microsoft says views sort, filter and group the data without changing it, and personal views are visible only to you. Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: if you use a Choice column that you will sort, put number prefixes in the choices, such as 1 High, 2 Medium, 3 Low. Microsoft says filters with [Today] or [Me] need the classic view editor (Edit current view, then Filters). Exact names may differ on your screen.

For a longer look at lists against a spreadsheet, see "SharePoint list vs Excel for team tracking: which one fits?". To move off a spreadsheet, see "Replace a spreadsheet tracker with a SharePoint list".

Numbers to hold against your team

Google, from Google's help pages:

Share a file with up to 600 individual email addresses.
Edit a Docs, Sheets or Slides file on up to 100 open tabs or devices.
Sheets: up to 20 million cells or 100 MB. Docs: up to 1.02 million characters.
Other files: up to 5 TB.

Microsoft, from Microsoft's limits page:

A list: up to 30 million items. A library: up to 30 million files and folders.
File upload: up to 250 GB. File attached to a list item: 250 MB.
Storage for business plans: 1 TB plus 10 GB per license purchased. The maximum per site is 25 TB.
Business plans are designed for up to 300 users. Google says its Business plans can be purchased for a maximum of 300 users.
File path: no more than 400 characters.

Microsoft also says: if your tenant continues to operate above your storage limits, you are at risk of your environment being put into "read-only" mode, where users may be unable to add or modify content until storage use is reduced or more capacity is purchased.

One catch on the Microsoft side. When a list, library or folder passes 100,000 items, you can no longer break permission inheritance on it. Large lists also hit a view threshold. See "SharePoint list over 5,000 items: what breaks and the fix".

Paying for it

Prices change, so check them at the source. For Google, read the plans on Google's pricing page: https://workspace.google.com/pricing. For Microsoft, read Microsoft's own plan page or ask your admin. If your team already pays for a Microsoft 365 plan that includes SharePoint, there is no second file service to pay for. A fair way to compare: count the people who need access, then compare what each side asks for that group. Also see "What a SharePoint tracker costs to build" if you want the build cost of a tracker.

For a comparison of a stand-alone work tool, see "Monday.com vs SharePoint for a 50-person team".

Pick Google Drive if

Your team already lives in Gmail, Docs and Sheets.
You mostly share documents and spreadsheets, and track little.
Nobody on the team wants to learn SharePoint.
You want a simple start on one public pricing page.
Your tracking fits in a spreadsheet of a few hundred rows.

Pick SharePoint if

Your team already has Microsoft 365 licenses that include SharePoint. Check with your admin.
You track requests, approvals or assets and need typed columns, views and forms.
Your tracker may grow large, or you need different access for different items.
You use Teams, Outlook and Power Automate every day.
You want files, pages and trackers in one place.

A one-week test

List what you use today. Count the people who open Gmail and the people who open Outlook.
Write down the three things your team does most with files. Sharing, editing together, or tracking?
Check the limits above against your real numbers, such as rows, file sizes and people.
Test one real process in the tool you lean toward, with 3 people, for one week.
Keep the tool your team opens without being asked.

What to avoid

Do not run files in both tools at once. People will not know which copy is current.
Do not pick by a feature list alone. Pick by where your people already work.
Do not use a spreadsheet as a database for work that several people update every day.
Do not treat a view or a protected range as security. Use permissions when data must stay private.
Do not give a public link to a sensitive file. Use named people.
Do not copy a spreadsheet column for column into a list. Decide the few columns you need.
Do not plan around a limit you read last year. Open the vendor limits page on the day you decide.

When to get help

You can build all of this yourself in Microsoft 365. If you would rather have it built and tested for your team, I do that. A tracker like this is a fixed price: $5,000 for one, built in 2 weeks. See "What a SharePoint tracker costs to build". Bring one example of the problem to a free call.

Tell me what's still manual

I am Al Davies. I run 250 High Street LLC and build SharePoint trackers and Power Automate flows for operations teams. I work remotely. The first call is free, and I will not try to sell you anything.

See trackers I built: Tools I built

FAQ

Is SharePoint better than Google Drive?

Neither wins for every team. Google Drive is simpler for teams already in Google apps. SharePoint is stronger for tracking records and for teams in Microsoft 365. The tool your people already use is the natural pick.

How does SharePoint compare with a Google shared drive?

Google says shared drive files belong to the team and stay in place when members leave. In SharePoint, keep team files in a team site library; Microsoft says a team site is by default part of a Microsoft 365 group.

Where do OneDrive and Google Drive fit in?

Microsoft says files you send in a Teams chat are stored in your OneDrive for Business, and files you upload to a channel are stored in your team's SharePoint folder. Google Drive has My Drive for your own files and shared drives for team files.

Are SharePoint and Google Drive the same thing?

No. Both store and share files. SharePoint also has Lists with typed columns, views and forms; Google Drive is built around Docs, Sheets and Slides. Microsoft says SharePoint users need a license that includes SharePoint.

How much can each one hold?

Google says Sheets can hold up to 20 million cells and other files up to 5 TB. Microsoft says a list can hold up to 30 million items, a file can be up to 250 GB, and a site can hold up to 25 TB.

Can two people edit the same file at once?

In both. Google says Docs, Sheets and Slides can be edited on up to 100 open tabs or devices. Microsoft says Excel co-authoring needs the file in OneDrive or SharePoint Online and a supported app.

Is Google Drive cheaper than SharePoint?

It depends on what you already pay for. If your Microsoft 365 plan already includes SharePoint, there is no second file service to buy. Compare each vendor's own pricing page for the people who need access.

Can we use both?

Yes, but it costs attention. People must know which tool holds which files. If you do use both, name one as the home for each type of file and write it down.