SharePoint alternatives for marketing teams: evaluation scorecard
This page is an evaluation scorecard for a marketing team that stores images, video and design files in SharePoint and is looking at alternatives. It is free and complete on this page, with no sign-up form. The SharePoint column is already filled in from Microsoft's documentation. Set a weight on each row and fill the Alternative column here by running the test with your own files. Your answers are saved in this browser, the score is calculated as you go, and the tables export as CSV, so you can add one column per extra alternative in a spreadsheet.
The scorecard does not assume SharePoint has to go. For documents and for a small internal image library, it is often the right tool, and the first table helps you check that before you evaluate anything.
First: do you need an alternative?
| Situation | SharePoint is usually enough | Look at alternatives |
|---|---|---|
| Media files in the library | Under 5,000 | Above 20,000, or above 5,000 with regular searching |
| File types | JPEG, PNG, PDF, Office | PSD, AI, INDD, RAW, video at volume |
| Who needs the files | Employees with Microsoft 365 accounts | Agencies, resellers, press, freelancers, the public |
| Rights and expiry | Company-owned photos with no licences | Stock, agency shoots, talent releases, embargoes |
| Sizes and formats | People download originals and resize them | The same asset is needed in several sizes regularly |
| Search | People know the file name or the folder | People know what the picture shows, not what it is called |
| Owner | IT has time to design libraries, views and flows | Marketing needs to run the system day to day |
If most of your answers are in the middle column, stay with SharePoint. The reasoning and the Microsoft sources behind each threshold are in Can SharePoint work as a DAM?.
The kinds of alternative
"SharePoint alternative" covers four different kinds of product. Decide which kind you are evaluating before comparing vendors, because products of different kinds do not answer the same need.
| Kind | Examples | What it replaces | What it does not do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud file storage | Google Drive, Dropbox, Box | Folders, sync and sharing | Media metadata, rights, renditions. The limits are similar in nature to SharePoint's: see Can Google Drive or Dropbox replace a DAM? |
| Digital asset management (DAM) system | Products sold as DAM software, Freedam among them | The media library: search, previews, metadata, rights, renditions, external sharing | Document management, records retention, the intranet |
| Brand guidelines or brand portal platform | Products sold for online brand guidelines | The brand hub: guidelines and approved brand files | A full working library for all marketing media, in some products |
| SharePoint, configured as a media library | Content types, managed metadata, SharePoint Premium tagging, Power Automate | Nothing: you keep the platform and build on it | Whatever the limits in the scorecard below rule out |
Several DAM vendors publish their own comparison with SharePoint, for example Canto, Frontify and Brandfolder. Read them as vendor material, as you should read ours, and use the tests below to check the claims.
A DAM usually runs next to SharePoint and does not replace it. Documents, records and the intranet stay where they are, and approved media moves. How to use SharePoint and a DAM together describes the split.
The scorecard
For each row: set a weight (3 = we cannot work without it, 2 = important, 1 = useful), run the test on each product, and record Pass, Partial or Fail. The SharePoint column states what Microsoft documents; confirm it in your own tenant, because Microsoft changes limits and features.
Finding assets
| Criterion | Test with your own files | SharePoint, as documented | Weight (1 to 3) | Alternative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Find an image by what it shows | Search for the subject of a photo whose file name is a camera number | Search is a text index of file names, columns and some embedded properties. AI image tags are available with SharePoint Premium image tagging | ||
| 2. Find visually similar images | Start from one image and ask for look-alikes | Not available | ||
| 3. Find a spoken phrase in a video | Search for a sentence said in a video | Transcripts generated by Stream are searchable. Frame content is not | ||
| 4. Keep embedded keywords and captions | Upload a photo with IPTC keywords from Lightroom and search for one | Some EXIF fields are read. IPTC keywords, captions and XMP fields are not imported | ||
| 5. Tag the existing library, not only new uploads | Enable tagging and check a file uploaded last year | Image tagging processes newly uploaded images only | ||
| 6. Browse a large library without broken views | Open a view of more than 5,000 items | Views over 5,000 items need indexed columns or they fail to render |
Working with media files
| Criterion | Test with your own files | SharePoint, as documented | Weight (1 to 3) | Alternative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7. Preview design files without downloading | Upload a PSD, an AI and an INDD file | No preview for PSD, AI, INDD, EPS or most RAW formats | ||
| 8. Download in another size or format | Ask for a web JPEG and a print file from one original | No rendition system. The original is stored and served | ||
| 9. Review video in the browser | Play a video and jump to a point in it | Playback through Stream. No clip trimming | ||
| 10. Keep versions without filling storage | Upload five versions of a 2 GB video and check the storage used | Each version counts against the tenant storage pool | ||
| 11. Detect duplicates | Upload the same image twice, once resized | Not covered by the Microsoft pages cited below. Check in your tenant |
Rights and approval
| Criterion | Test with your own files | SharePoint, as documented | Weight (1 to 3) | Alternative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12. Record usage rights and licence expiry on the asset | Set a licence end date on a stock image | No media rights fields. Possible with custom columns | ||
| 13. Block downloads after expiry | Set the expiry in the past and try to download | Not built in. Possible with a Power Automate flow you maintain | ||
| 14. Hold an asset until a release date | Set a release date for tomorrow and check as a normal user | Not built in | ||
| 15. Approve before publishing | Send an asset for approval and check who can see it meanwhile | Approval is available through library settings and Power Automate |
Sharing outside the company
| Criterion | Test with your own files | SharePoint, as documented | Weight (1 to 3) | Alternative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16. Send a link with a password and an expiry date | Create one and open it after expiry | Anyone links support expiry and a password, when the tenant allows them | ||
| 17. Give partners a branded page of approved assets | Open the page signed out, on a phone | Guests see the SharePoint library interface. No branded portal | ||
| 18. Watermark what external people download | Download as an external recipient | Not available | ||
| 19. See what an external person downloaded | Find the record for one link | The audit log records file access. Check in your tenant whether it answers the question per link | ||
| 20. Offer fixed download sizes to partners | Download as a partner | Not available. See row 8 |
Running it
| Criterion | Test or question | SharePoint, as documented | Weight (1 to 3) | Alternative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21. Sign in with Microsoft accounts | Sign in with a Microsoft 365 account on the plan you would buy | Native | ||
| 22. Reach the assets from Teams, Office and Copilot | Insert an approved image into a PowerPoint slide | Native for files stored in SharePoint | ||
| 23. Keep IT's governance: retention, audit, legal hold | Ask IT which controls they need on media | Retention labels, sensitivity labels, eDiscovery, legal hold and a full audit log | ||
| 24. Let marketing change fields and vocabularies without IT | Ask a marketing colleague to add a field and a term | Needs library and term store permissions, usually held by IT |
The sources for the SharePoint column are Microsoft's SharePoint limits page and its image tagging overview. Rows 21 to 23 are SharePoint's strengths. Give them an honest weight: an alternative that fails row 23 will not pass an IT review.
Scoring
- Pass = 2, Partial = 1, Fail = 0. Multiply each result by the row's weight.
- Add the rows per product and divide by the maximum possible score.
- Score SharePoint the same way, using what you observed in your tenant. It is one of the candidates.
- A Fail on a row with weight 3 removes a product, whatever its total.
| Product | Weight-3 rows failed | Score | Maximum | Percentage | Three-year cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SharePoint, as it is today | |||||
| SharePoint, configured as a media library | |||||
| Alternative A | |||||
| Alternative B |
The second row matters. Configuring SharePoint costs build and maintenance hours, and an alternative should be compared with that cost, not with zero.
Cost lines to compare
| Cost line | SharePoint | Alternative |
|---|---|---|
| Licences | Already paid through Microsoft 365, per user | Per plan, per user or per administrator |
| Storage | 1 TB per organisation plus 10 GB per licence, shared with every department. Extra storage at $0.20 per GB per month | Included amount and overage price per plan |
| AI tagging | SharePoint Premium, pay as you go through an Azure subscription | Included or metered per plan |
| Build and maintenance | Hours to design libraries, columns, views and flows, and to keep them working | Setup and migration |
| External users | Guests need no Microsoft 365 licence. Each one has to be invited and has to sign in | Ask how viewers, guests and link recipients are counted |
| Time spent searching | Measure it before and after | Measure it before and after |
Is SharePoint cheaper than a DAM? has the worked model with three scenarios.
What stays in SharePoint whichever product you pick
| Content | Where it belongs |
|---|---|
| Contracts, reports, spreadsheets, meeting notes | SharePoint |
| Anything under retention or legal hold | SharePoint |
| The intranet and team sites | SharePoint |
| Meeting recordings | Stream on SharePoint |
| Working files during production | Wherever the creative team works today |
| Approved photography, video, logos, templates, campaign finals | The media library |
| Files that agencies, resellers or press download | The media library, through a portal or links |
If the scorecard leads to a move, How to move from SharePoint to a DAM covers the inventory, the mapping and the timeline.
Where Freedam stands on this scorecard
We make Freedam, a DAM system, so it is one of the candidates for the "Alternative" columns. Test it like the others. What our documentation states for the rows above:
- Rows 1 to 5. Search by meaning and by visual similarity, video transcripts, and AI tagging and OCR on upload.
- Rows 12 to 20. Rights policies with expiry, access rules that set visibility, preview type and download resolutions per audience, share links that are open, limited to listed addresses or protected by a password, with an expiry date, watermarks on previews and downloads, and a public portal for visitors without an account.
- Rows 21 and 22. Sign-in with Microsoft accounts, and a connector that sends chosen images to Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Search.
Row 23 is where a DAM has to answer IT's questions; ours are on the security page. The SharePoint alternative page shows the product side, and the demo is a working library you can run the tests against.