If you have sat through a Microsoft demo lately, you will have heard three names used almost as if they meant the same thing: Dynamics 365, Power Platform and SharePoint. They are not rivals. They do three different jobs, and they are designed to work together.
Here is the short answer.
- Dynamics 365 is a family of ready-made business applications for running sales, service, finance and operations.
- Power Platform is a set of tools for building your own apps, automating approvals and reporting on your data.
- SharePoint is where your documents live. It is part of Microsoft 365.
The rest of this post explains each one, how they connect, and which one to look at first.
What Dynamics 365 is
Dynamics 365 is Microsoft’s family of business applications. Each one covers an area of the business and comes with the processes already built. Business Central is the ERP for small and mid-size firms. ERP stands for enterprise resource planning: one system for finance, sales, purchasing and stock. Dynamics 365 Sales is a CRM, or customer relationship management system, for tracking contacts, leads and deals. Customer Service handles support cases. Finance and Supply Chain Management are built for larger and more complex organisations.
You buy the applications you need, and each is licensed per user. The value is that the design work is done. A sales order, a purchase invoice or a support case already works the way most businesses expect, and Microsoft keeps it up to date.
What Power Platform is
Power Platform is Microsoft’s low-code toolkit. Low-code means you build with screens, drag-and-drop and spreadsheet-style formulas instead of writing software from scratch. Power Apps builds apps, such as a site inspection form or an equipment booking tool. Power Automate builds flows, which are automated steps such as sending a request for approval and recording the answer. Power BI turns data into reports and dashboards. Copilot Studio builds AI agents that answer questions or carry out tasks, and Power Pages builds websites for customers and partners.
Underneath sits Dataverse, Microsoft’s database for Power Platform. It stores data in tables and controls who can see and change each record.
Power Platform vs Dynamics 365: how they fit together
This is where the names blur. Several Dynamics 365 applications, including Sales, Customer Service and Field Service, are built on Power Platform and keep their data in Dataverse. In other words, Dynamics 365 Sales is a ready-made application built from the same parts you would use to build your own. Microsoft’s licensing reflects this. Qualifying Dynamics 365 licences include rights to use Power Apps and Power Automate to extend the licensed application, within that application (Microsoft Learn’s licensing overview for Power Platform).
Business Central works a little differently. It has its own database, but it connects to Power Platform, so you can build an app over Business Central data or start a flow when something happens in it.
So the real question behind “Dynamics 365 vs Power Apps” is whether to buy or build. Buy a Dynamics 365 application when the process is common to most businesses, such as accounting, a sales pipeline or customer service. Build with Power Apps when the process is particular to you and no product fits, such as a quality check on your own production line. You can do both: Dynamics 365 for the core, and Power Apps for the gaps around it.
Whatever you build, you also own. Someone has to keep it working as the business changes.
Power Platform vs SharePoint
SharePoint is part of Microsoft 365. It holds document libraries, which are folders of files with version history and permissions. It also runs team sites, intranet pages and lists, which are simple tables of information.
The difference is simple. SharePoint stores and shares information. Power Platform acts on it. A first app can use a SharePoint list as its data source, through a connector, which is a ready-made link between Power Platform and another service. SharePoint’s connector is a standard one, and Microsoft 365 business plans include limited Power Apps and Power Automate rights for Microsoft 365 data through standard connectors (Microsoft Learn). When an app outgrows a list, for example because it needs many related tables or tighter security, Dataverse is the better home. Dataverse needs premium licences, which are paid for separately.
SharePoint also works with Dynamics 365. Microsoft’s standard document management lets Dynamics 365 applications such as Sales and Customer Service keep each record’s documents in SharePoint. The folder layout is Microsoft’s, though, not yours. Folder trees are built only under accounts or contacts, and other records get one flat folder each.
Which one do you need first?
Start from the problem, not the product. If your finance, sales or stock still runs on spreadsheets and an entry-level accounting package, look first at a Dynamics 365 application, usually Business Central. If your core systems are fine but work falls through the gaps between them, such as approvals by email or forms on paper, start with Power Apps and Power Automate. If documents are scattered across shared drives and inboxes, start with SharePoint, which your Microsoft 365 plan may already include.
In practice the three work best together. Dynamics 365 runs the business. Power Platform fills the gaps and automates the steps between people. SharePoint keeps the documents in order.
Where our products fit
Two of our own products sit where these meet. Signpost for Power Platform sends each approval to the right approver for its department, with escalation and fallback approvers, using routes kept in a table in your own Dataverse. Folio for Power Platform builds secured SharePoint folders to your own structure, with your Power Platform tables nested inside one another.