SharePoint vs SharePoint Server
SharePoint is a platform for web applications developed by Microsoft. It is comprised of several free and commercial products, which provide support for hosting and managing whole host of web applications. Microsoft SharePoint Server is one of the commercial products belonging to the Microsoft SharePoint family of products.
SharePoint
SharePoint is a platform for web applications developed by Microsoft. Microsoft SharePoint can be used by small or large organizations. It is intended to support different types of enterprise website needs. It replaces multiple web applications by acting as a centralized web solution. Microsoft SharePoint is known for document management and web content management. Microsoft SharePoint is suitable for managing various kinds of environments including intranets, extranets, portals, website, content and file management systems, online collaboration environments, social networking spaces and BI (Business Intelligence) frameworks. Microsoft SharePoint provides high scalability through its server farms, which gives the capability of supporting multiple organizations. Microsoft SharePoint is free, but certain enterprise editions with additional capabilities are commercial products. Microsoft SharePoint offers different methods of customization and configurations such as file-storing and page-editing as well as installing third party customizations like widgets called web parts. Microsoft SharePoint is made up of several products, which are all based on the SharePoint Foundation platform. SharePoint Foundation platform is the free SharePoint product with the entire core functionality on which all other commercial products are built upon. Other products are Microsoft SharePoint Server and Microsoft SharePoint Enterprise edition. Microsoft SharePoint Server is the commercial extension to the SharePoint Foundation and Microsoft SharePoint Enterprise is the commercial extension to the SharePoint Server.
SharePoint Server
As mentioned above, Microsoft SharePoint Server is one of the commercial products belonging to the Microsoft SharePoint family of products. Microsoft SharePoint Server is the commercial extension to the SharePoint Foundation and gains all its core functionality from the SharePoint Foundation platform. Its latest version is Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. Microsoft IIS web server is needed for the SharePoint Server to work. SharePoint Server can host range of web applications varying from collaboration, database management, online social networks to file sharing and web publishing applications. As mentioned earlier, Microsoft SharePoint Server can manage different types of environments including intranets, extranets, portals, website, content and file management systems, online collaboration environments, social networking spaces, wikis, blogs and search tools. External database like Microsoft SQL Server is required by Microsoft SharePoint Server. Microsoft SharePoint Server extends the SharePoint Foundation by adding additional features like tagging features for social content, targeting audiences, routing, auditing, search with advanced capabilities and tools for handling rich media.
Difference between SharePoint and SharePoint Server
Microsoft SharePoint is a web application platform. Microsoft SharePoint offers a bundle of products intended for various tasks in managing web applications. And Microsoft SharePoint server is one of the products of Microsoft SharePoint. Microsoft SharePoint server is a commercial product and is the extension for the
Microsoft SharePoint Foundation, which is the free product in the SharePoint family of products. Microsoft SharePoint Server has the additional features like tagging features for social content, targeting audiences, routing, auditing, search with advanced capabilities and tools for handling rich media.