Microsoft Viva vs. SharePoint Online vs. Powell Intranet: Why Viva Isn’t Your Intranet

At Synergy, we’ve noticed a growing trend: more organizations are asking whether they can skip customizing SharePoint or investing in a platform like Powell and simply use Microsoft Viva as their intranet.

It’s an understandable question. Microsoft has invested heavily in promoting Viva, positioning it as an important part of the modern digital workplace. The way it’s marketed can easily lead someone to assume it’s a full intranet replacement. But here’s the reality: Microsoft Viva is not an intranet, and treating it as one often results in frustration, higher licensing costs, and unmet expectations.

Understanding the differences between these platforms — and how they can work together — is key to creating a digital workplace that truly supports your employees.

Understanding What Microsoft Viva Actually Is

Viva is an employee experience suite made up of a set of separate applications. Each module serves a unique purpose, and while there is some integration between them, they are not designed to form a single, unified intranet environment.

Its core modules include:

• Viva Learning, which delivers training content from both internal and external sources, helping employees access skill-building resources directly within Microsoft Teams.

• Viva Connections, which surfaces SharePoint content inside Teams, providing a way for employees to see intranet updates without leaving the chat and meeting interface.

• Viva Insights, which offers analytics that help employees and managers understand work patterns, with the goal of improving productivity and wellbeing.

• Viva Engage, which provides community engagement spaces through Yammer integration.

It’s important to note that Viva once included Viva Topics, an AI-powered knowledge curation tool, but this was retired in February 2025 with no direct replacement. That retirement is telling — Viva modules can appear, change, or disappear entirely, and their roadmaps don’t always align. Many of these modules also require premium licensing, with costs ranging from $2–$12 USD per user/month.

In short, Viva brings valuable enhancements to the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, but it isn’t — and was never meant to be — a complete, governed intranet platform.

Debunking Viva Myths

Because Microsoft positions Viva as part of its modern workplace vision, it’s easy to assume it can do more than it actually does. Addressing these misconceptions early helps set the right expectations.

Myth	Reality
"Viva is Microsoft’s intranet"	It’s an employee experience suite — not a governed intranet platform.
"Viva replaces SharePoint"	Viva sits on top of SharePoint; you still need SharePoint (or another intranet platform).
"Viva works as one connected solution"	It’s a bundle of loosely linked modules with separate licensing and roadmaps.
"Viva features are free with M365"	Many require premium licenses costing $2–$12 USD/user/month.
"Viva covers branding, navigation, governance, personalization"	These must be built in SharePoint or delivered by solutions like Powell.

Takeaway:

Viva is best used to enhance your intranet, not replace it. It can provide targeted capabilities, but the foundation must come from a platform designed for intranet delivery.

Why Viva Alone Falls Short

An intranet is more than a collection of tools or apps. It’s the central hub for communication, collaboration, and resources within your organization — a place where employees can confidently go to find exactly what they need without having to search across multiple systems.

A well-designed intranet should:

• Provide a structured, consistent space for company news, announcements, and updates.

• Offer intuitive navigation that leads employees to the tools, forms, and resources they need most.

• Deliver personalized content that reflects an employee’s role, department, and location.

• Present a cohesive, fully branded experience that reinforces company culture and identity.

Viva can support some of these outcomes: for example, Viva Connections can display SharePoint pages in Teams. However, it cannot create them from scratch. Without a true intranet platform in place, there’s no unified site framework, no central governance model, and no robust branding capabilities to ensure employees experience a consistent interface across the digital workplace.

SharePoint Online: A Strong but Basic Foundation

If Viva isn’t the intranet, what is? For most Microsoft 365 customers, SharePoint Online is the logical starting point. It’s a mature, powerful platform that serves as the baseline for creating an intranet.

Out of the box, SharePoint includes:

• News and page publishing capabilities.

• Document libraries with detailed permissions.

• Native web parts for basic content display.

• Basic branding options and multilingual page support.

However, while SharePoint provides the essential building blocks, many organizations find that its default experience can feel bare-bones. Navigation may be functional but not intuitive, branding is often limited to color and logo changes, and governance requires manual effort without additional tools. This means the “vanilla” version of SharePoint can serve as a framework, but reaching a polished, engaging, and well-governed intranet experience often requires significant configuration or third-party enhancements.

Powell Intranet: SharePoint, Elevated

This is where Powell Intranet Foundation comes in. Built on SharePoint Online, Powell adds the capabilities and refinements that transform a basic intranet into a polished, governed, and engaging hub for employees.

Key enhancements include ready-to-use site and page templates that make intranet builds faster and more consistent, 70+ custom web parts for richer functionality, and an advanced branding and navigation engine to create a unified experience across all sites. Personalization options allow content to be targeted by role, department, or location, ensuring employees see the most relevant information every time they log in.

Other standout features include dynamic live translation for multilingual teams, the Powell Manager tool for governance and lifecycle control, and a dedicated mobile app with offline mode — ideal for field teams or employees working in low-connectivity environments.

The value isn’t just in features. Powell often comes out ahead on cost compared to Viva’s premium licensing. Many deployments run around $2.05 USD per user/month, while Viva’s premium features can range from anywhere between $2–$12 USD per user/month.

Comparing the Options

Each of these platforms has its place in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, but their roles are very different. Understanding what they do best is key to making the right investment.

Category	Microsoft Viva	SharePoint Online	Powell Intranet Foundation
Primary Role	Employee experience modules	Baseline intranet framework	Fully featured, governed intranet
Page Templates	None	Limited	Extensive, customizable
Web Parts / Widgets	SharePoint native only	Native only	70+ custom Powell web parts
Branding & Navigation	Native dashboard	Limited	Full global nav & branding engine
Governance Tools	M365 Compliance Center	Manual/limited	Powell Manager lifecycle control

What this shows is that Viva acts as an enhancement layer, SharePoint provides the core framework, and Powell transforms that framework into a complete, governed, and personalized intranet environment.

Our Perspective

At Synergy, we’ve yet to see an organization successfully use Viva as its sole intranet. The strongest digital workplaces combine these tools strategically: SharePoint as the foundation, Powell as the enhancement layer, and select Viva modules for targeted capabilities.

When each tool is used for its intended purpose, the result is a cohesive, well-governed, and engaging environment that supports employees no matter where they work. Viva adds value. SharePoint provides structure. Powell delivers the polish and governance that bring it all together.

Ready to Build the Right Intranet for Your Organization?

If you’re unsure how Viva, SharePoint, and Powell could fit together for your workplace, our team can help you make sense of the options and design an intranet that’s future-ready. Whether you’re starting from scratch or improving an existing platform, we’ll work with you to create a central hub that connects your people, streamlines collaboration, and reflects your brand.

Contact us today to explore how Synergy can help you design and implement an intranet that truly works for your hybrid workplace.