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Hello,
As far as I know the key difference between CDS and SP List will be as follows:
Apart from above, is there any further difference through which we can conclude what to use when ? Why should we use CDS over SP List?
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Thanks and Regards,
@Uttam ,
Same effect - you need the number of licences to equal the number of users the app is shared with - so if 500 users need to use the app, then you have 200 x $40 x 12 months = $240,000 US per year - currently about $315k AUD here.
A good reason we stick to SharePoint with a couple of per-user Flow licences - it does the job quite adequately.
@JohnP wrote:
@NewcombR wrote:Some users might only need the $10 per month cost because they are only using 1 or 2 apps; that is the least value and in that scenario it probably would be better to use SPO.
The better value is the user with the $40 per app plan because now the user can use unlimited apps with premium connectors.
Only $10 per user per month? With 100s or 1000s of potential users that quickly adds up. If you have more than one app you quickly need the $40 license. Ouch! I love how some users here belittle the licensing costs. The minority here works at a Fortune 500 company.
As someone mentioned here there should be a usage based license where you pay for the actual usage/traffic like most of Azure works. Taxing the Azure SQL connector is beyond ridiculous since the customer already pays for the Azure usage.
My understanding is - with per app plan - you don't need the end users to have the license, the per app license is attached to the environment in which app lives and allows end users to access the app.
About Power Apps per app plans
Excerpt from above page:
Important
Although, Power Apps per app plans appear in the Microsoft 365 admin center, you shouldn't attempt to assign them to users there. Power Apps per app plans must be allocated to an environment (and not to users) by an admin in the Power Platform admin center. After per app plans are allocated to an environment, they are assigned when apps are shared with users in the environment.
Hi @mogulman ,
We run a substantial facility on SharePoint (100 plus lists with up to 10,000 items, Libraries with more than 30,000 files in some, 50 plus apps both field and office and over 100 users).
All has worked well for a couple of years as long as you manage the data structure as a Power Apps backend.
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@NewcombR wrote:Some users might only need the $10 per month cost because they are only using 1 or 2 apps; that is the least value and in that scenario it probably would be better to use SPO.
The better value is the user with the $40 per app plan because now the user can use unlimited apps with premium connectors.
Only $10 per user per month? With 100s or 1000s of potential users that quickly adds up. If you have more than one app you quickly need the $40 license. Ouch! I love how some users here belittle the licensing costs. The minority here works at a Fortune 500 company.
As someone mentioned here there should be a usage based license where you pay for the actual usage/traffic like most of Azure works. Taxing the Azure SQL connector is beyond ridiculous since the customer already pays for the Azure usage.
I am considering using Sharepoint lists. I currently have a grandfathered Azure SQL DB app. The way I think about it is do the limitations justify the cost of using a premium connector. I am in a small organization (<10) but we have many users who barely use the app. I just can't justify the cost. If they come out with a usage based model, which they should, I'll relook at a premium connector. When I started I compared CDS and Azure SQL DB. For me the hands down winner was Azure SQL. It has incredible support. It is supported by SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). You can connect to it from any programming language including Excel VBA. I also really like Azure Functions. Azure SQL works great with Azure Functions. If I move to Sharepoint lists I plan to write an Azure function that migrates the data to Azure SQL daily. For what I need a basic plan is more than enough ($5/month). I'll write reports and other capabilities based on Azure SQL. For example I currently have a complex query that creates a JSON file that I FTP to a website. Portals also interest me. There is CDS SDK so I believe I can purchase 1 premium license and migrate data daily to CDS and create a portal. Still not sure I can justify the cost of portals.
CDS is a superior platform for the apps with respect to data security.
Role-based security, Record-based security and Field-Level security. All of those can be associated with Azure AD security groups, so you only need to define security once and then you can use existing processes for managing AD group membership. You have powerful Audit options that can be as narrow or wide as you define.
The initial cost up front might be bothersome for some folks. However, once you have. CDS license the value begins to scale as you add more and more solutions onto the environment.
Some users might only need the $10 per month cost because they are only using 1 or 2 apps; that is the least value and in that scenario it probably would be better to use SPO.
The better value is the user with the $40 per app plan because now the user can use unlimited apps with premium connectors.
I agree with @JohnP that for many people, the cost of licensing is a prohibitive factor. This would start at $10/user/month for a per app plan.
On the topic of backup/restore, another couple of CDS features I can think of are:
As someone mentioned SharePoint lists have lookup columns and for all practical purposes it works as a normal database. SharePoint is also "free" and the technical/learning/implementation curve is lower than CDS.
If you plan to use your apps on a larger scale, forget CDS or any other premium connectors unless your company has unlimited money. With SharePoint you can have thousands of users without thinking about cost. My biggest pain with SharePoint is easy, built-in backup/restore functionality, but there are 3rd party tools for that.
Also look at this blog with regards to flow CDS SharePoint
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Hi @dave8
The first point I would make is that with SharePoint, we can create relationships by creating SharePoint lookup columns.
Some of the reasons I can think of as to why we should use CDS over SharePoint include:
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