Hi friends, this article is about SharePoint installation. Different types of SharePoint installation and differences between them. we will also see the limitations of each installation type. The main objective of this article is to become familiar with the difference between SharePoint Farm and Standalone installation.

Types of SharePoint Installation

There are two types of SharePoint installation as 'Standalone' and 'Farm' installation. The standalone installation will install SQL Express on your machine and use it to provide SharePoint services. The farm will install SharePoint on the network or on an existing SQL server.

Difference between Farm & Standalone Installation


Farm Installation



Standalone Installation


1)      It allows you to add servers so as to keep from running out of resources.

 		1)      No additional servers can be added and hence it has a limitation of the database.

 
2)      Offer greater scalability and performance. Multiple servers like 2008 R2 Express having 10GB of the database can be added.

 		2)      Less scalability and performance as compare to Farm installation because only one SQL Server having a limit of 4GB of the database can be installed.

 
3)      You can join other machines for this installation.

 		3)      No other SP machine can join this installation.

 
4)      You have more control over server configuration.

 		4)       All server configuration will be done automatically using standard settings and local service accounts.

 

Limitations of Standalone Installation:

  1. The standalone installation has a SQL database limit of 4GB.
  2. As standalone is configured in one server only so no Domain accounts can be used. It runs under local accounts like Network Service account therefore we can not create user profile services.
  3. We can not backup the data and restore it from standalone installation to multiple servers farm and vice and versa.
If you like this article, please share it with your friends and like or facebook page for future updates. Subscribe to our newsletter to get notifications about our updates via email. If you have any queries, feel free to ask in the comments section below. Have a nice day!