What is the difference between a SharePoint enhancement tool and a complete intranet product?

SharePoint enhancement tools (Athena, ShortPoint) are webpart and design-system layers that add capability on top of the customer's existing SharePoint Online. The intranet remains the customer's SharePoint: they choose the pages, the structure, and the navigation, with premium components and themes provided by the enhancement vendor. Complete intranet products (Powell Software, LiveTiles Hub, Valo Intranet, intranet.ai) are SaaS platforms that either replace or wrap SharePoint with a vendor-controlled intranet layer. The intranet is the vendor's product, deployed to the customer, with structures and patterns largely defined by the vendor. Both approaches are valid; they suit different organisations.

Is Athena an alternative to Powell Software?

Athena and Powell Software solve overlapping problems with different architectures. Powell Software is a complete intranet product: a SaaS platform that provides a packaged intranet experience, with templates, structures, and an integrated administration layer. Athena is a SharePoint enhancement tool: it adds 19 premium webparts and a design system to the customer's existing SharePoint, leaving overall site architecture in the customer's control. For organisations that want a packaged, vendor-defined intranet experience with minimal architectural decisions, Powell is a fit. For organisations that prefer to design their own intranet using premium components, Athena is a fit. They are not direct one-to-one alternatives, and the right choice depends on which architectural model suits the buyer.

Is Athena an alternative to LiveTiles?

Same answer as Powell: LiveTiles is a complete intranet product; Athena is a SharePoint enhancement tool. Different architectures. The right choice depends on whether the buyer wants a vendor-defined intranet experience (LiveTiles, Powell) or a self-designed SharePoint intranet enhanced with premium components (Athena, ShortPoint).

What happened to Valo Intranet?

Valo Intranet reached end-of-life in July 2025. Existing Valo customers face a decision: switch to another complete intranet product (Powell, LiveTiles, intranet.ai), build on SharePoint with an enhancement tool (Athena, ShortPoint), or commission a bespoke build. Each path has trade-offs. Athena positions itself for Valo customers who don't want to find themselves in the same situation again in five years: building on the customer's own SharePoint means the intranet isn't dependent on any single vendor's continued existence.

Which approach is cheaper?

It depends on organisation size and pricing model. Complete intranet products like Powell and LiveTiles typically use per-user pricing: cost scales with headcount. Enhancement tools like Athena typically use per-tenant pricing: flat cost regardless of user count. For organisations above approximately 100 users, per-tenant pricing tends to be materially cheaper. For very small organisations (under 25 users), per-user pricing on a complete intranet may be similar to or cheaper than per-tenant pricing on an enhancement tool. Beyond direct subscription costs, total cost of ownership also depends on data migration, training, vendor management, and renewal exposure.

Which approach gives me more control?

SharePoint enhancement tools give the customer more architectural control because the intranet is the customer's SharePoint. Site structure, navigation, page layouts, and content patterns are designed by the customer using the enhancement vendor's components. Complete intranet products provide a packaged experience: the customer customises within the vendor's framework, but the underlying architecture is vendor-defined. Whether more control is desirable depends on whether the customer has the time, expertise, or appetite to design their own intranet. Some organisations find vendor-defined experiences faster to roll out; others find them constraining over time.

What happens if my intranet vendor goes out of business?

This is one of the strongest arguments for the enhancement approach. With a SharePoint enhancement tool, the underlying intranet is on the customer's SharePoint: if the enhancement vendor disappears, the customer's pages, content, structure, and navigation remain in their own M365 tenant. They lose the premium webparts and theming but the intranet continues to function. With a complete intranet product, the dependency on the vendor is structural. If the vendor goes EOL or out of business, the intranet itself may stop working. Valo Intranet's July 2025 EOL is the recent worked example of this risk.

How do I decide between the two approaches?

A practical decision framework: Choose a complete intranet product if you want a packaged experience with minimal design decisions, you don't have SharePoint expertise on staff, your org is comfortable with vendor-defined patterns, and per-user pricing fits your headcount profile. Choose a SharePoint enhancement tool if you want to keep control of your intranet structure, you have or want to develop in-house SharePoint capability, you value premium per-component design with admin-led customisation, and you prefer per-tenant pricing or want to minimise long-term vendor lock-in risk.

Category positioning · Last reviewed May 2026

SharePoint enhancement, or a complete intranet product?

Quick answer: There are two architectural approaches to an intranet on Microsoft 365 today. You can enhance your own SharePoint with a webpart and design-system layer (Athena, ShortPoint), keeping control of your intranet structure. Or you can buy a complete intranet product (Powell, LiveTiles, intranet.ai) that wraps SharePoint with a vendor-defined experience. Both approaches are valid for different organisations. This guide explains the trade-offs honestly.

This is not a comparison page disguised as an explainer. We don't claim Athena is a like-for-like replacement for Powell or LiveTiles; it isn't, because we sit in a different architectural category. What we do claim is that for organisations evaluating intranet platforms, the architecture decision matters more than any individual product comparison. Make the architecture call first; then pick a vendor that fits.

Try Athena (enhancement path)What Athena includes

The two architectures

Side by side, honestly.

Enhancement

You enhance your own SharePoint

The intranet is your SharePoint. The vendor provides premium webparts, themes, and design systems that you compose into pages. You decide site structure, navigation, and content patterns. If the vendor disappears, your pages, content, and structure remain in your M365 tenant; you lose the premium components but the intranet keeps running.

Best fit: organisations that want control, have or want to develop in-house SharePoint capability, value design-led admin work, and prefer per-tenant pricing.

Vendors in this category: Athena (Lewis Enright Limited), ShortPoint.

Complete intranet

You buy a vendor-defined intranet

The intranet is the vendor's product, deployed inside or alongside your SharePoint. The vendor provides a packaged experience with templates, structures, and an integrated administration layer. Your customisation happens within the vendor's framework. If the vendor goes EOL, the intranet experience may stop working (Valo, July 2025 worked example).

Best fit: organisations that want minimal architectural decisions, don't have SharePoint expertise in-house, prefer vendor-defined patterns, and accept per-user pricing.

Vendors in this category: Powell Software, LiveTiles Hub, intranet.ai, (formerly) Valo Intranet.

Trade-offs

The decisions that actually matter.

Capability	Enhancement approach	Complete intranet product
Who owns intranet architecture	You do: site structure, nav, pages	Vendor defines; you customise within their framework
Time to first usable deployment	Hours for first pages; depends on your design pace	Days to weeks for vendor onboarding + configuration
Typical pricing model	Per tenant (flat)	Per user (scales with headcount)
Sweet-spot organisation size	Any, especially 50+ users on M365	100-5,000 users with limited SharePoint expertise in-house
SharePoint expertise required	Light: admin who can edit SharePoint pages	Lower: vendor often handles deployment
Vendor lock-in risk	Low: intranet runs on your SharePoint	Higher: intranet depends on vendor's continued operation
Data residency	Inside your M365 tenant	Varies: some vendors host externally
Customisation ceiling	High: you control architecture and design	Bounded by vendor's framework
Renewal exposure	Walk away, keep the intranet	Walk away, lose the intranet

Choose a complete intranet product when

Packaged. Vendor-defined. Live next month.

Minimal architectural decisions wanted

You want a packaged experience with a vendor-defined navigation, structure, and content layout.

No SharePoint expertise on staff

You don't have a SharePoint admin and don't want to develop one.

Below ~500 users and per-user pricing is acceptable

Per-user pricing is comfortable at your headcount.

Comfortable with vendor-defined patterns

Navigation, site structure, and content layout the vendor's way is fine.

Speed-to-deploy outweighs long-term flexibility

Vendor onboarding gets you live faster than designing your own.

Choose a SharePoint enhancement tool when

Controlled. Composed. Yours.

Keep control of structure and design

You want the intranet to be visibly yours, designed by your team.

An admin who can edit SharePoint pages

Or you want to develop that capability.

Above ~50 users and per-tenant pricing wins

Flat per-tenant pricing materially undercuts per-user alternatives.

Long-term vendor independence matters

The Valo EOL outcome should not happen again.

Composition over configuration

Premium components you compose, not a packaged experience you configure within.

Honest

The honest case for the other side.

The honest case for the other side

If you're reading this on the Athena website, you might assume we'll tell you the enhancement approach is universally better. We won't. Complete intranet products have real strengths. Powell, LiveTiles, and intranet.ai have invested years into packaged experiences that drop into a tenant and work immediately. For an HR director who wants an intranet live next month, with no SharePoint admin time, and is comfortable with the vendor's design choices, those products are genuinely faster and lower-friction than the enhancement path.

The enhancement approach requires somebody, an admin, an MSP, or a designer, to actually design the intranet. If that capability doesn't exist in your organisation and you don't want to develop it, an enhancement tool will sit underused, and a complete intranet product is the better call.

The architecture decision is genuinely a values decision: control vs convenience, customisation vs configuration, long-term independence vs short-term speed. Both answers are defensible.

If enhancement fits

Two products serve different sub-segments.

ShortPoint

Design-element library with 80+ blocks and 100+ templates, designer-led page-building paradigm via Live Mode and Grid Mode page builders.

See our honest comparison →

Athena

19 production webparts (each a turnkey feature, not a raw block), bundled point-solution categories (org chart, knowledge base, policy management, internal job board, recognition, events, noticeboard), Athena Orchestrator wizard for guided deployment, per-tenant pricing at £290/month.

See everything included →

Both stay inside your SharePoint. The choice between them depends largely on whether you want a page-builder with rich design elements (ShortPoint) or purpose-built feature webparts (Athena).

FAQ

Frequently asked questions.

SharePoint enhancement tools (Athena, ShortPoint) are webpart and design-system layers that add capability on top of the customer's existing SharePoint Online. The intranet remains the customer's SharePoint. Complete intranet products (Powell Software, LiveTiles Hub, Valo Intranet, intranet.ai) are SaaS platforms that either replace or wrap SharePoint with a vendor-controlled intranet layer. The intranet is the vendor's product, deployed to the customer.

If the enhancement path fits, Athena is built for it.

19 production webparts, bundled point-solution features, per-tenant pricing, and an intranet that stays yours. £290/month per tenant. 21-day free trial, no credit card.

Start free trial What Athena includes

Built by Lewis Enright Limited, United Kingdom. Last reviewed May 2026. Powell Software, LiveTiles, intranet.ai, Valo, ShortPoint, and other product names are trademarks of their respective owners. References describe publicly documented features and architectural categories at time of writing.