Sooner or later every SharePoint intranet outgrows its out-of-the-box web parts. Someone needs an approval screen, a dashboard over three lists, or a form that does not look like a list form. At that point there are two realistic options: a SharePoint Framework (SPFx) web part, or a Power Apps app embedded in the page.
Neither is the right answer by default. The choice depends on who will maintain it, how it has to look, and where the data lives.
What each one is
SPFx is the development model for extending SharePoint and Microsoft 365 with code: TypeScript, usually React, packaged and deployed to the tenant's app catalog. Power Apps is a low-code builder: screens are assembled in a designer and logic is written as Power Fx formulas.
The short version
| Question | Leans SPFx | Leans Power Apps |
|---|---|---|
| Who maintains it? | A development team | Business users or a citizen developer |
| How custom is the UI? | Pixel-level, matches the intranet brand | Standard form and gallery layouts are fine |
| Where is the data? | SharePoint, Microsoft Graph, custom APIs | SharePoint lists, Dataverse, standard connectors |
| How is it licensed? | Covered by the SharePoint license | Depends on the connectors the app uses |
| How does it ship? | Package, app catalog, release pipeline | Publish from the designer, or solutions across environments |
When SPFx is the better fit
- The component has to feel native to the page: theme-aware, responsive, and fast on first paint.
- It reads from several sources in one view and you need control over how many requests go out.
- There is a team that already works with source control, code review and automated deployments.
A web part that reads a list can be this small:
import { spfi, SPFx } from "@pnp/sp";
import "@pnp/sp/webs";
import "@pnp/sp/lists";
import "@pnp/sp/items";
const sp = spfi().using(SPFx(this.context));
const requests = await sp.web.lists
.getByTitle("Capex Requests")
.items.select("Id", "Title", "Amount", "Status")
.filter("Status eq 'Pending'")
.top(50)();
When Power Apps is the better fit
- The people who own the process can and want to change the app themselves.
- It is mostly a form over one or two lists, with an approval behind it.
- It also has to work on a phone without building anything extra.
Check the connectors early. An app that only talks to SharePoint is one conversation; an app that needs a premium connector is a different one, and it is better to have it before the build than after.
They are not exclusive
Many solutions end up using both: Power Automate for the approval flow, a Power Apps form for data entry, and an SPFx web part for the dashboard the whole company sees on the home page. Splitting along those lines usually works better than forcing one tool to do everything.
Takeaway
Decide by who maintains it first and by how custom the interface has to be second. Technology comes third: both platforms can read and write the same data.