If your SharePoint intranet still feels like a tidy-looking filing cabinet rather than a useful working tool, the issue is rarely SharePoint itself. More often, it comes down to choosing the best SharePoint web parts for the way your business actually works. The right components make documents easier to find, news easier to manage and everyday tasks quicker to complete. The wrong ones just add clutter.
For small and mid-sized businesses, that distinction matters. You are not trying to win an intranet design award. You need people to find policies without asking HR, complete routine requests without chasing by email, and get to the right documents without trawling through folders. Web parts are what turn a modern SharePoint site from a placeholder into something operational.
What makes the best SharePoint web parts?
The best SharePoint web parts do two jobs at once. They improve the user experience on the page, and they remove friction from a business process behind the scenes. If a web part looks smart but does not save time, reduce confusion or improve adoption, it is probably decoration.
That is why out-of-the-box Microsoft web parts are often only part of the answer. They cover a lot of common intranet needs, and in many cases they are the right starting point. But businesses with more specific needs usually hit the same limits quite quickly – weak search experiences, basic navigation, poor content targeting or too much manual effort to keep pages useful.
A good choice depends on your priorities. A professional services firm may care most about document findability and staff updates. A manufacturing business may need quick access to SOPs, forms and health and safety content. An operations team may value task-driven web parts over design-led ones. It depends on where your day-to-day friction sits.
12 best SharePoint web parts worth considering
1. Hero web part
The Hero web part is useful when you need to direct attention to a small number of important actions or updates. On a homepage, it can surface priority content such as onboarding resources, policy updates or a key internal announcement.
Its strength is visibility. Its weakness is that many intranets overuse it, turning the top of the homepage into a billboard for everything at once. If every item is urgent, none of it is. Used well, it gives staff a clear starting point.
2. News web part
For businesses trying to improve internal communication, the News web part is usually one of the first essentials. It gives teams a structured way to publish updates without sending everything by email.
The trade-off is maintenance. News only works when somebody owns it. If no one is responsible for publishing and archiving content, it quickly becomes a graveyard of old announcements. For many SMEs, a more tailored news experience with better filtering and audience targeting can be a better long-term fit.
3. Quick Links web part
Quick Links remains one of the most practical options in SharePoint. It helps users reach frequently used systems, documents and pages without hunting through navigation.
Its value is simple: fewer clicks, fewer questions, less wasted time. The limitation is that it can become a dumping ground if left unmanaged. If your homepage has 30 quick links, you do not have quick links any more. You have another menu nobody wants to use.
4. Document Library web part
This is one of the best SharePoint web parts when document access is the main issue. It brings live document views onto pages, helping teams work from current files without jumping between multiple libraries.
It works especially well for department hubs, project spaces and policy centres. The catch is structure. If your libraries are messy, the web part will faithfully display that mess. Good metadata and sensible information architecture matter far more than the page layout.
5. Events web part
If your business runs training sessions, internal briefings or regular company events, the Events web part is a straightforward way to make them visible. It is easy to use and suits businesses that want a central place for internal scheduling.
That said, it is not a full event management system. If you need bookings, approval flows or richer attendee handling, you may need something custom around it.
6. People web part
The People web part helps put names and roles in front of staff, which sounds basic until you realise how often new starters waste time trying to work out who does what. It is useful on team pages, leadership pages and service-based intranet sections.
Its weakness is that it is largely presentational. It helps with visibility, but not necessarily with finding expertise across the business. If knowledge discovery is a real issue, a richer staff directory or skills-based search tool will usually outperform the standard option.
7. Call to Action web parts
This is where custom development often starts to earn its keep. Standard SharePoint pages can present content well enough, but businesses often need web parts designed around an action – submit a request, report an issue, book an asset, raise a change or start an approval.
These web parts matter because they connect the intranet to work, not just information. For SMEs, that can mean replacing inbox-based requests and spreadsheet trackers with simple front-end forms tied to Power Automate, Power Apps or wider Microsoft 365 workflows.
8. Navigation web parts
Navigation is one of the biggest weak spots on many SharePoint intranets. Global navigation and hub navigation cover the basics, but growing businesses often need more help. Staff do not always know which site they are on, where a policy lives or which route gets them to the right content fastest.
A well-designed custom navigation web part can solve that. Mega menus, audience-aware shortcuts, section landing pages and visual route maps can make a significant difference, especially in businesses where teams work across departments and locations.
9. Search web parts
If users regularly say, “I know it is in SharePoint somewhere,” search is the issue. Standard Microsoft search has improved, but many organisations still need a more focused experience. That usually means better filters, promoted results, scoped search by department or content type, and clearer display of results.
Search is one of the most valuable areas to improve because poor findability has a direct cost. Staff ask colleagues for documents they should be able to locate themselves, duplicate files because they cannot find the original, or use outdated versions because the right one is buried.
10. Knowledge base web parts
For businesses with recurring questions, a knowledge base web part can reduce a surprising amount of internal noise. IT queries, HR processes, onboarding guidance, policy explanations and operational how-to content all benefit from being structured in a way people can browse and search quickly.
This is where off-the-shelf layouts often fall short. A proper knowledge base needs clear categorisation, search logic and content ownership. Without that, it becomes another document archive with a nicer heading.
11. Dashboard and KPI web parts
Operations leaders often want the intranet to do more than publish content. They want visibility. Dashboard web parts can bring key measures onto team or management pages – pending approvals, overdue actions, form submissions, service levels or workflow bottlenecks.
These web parts are only useful when the underlying data is reliable. If your reporting process is still manual or inconsistent, a dashboard can expose the problem rather than fix it. Still, when tied to a stable process, they can help teams act faster.
12. AI-assisted web parts
This is the newest category getting attention, and rightly so. AI-assisted SharePoint web parts can help users locate answers, summarise content or surface relevant knowledge faster than a traditional page structure alone.
The opportunity is real, but so is the need for caution. AI is only as useful as the content it can access and the governance behind it. If your permissions are untidy or your content is poor, AI will not clean that up for you. For most SMEs, the sensible route is targeted use cases rather than trying to layer AI over everything at once.
How to choose the best SharePoint web parts for your business
Start with the friction, not the feature list. If staff cannot find policies, improve search and document surfacing first. If internal requests are lost in email, prioritise action-led web parts and workflow integration. If your homepage looks fine but nobody uses it, the problem is probably structure and relevance rather than design.
It also helps to separate short-term wins from longer-term platform decisions. Out-of-the-box web parts can improve a site quickly and at low cost. Custom SPFx web parts make more sense where the business need is clear, repeated and commercially worth solving properly. That might be a better news experience, smarter navigation, a focused knowledge search or a front end for a process people use every day.
For many SMEs, the best answer is a blend. Use Microsoft’s standard web parts where they are good enough. Add custom components where the standard experience creates avoidable friction. That keeps the intranet practical, supportable and proportionate to the business.
The best SharePoint web parts are the ones people actually use
There is no universal top ten that fits every organisation. The best SharePoint web parts are the ones that make daily work simpler for your teams and easier to govern for the people running the platform.
That usually means being honest about what your intranet is for. If it is there to support communication, process access, document control and day-to-day efficiency, then every web part should earn its place. A cleaner homepage is nice. Fewer workarounds, faster approvals and better document findability are what justify the investment.
If you are reviewing your current intranet, start by asking where people lose time now. That answer will tell you far more than any feature comparison table ever will.