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In this episode of Ask Sympraxis, the team tackles a topic that refuses to disappear: SharePoint subsites. While subsites remain functional today, Microsoft has been steadily steering organizations toward modern, hub-based architecture for years. The discussion explores why the modern “hub before sub” approach provides greater flexibility, simpler governance, and a more sustainable long-term design for SharePoint Online.
The conversation begins by contrasting traditional SharePoint architectures with modern site design. Historically, organizations often built large, deeply nested site hierarchies containing departments, projects, documents, and permissions within a single site collection. Modern SharePoint instead favors a flat architecture where separate sites are organized by purpose and connected through hub sites. This approach allows organizations to separate collaboration sites, communication sites, departments, and projects while still providing a unified experience through shared navigation, search, branding, and content rollups.
A major advantage of hub-based architecture is flexibility. Associated sites can be moved between hubs as organizations change without disrupting the sites themselves. Since each site acts as its own unit of work, permissions are easier to manage and governance becomes more distributed. The group discusses how hub sites provide many of the capabilities that originally drove organizations to use subsites, including shared navigation, scoped search, branding consistency, and content aggregation.
The team also presents practical examples of modern information architecture. Rather than building everything beneath a parent site, organizations can create independent sites for functions like Human Resources, Marketing, Operations, and Projects. These sites remain peers in SharePoint while appearing logically connected through hub associations. This structure also supports lifecycle management, making it easier to archive completed projects, move inactive content, and manage ownership changes without creating complex inheritance chains.
One common concern about moving away from subsites is the potential loss of functionality. The discussion maps traditional subsite benefits to modern alternatives. Hub navigation replaces inherited navigation structures. Hub search replaces site collection search scopes. Microsoft 365 Groups provide a more flexible membership model than inherited SharePoint permissions. Hub themes provide consistent branding. Features such as Hub News and Highlighted Content web parts support modern content rollup scenarios without requiring nested site structures.
The conversation also addresses administrative concerns around site sprawl. While modern SharePoint encourages creating more independent sites, administrators have significantly better management tools available than in the past. Features such as inactive site policies, SharePoint Advanced Management capabilities, improved filtering and reporting within the SharePoint admin center, PowerShell automation, and delegated ownership all help organizations maintain control while allowing business units to manage their own workspaces.
Another important theme is Microsoft’s ongoing investment in modern experiences and retirement of older technologies. The team reviews several examples, including SharePoint 2010 workflows, SharePoint Alerts, classic publishing templates, and other legacy capabilities. While Microsoft has not announced a formal retirement date for existing subsites, the broader direction is clear: modern SharePoint investments focus on hub sites, communication sites, Microsoft 365 Groups, and cloud-first architecture.
Migration considerations are also discussed. There is no native out-of-the-box tool to convert subsites into standalone modern sites, but migration tools such as ShareGate can significantly simplify the process. One area requiring special attention is lookup columns and related information architecture patterns that were built around subsite hierarchies. Organizations should view migration as an opportunity to modernize both structure and governance rather than simply reproducing existing designs.
The takeaway is straightforward: if you’re designing new SharePoint solutions today, build with hub sites and modern architecture rather than creating new subsite hierarchies. You’ll gain flexibility, improve governance, simplify permissions management, and align your environment with Microsoft’s long-term direction.
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