In short
Most intranet software looks identical on a feature grid, so compare platforms on the three jobs your communication team does every week: publish, target and measure. Below, we set out how 12 platforms score in Tryane’s 2026 assessment, what SharePoint already gives you, how to script a demo, and which pilot metrics show whether the intranet you choose actually reaches employees.
Key takeaways
- In Tryane’s Digital Workplace Benchmark 2026, Unily received the highest overall Tryane Score of 12 intranet platforms (92/100) and SharePoint the lowest (68/100).
- SharePoint scored 45% on Analytics, the lowest category score of any platform in the benchmark, but 88% on Administration.
- Modern SharePoint already offers audience targeting, news, the Highlighted Content web part and the My Feed web part, so it is the baseline every other platform has to beat in a demo.
- NN/g’s 2023 Intranet Design Annual winners took between 6 and 45 months to create their intranets, 25 months on average: the platform you pick is a multi-year commitment.
- Microsoft’s own planning guidance says to pilot one key scenario and judge it on business impact, not system metrics such as page views.
Which criteria separate intranet platforms for communicators?
Three vendor demos in a fortnight, and the feature grids come out almost identical: personalised homepage, targeted news, mobile app, enterprise search, Microsoft 365 integration, an analytics dashboard. Every platform ticks every box. Yet two organisations can buy the same product and end up somewhere completely different, because a feature grid measures capability while adoption depends on whether the few things employees rely on actually work.
A feature grid is still the right tool for the requirements that are binary and non-negotiable: accessibility conformance, data residency, supported languages, retention and legal hold, single sign-on and whatever your regulator requires. Score those, eliminate anything that fails, and then put the grid away. For the shortlist that remains, compare platforms on five categories that map to how an internal communication team works:
- UI/UX: look and feel, how employees interact with news, the mobile experience and whether the intranet supports daily work.
- Publishing: how quickly an editor can create rich content, preview it and publish it without IT.
- Targeting: whether you can reach a specific audience, highlight top updates, adapt content to profiles and reach deskless workers.
- Administration: role management, multilingual capacity and ease of authentication.
- Analytics: whether you can see who read what, not just how many page views a site collected.
Test every platform against the same baseline: what SharePoint already does in your tenant. Microsoft describes the modern SharePoint intranet as personalised by default, with features like audience targeting, news, the Highlighted Content web part and the My Feed web part displaying content dynamically to the right viewers.[1] If a vendor’s targeting demo does nothing your SharePoint news targeting cannot, you are paying for a different interface, not a different capability. The operating model usually matters more than the platform, which is the subject of our guide to digital workplace components and ownership.
How do the 12 intranet platforms score side by side?
For Tryane’s Digital Workplace Benchmark 2026, we assessed 12 intranet and digital workplace platforms on 17 criteria grouped into the five categories above, based on in-depth demonstrations, interviews with industry experts and publicly available data. The Tryane Score is our assessment, not an independent test result, and it is designed for internal communication teams: a platform built mainly for document collaboration will score lower here than it would in an IT-led evaluation.
| Platform | Tryane Score | UI/UX | Publishing | Targeting | Admin. | Analytics |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unily | 92/100 | 90% | 93% | 90% | 94% | 88% |
| Firstup | 86/100 | 90% | 88% | 95% | 76% | 80% |
| Simpplr | 86/100 | 92% | 84% | 91% | 82% | 83% |
| Poppulo | 84/100 | 80% | 83% | 92% | 75% | 92% |
| Jint (formerly Mozzaik365) | 83/100 | 85% | 88% | 86% | 82% | 75% |
| Powell 365 | 83/100 | 86% | 84% | 88% | 82% | 78% |
| Staffbase | 83/100 | 88% | 83% | 88% | 75% | 82% |
| LumApps | 81/100 | 80% | 82% | 80% | 75% | 65% |
| Workvivo | 81/100 | 86% | 82% | 88% | 78% | 82% |
| Jalios | 79/100 | 78% | 82% | 78% | 85% | 72% |
| Interact | 76/100 | 84% | 82% | 82% | 78% | 75% |
| SharePoint | 68/100 | 65% | 72% | 72% | 88% | 45% |
Read the table by column, not only by the total. Firstup’s 95% on Targeting is the highest score any platform received in any category; Poppulo’s 92% on Analytics is the highest Analytics score; Simpplr leads UI/UX at 92%. If your main problem is reaching the right audience, a platform with a lower total but a stronger Targeting score may serve you better than the overall leader. Download the full Digital Workplace Benchmark 2026 to see all 17 criterion ratings and the profile of each platform.
Which intranet platform fits which organisation?
Scores tell you how a platform performs on our criteria. Fit depends on who you need to reach and what you already run. These are the profiles from the benchmark, in the order of the table above.
- Unily: large companies that want a comprehensive, highly customisable intranet with a news-site style home page. The benchmark names cost and complexity of implementation as its weaknesses.
- Firstup: large companies and multinationals that need advanced orchestration of internal communications across channels. Its interface can feel complex to new users, and it is less suited to small businesses.
- Simpplr: companies that want a quick-to-deploy platform with targeted news and AI-assisted search. The publishing tool is described as basic compared with a full content management system.
- Poppulo: organisations that rely heavily on email and multi-channel campaigns; it is often recommended above 5,000 employees. Expect a learning curve to use all its features.
- Jint (formerly Mozzaik365): organisations that want to extend an existing Microsoft 365 and SharePoint intranet with ready-made widgets. Reporting is its weaker area.
- Powell 365 (now marketed by Powell as Powell Intranet): Microsoft 365 organisations that want templates, including for frontline employees and onboarding, running inside their own tenant.
- Staffbase: companies with a high share of employees who are offline or on the move. Its mobile-first app is designed to complement an existing intranet such as SharePoint.
- LumApps: medium-sized and large companies that want an intranet over Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. Beekeeper, a frontline app, is now part of LumApps. The benchmark notes limits in advanced analysis.
- Workvivo (Workvivo by Zoom): mid-sized and large organisations that want a social, mobile-first engagement platform for frontline staff, rather than a structured knowledge intranet.
- Jalios: intermediate and large companies that want a modular platform deployable on premises or in the cloud, with data hosted in Europe. Its interface is less modern than some competitors.
- Interact: medium-sized and large companies that want an intuitive, customisable intranet with community spaces; its analytics tools are the area the benchmark says needs improvement.
- SharePoint: organisations already on Microsoft 365 that want a collaborative foundation, accepting that it needs configuration and often an extension to work well for internal communication.
Three of these platforms, Jint, LumApps and Powell, explicitly extend SharePoint rather than replace it, and Staffbase is designed to sit alongside it. That changes the buying question. You are not always choosing between SharePoint and something else; often you are choosing what to put on top of SharePoint, or whether to put anything at all.
Is SharePoint enough, or do you need a platform on top?
SharePoint’s 68/100 hides a split profile. In Tryane’s Digital Workplace Benchmark 2026 it scored 88% on Administration, rated 5/5 on Interoperability with Other Environments, Admin Role Management and Ease of Authentication, but 2/5 on Look and Feel, Customisable User Interface and Analytics / Insights. In plain terms: SharePoint is easy to govern and connects to everything in Microsoft 365, but it needs design work to feel like a communication channel, and it tells you little about who reads what.
For many organisations the honest answer is to stay. SharePoint, together with the SharePoint app in Teams (formerly Viva Connections), is already licensed and governed by your tenant policies. If your real problem is a stale homepage and nobody owning content retirement, a new platform will reproduce the same intranet with a new logo. A dedicated platform earns its place when you can name a gap SharePoint cannot close in your tenant: a frontline population without corporate laptops, a need for multi-channel orchestration, or editors who cannot publish without IT.
Measurement is the gap most teams underestimate. SharePoint site usage reports show unique viewers, visits and traffic for one site at a time, and the export covers 90 days.[2] That answers whether last week’s page was read. It does not answer which departments or countries read it, or how the same story performed on the intranet, Viva Engage and the newsletter together. Our note on the limits of SharePoint native analytics sets out those gaps in detail.
How should you run an intranet software demo?
Turn each claim on the vendor’s slide into a demonstration on a real tenant. If the vendor cannot show it, treat the claim as unproven rather than false, and ask for a reference customer who uses it.
| Vendor claim | What it should mean in practice | Ask them to show you |
|---|---|---|
| Personalised homepage | Content varies by audience attribute | Two named users in different functions seeing different pages, and where the attribute comes from (Entra ID, HR file, manual group) |
| Powerful enterprise search | People find the answer on the first attempt | The top internal search queries on a live tenant and how many end without a click |
| Mobile app for frontline staff | People without a corporate laptop use it weekly | Weekly active share for the deskless population specifically, not tenant-wide |
| Built-in analytics | You can answer questions from leadership | Live: which departments read last month’s most important news post, in which countries |
| Integrates with Microsoft 365 | One view of a person across channels | A single report combining SharePoint, Viva Engage and email activity for one audience segment |
| Easy publishing | Editors work without IT tickets | One of your editors creating, targeting and scheduling a news post during the demo |
The fourth and fifth rows are where most demonstrations stall. Publishing tools report well on their own surface; combining surfaces is a different problem, because the same person reading the same story in three places is counted three times unless the data is joined first. We explain the double-counting in why cross-channel digital workplace totals do not add up.
How long does an intranet project really take?
Longer than the vendor’s implementation plan suggests. The ten winners of Nielsen Norman Group’s 2023 Intranet Design Annual took between 6 and 45 months to create their winning designs, 25 months on average. Their intranet teams averaged 21 people, from 4 to 60, and seven of the ten worked with outside agencies.[3] These are award winners, so they are better resourced than most, but the pattern holds: the software licence is the short part of the project.
Microsoft makes the same point from the other side: an intranet project is never “done”, because organisational priorities change over time.[4] Plan for a multi-year commitment, budget for the people who will run the intranet after launch, and weigh switching costs honestly. If you are replacing an intranet, capture your baseline before the old one goes dark; our piece on measuring the impact of a SharePoint redesign covers what to record.
How will you know the intranet reaches employees?
Do not wait for the full rollout to find out. Microsoft’s planning guidance recommends identifying one key scenario to prototype and pilot, agreeing success metrics with the business owner, and not focusing only on system metrics: think about actual business impact.[4] Its own example pairs a benefits site’s system metric (news post views, training video views) with a business metric (help requests reduced by a set percentage).
Use the pilot to test the platform on the evidence that predicts adoption, not on launch-week reach:
- Return rate: the share of the pilot audience that came back in at least three separate weeks, not the share that visited once after the launch email.
- Search that ends in an answer: read the top pilot search queries and check how many end without a click.
- Depth past the homepage: the share of sessions that reach a content page from somewhere other than an email link or push notification.
- Coverage by population: readership by department, country and contract type, so a strong head-office figure cannot hide a frontline population that never opens the intranet. Our note on measuring communications that reach frontline workers shows how to build that split.
Then keep measuring after launch with the same definitions, so the trend survives platform changes and redesigns. The KPIs that show intranet success covers what belongs on the monthly slide, and our intranet adoption benchmarks help you judge whether your numbers are healthy.
This is where we sit. Communication Insights is our cross-channel analytics platform for Microsoft 365: it brings SharePoint, the SharePoint app in Teams (formerly Viva Connections), Viva Engage and email newsletters into one dashboard and shows readership by department and country, whichever intranet platform you choose. Make your platform decision on evidence rather than demos: book a 15-minute call with Jérémy via his Calendly to see how your current intranet’s readership looks before you commit.
Frequently asked questions
What is intranet software?
Intranet software is the platform an organisation uses to run its private employee website: publishing news, storing policies and resources, targeting content to audiences and, increasingly, reaching staff on mobile. It ranges from Microsoft SharePoint, which many organisations already license, to dedicated platforms such as Unily, Simpplr or Staffbase, some of which run on top of SharePoint.
Which intranet software is best?
There is no single best platform; the right one depends on your audience and your Microsoft 365 setup. In Tryane’s Digital Workplace Benchmark 2026, Unily received the highest overall Tryane Score (92/100), Firstup led on Targeting (95%) and Poppulo on Analytics (92%). Shortlist on the categories that match your main problem, then decide on a pilot.
Is SharePoint an intranet?
SharePoint is the platform many organisations build their intranet on, not the intranet itself. Modern SharePoint offers communication sites, a home site, hub sites, news and audience targeting. In Tryane’s 2026 assessment it scored 68/100 overall, strong on administration and interoperability but weak on look and feel and analytics, which is why several vendors build on top of it.
How long does it take to implement intranet software?
Plan in months, not weeks. NN/g’s 2023 Intranet Design Annual winners took between 6 and 45 months to create their intranets, 25 months on average, with teams averaging 21 people. Piloting one scenario first shortens the time before employees see value.
How do you measure whether an intranet is working?
Judge it on business impact and repeat use, not page views. Track return visits, searches that end in an answer, depth past the homepage and readership by department and country. Native SharePoint usage reports cover one site at a time and do not break readership down by department or country, so cross-channel reporting needs an analytics layer.
Sources
Further reading
• What Is an Intranet, and Why the Definition Decides What Your Reporting Can Claim
• Which Intranet Metrics Matter: The SharePoint Numbers That Mislead, and What to Use Instead
• Viva Connections Analytics: How to Measure Intranet Adoption in Microsoft 365
• Intranet adoption rate: healthy SharePoint benchmarks
• The Digital Workplace Guide: Components, Ownership and the Decisions Nobody Wants to Make
If you want to see what cross-channel reporting looks like against your real data, Tryane runs a 15-minute walkthrough with no slides. Book a slot with Jérémy.