Site Limits for SharePoint Lists, Libraries, and Subsites

[chr-sad]

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Question

What SharePoint development model, framework, SDK or API is this about?

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Target SharePoint environment

SharePoint Online

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Issue description

We have been trying to figure out more details on the planned enforcement of limits in SharePoint Online. We already created a Microsoft Support Ticket and also commented in the Microsoft Feedbackportal but no one can answer our questions so maybe someone here knows details on the topic or can lead me to the right place to ask these kind of questions and get the answers.

SharePoint recommends a maximum of 2,000 lists and libraries per site, and 2,000 subsites per site. These have been long standing limits for SharePoint but have not been formally enforced. There have been cases where some sites exceeded these limits, resulting in poor site performance and low-quality viewing experience. One of the most impacted areas is the API performance that degrades significantly when users access data on the sites that exceed their recommended limits. The API calls may time out or get throttled, blocking the users from opening the site or resulting in unexpected failures. In some extreme cases, the issue can impact functionalities beyond these sites. To ensure site performance and help customers have the best possible experience, Microsoft will implement a safeguard to prevent customers from exceeding these limits.

The official SharePoint limits page was update to this recently:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/servicedescriptions/sharepoint-online-service-description/sharepoint-online-limits#lists-and-libraries
2,000 lists and libraries **combined per site collection (including main site and any subsites)**.

So in this case if we are reading it correctly the 2000 lists limit even includes lists / libraries in subsites. This limits will completely break some of our solutions and we are trying to figure out a new way of solving the requirements based on these limits - but to do so we need to exactly know, how this limits will get counted. E.g. if we create a subsite without any custom list / library the subsite itself has already lists and libraries. The mentioned 2000 subsites limit can never be reached because there would be already more than 2000 lists / libraries before. So how is Microsoft planning to force these limits in detail?

Thank you for reporting this issue. We will be triaging your incoming issue as soon as possible.

[omarelanis]

Hi Christoph, Microsoft has for a number of years (since Modern) recommended not using sub sites anymore and instead using site collections, i.e moving away from vertical hierarchical structures into more horizontal structures, and using hub site to bring the collection of site collections together.

Unenforced limits are there for a reason and whilst planning for a system design you should really be planning to avoid those limits as much as possible in case they are ever changed or enforced in the future, you should never design your system architecture around the max limits of a system, especially when it comes to shared cloud services as your actions may effect those of others within the same environment.

This is just my own opinion here but if you are reaching the limits explicitly set by Microsoft then you should really be re-designing your solutions, having a site collection with such a large number of artefacts, whether it's sub sites or just list and libraries is bad practise, all of these will be stored in a single content database so each query made in any of those sub sites is using the same resources from that one content database. That's not even taking into consideration other risks like backups, if a single sub site or list/library was corrupted you would need to restore everything from the site collection back to a point in time, which would mean any updates made from that point onwards would be lost.

Those limits have not changed as far as I'm aware, however more importantly those limits are there as a guideline to not breach so you should not have been architecting your solutions to try and get as close as possible before hitting those limits, I doubt you will get an official response from Microsoft on what the actual limits are as the recommended guidance is to use site collections rather than sites - and you get a whooping 2 million of those!!

I'm sure others can provide some more useful insights but thought I'd try and help with my 2 pennies worth :)

[chr-sad]

Hi @omarelanis, first of all thank you for spending your time in answering my question and giving me your thougts on the topic. I completely agree with you, that we should not try to architect solutions to reach the limits and in fact, this is exactly the reason why I am asking these kind of questions.

We as partners want to build solutions for the cloud in the best possible way for our customers and therefore must trust on limits in one or another way. My question was mainly about the 2000 lists and libraries combined per sitecollection not the 2000 subsites. As far as I am aware of this line was introduced arround October / November 2021 (I took the time and tried to figure this out in WebArchive) and besides that limitation page we do our best to gather relevant information on twitter, linkedin, official channels and best practices session. So in my point of view (maybe I missed some important notice anywhere) this is not a long standing limit and has changed / was added recently. I apologize if I missed something but I really try my best to follow all of those informations.

Please don't get me wrong - I really like the Microsoft 365 ecosystem with all it's possibilities and think this is a great platform. But at the end of the day customers invest in the platform and solutions based on that platform. In my understanding the solution provider should be able to tell the customers what he can expect of his investment - in business / enterprise scenarios this is all about limitations. So it is absolutely critical for us to know in the most detailed way possible what exactly are the limits and how they are calculated and handled - in this specific question, the limits seem not to be reachable to me. It is all about investment safety. Just as an example: what if Microsoft is adding a max 2000 Folders per library limit today and forcing it again a year after? If I was the customer, I would not be sure to invest my money again in that platform if it means to rearchitect and migrate complete solutions after such a short amount of time.

I am completely sure limits will get reached at some point in business / enterprise scenarios so I am not asking because we want to architect to those limits, but we want to build our solutions in the most safe way possible in case of investment safety of our customers (and for us as solution providers, because building solutions is an investment too) - that's why I am asking :)

Thanks again for taking your time on commenting to this issue, I really appreciate it!

[CallumCrowley]

@chr-sad the recommendation of 2000 lists per site has been around since at least SharePoint 2007. It's worth noting that Microsoft moving much of their documentation to Microsoft Docs is a recent decision, so older service limits for SharePoint Online may not have appeared on your search of web archives.

[chr-sad]

@CallumCrowley thanks for your feedback and the link! But in fact this link is for me the confirmation, the limits have changed. I was aware of this limit: 2000 lists per Web site (not per site collection)

This makes huge of a difference - now the exact wording is:
2,000 lists and libraries combined per site collection (including main site and any subsites).

So the real question is: Can I have 2000 x 2000 lists now or only 2000 at all in one site collection in SharePoint Online?

[CallumCrowley]

@chr-sad all site collections contain a root website, from which subsites (websites) are created. For example, if you had a root web with 2000 lists and you create a subsite within that root web, the root web now contains more than 2000 lists (it's lists and subsites' lists are contained within the root web). This is how I understand it.

Since Microsoft moved all their documentation to Microsoft Docs, it's difficult to find older documentation for SharePoint Online.

[chr-sad]

@CallumCrowley this is exactly the point - I can not find anything more specific as well. In fact with the current documentation I can not answer these kind of questions without room for interpretation which is a problem. In your case the user would probably be not able to create a subsite, even if he had not even had one before, because each sub site has itself again automatically lists / libraries. So this is the point, why I am searching for more detailed information on this topic so there is no more interpretation in the wordings. Thanks again for reaching out an taking your time on this.

[CallumCrowley]

@chr-sad happy to help. I agree that it should be clearer.

I've personally stopped using subsites altogether for any solution I design, since Microsoft's direction of travel has been flat architecture for some time now (I stick to flat architecture for everything). I know it's not much help for existing solutions but it could save you pain for new projects.

[chr-sad]

@CallumCrowley we do so as well now. So for new solutions it is absolutely clear to us, that microsoft is think in site collections (see things like teams, planner and so on) and sub sites is no focus area any more - exactly like you said. But we have a lot of existing solutions in the field and this wording change can bring us a lot of pain on the way - when it is really 2000 for a site collection at the end of the day now (and difficult migration scenarios)

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