SharePoint Online: Sandboxed Web Part vs App

Question

I have a requirement to have some custom functionality within my SharePoint Online page.

I am currently considering an app or a sanboxed web part.

Here are my notes so far:

sandboxed web part

• on-prem environment required for developing (don't have at the moment) (-)
• sandboxed solutions might be no longer supported by Microsoft soon??? (-)
• I need it to be placed i nthe page as a web part (+)

app (add-in)

• can deploy straight to SharePoint Online (+)
• will have to use provider-hosted app as I require C# code behind - too complex (-)
• I have no idea how to put it into a page as a web part? (-)

Sorry, I am new to SharePoint Online. I was developing on-prem until now, so it seems a bit confusing to me as SharePoint Online is extremely limited to developers...

Any ideas? Thanks!

Answer 1

Moving forward you shouldn't be looking at sandboxed web parts as an option anymore. In your case you should go for an app.

It might seem so at first, that SharePoint Online is limited, but you can achieve almost the same functionality (user wise) as with an on-prem solution. The main difference is that you don't have access to some of the configuration options, but from the functionality perspective CSOM is very close to Server Side code.