SharePoint web parts
A web part is a modular block of content or functionality that you add to a SharePoint page. Everything on a modern page is a web part: the text, the images, the news roll-up, the embedded list, the quick links. You add them from a picker while editing the page, arrange them into sections and columns, and configure each one in its own properties pane. No code is involved for the built-in set, and developers can build custom ones with the SharePoint Framework.
Part of the SharePoint reference · Limits verified against Microsoft documentation · Last reviewed 1 September 2026
Adding a web part
Open the page and select Edit at the top right. Hover between existing web parts, or inside an empty section, until a circled plus appears — selecting it opens the web part picker, where you can browse the list or type a name to search. Choose one and it drops into place. The pencil icon on the left of any web part opens its properties pane.
Sections come first in practice. The layout control at the left edge of each section sets one, two or three columns, a one-third split, a vertical section, or full width — full width being available on communication sites only. Get the sections right before filling them, because rearranging web parts across a changed layout is fiddly.
The built-in web parts
Modern SharePoint ships around forty web parts. Grouping them by the job they do is more useful than the alphabetical picker, particularly when you are deciding which of several similar ones to use.
| Web part | What it does |
|---|---|
| Content and text | |
| Text | Rich text with headings, lists, tables and basic styling. The workhorse. |
| Image | A single image with optional caption, link and alt text. |
| Image gallery | Several images as a grid, brick or carousel layout. |
| Markdown | Markdown-authored content, useful for documentation-style pages. |
| Code snippet | Formatted, syntax-highlighted code for display only. |
| Embed | External content by iframe or embed code, subject to tenant allow-list. |
| Navigation and calls to action | |
| Hero | The large banner at the top of most communication sites. Three layouts, five items max. |
| Quick links | A set of links in compact, filmstrip, grid, button or list layouts. |
| Button | A single styled call-to-action button. |
| Call to action | A banner-style prompt with background image and button. |
| Sites | A set of SharePoint sites, optionally the ones in a hub. |
| Dynamic content | |
| News | News posts from this site, a hub, selected sites or a recommendation. |
| Highlighted content | A query-driven roll-up of documents, pages or news across sites. |
| Events | Upcoming events from a list, as cards, filmstrip or compact list. |
| Group calendar | The calendar of a connected Microsoft 365 group. |
| My feed | Personalised content per viewer, drawn from their Microsoft 365 activity. |
| Site activity | Recent activity on the current site. |
| Recent documents | Files the viewer worked on recently. |
| Saved for later | Items the viewer has saved. |
| Data and Microsoft 365 | |
| List | A list on the page, showing a chosen saved view in the standard grid. |
| Document library | A library on the page, with a chosen view. |
| File viewer | A single Office file, PDF or image rendered inline. |
| Quick chart | A basic bar or pie chart from typed data or a list column. |
| Power BI | An embedded Power BI report. Requires Power BI licensing. |
| Microsoft Forms | A form or its results, embedded on the page. |
| Planner | A Planner board or chart on the page. |
| Stream | A video or channel from Microsoft Stream. |
| Conversations | A live Viva Engage feed. 2, 4, 8 or 12 conversations. |
| Connectors | External service notifications. Group-connected team sites only. |
| People and structure | |
| People | Selected people with photo, title and contact card. |
| Org chart | The reporting structure around a chosen person. |
| Contact | A named contact for the page or site. |
| Page properties | Metadata columns from the page itself. |
| Divider / Spacer | A rule, or vertical white space, between web parts. |
| Utilities | |
| Countdown timer | A count down or up to a date, with optional button. |
| Weather | Current conditions and forecast for chosen locations. |
| World clock | Times across selected time zones. |
| Bing maps | A map centred on an address or coordinates. |
| YouTube | An embedded YouTube video. |
Microsoft adds to this set regularly and retires from it occasionally — the Yammer Highlights web part was retired in June 2025, for instance. Treat any published list, including this one, as a snapshot.
One quirk almost nobody documents The Conversations web part does not work on sites using a vanity or custom domain — it runs only on default onmicrosoft.com domains. If a Viva Engage feed renders blank on your intranet, this is usually why, and it is not something you can configure around.
Web parts versus SPFx extensions
Both are built with the SharePoint Framework and the distinction matters when you are scoping custom work.
A web part lives inside the page canvas. Page authors add it, move it, and configure it themselves. An extension lives outside the canvas and customises the frame around the page instead: application customisers inject content into a site’s header or footer across every page, field customisers change how a column renders inside a list, and command sets add buttons to list toolbars. Extensions are deployed and scoped by administrators, not placed by authors.
Page and web part limits
| Recommended — performance guidance, not blocks | |
| Web parts per page, built-in and custom combined | 20 |
|---|---|
| Dynamic web parts per page | 4 |
| Pages and news items per site | 5,000 |
| Image file size | 300 KB |
| Items in site navigation | 100 |
| Hard limits — enforced by the service | |
| Child links per navigation level | 500 |
| Full-width sections available on | Communication sites only |
| Conversations web part on a vanity domain | Not supported |
| Connectors web part available on | Group-connected team sites only |
Sources: Microsoft Learn, SharePoint modern portal site limits, and Microsoft Support, Using web parts on SharePoint pages. Verified 1 September 2026. See the full SharePoint limits table for platform-wide figures.
Which web parts count as dynamic
The four-dynamic recommendation is the one most homepages breach without anyone noticing. A dynamic web part queries SharePoint for fresh content when the page loads, so each one adds a round trip. News, Highlighted content, Events, My feed, Site activity, Recent documents, Sites and Conversations all qualify. A homepage carrying News plus two Highlighted content roll-ups plus Events plus a Conversations feed is already at five.
What SharePoint does not include
Some of the most-searched SharePoint web parts do not exist. That is worth stating plainly, because a lot of time gets lost looking for them in the picker. Below are the genuine gaps and the nearest native option for each.
| Not built in | Nearest native option, and its limitation |
|---|---|
| Accordion / collapsible sections | Stacked Text web parts with headings. Produces a long page rather than a collapsible one. |
| FAQ | Text web parts, or a list. Neither emits FAQ structured data, so the content does not qualify for rich results. |
| Tabs | Separate sections, or separate pages. Both mean scrolling or navigating instead of switching. |
| Rotating carousel | Hero, or Image gallery in carousel layout. Hero is a fixed tile arrangement; Image gallery rotates images but carries no linked content. |
| Timeline / roadmap | A list, or Countdown timer for a single date. No horizontal timeline rendering. |
| Searchable, filterable table | The List web part with a saved view. Filters are set by the author, not the reader. |
| Month-grid calendar of a list | Events, or Group calendar. Neither renders an arbitrary list as a month grid. |
| Alert / notification banner | Call to action, or a Text web part at the top of the page. Neither is dismissible or site-wide. |
| Mega menu as a web part | Site navigation set to megamenu at site level. Not placeable or styleable on a page. |
Each of these has three routes: accept the native compromise, commission an SPFx build, or use a design layer that supplies the component. Which one is right depends less on the component than on how many of these gaps you are hitting — one accordion is not worth a development project, and six of them usually are.
Key takeaways
- ~40 built in The built-in set is larger than most people use Weather, World clock, Org chart and Quick chart all ship natively and are routinely overlooked, or assumed to be missing.
- 4 dynamic max Most homepages breach the dynamic web part guidance News plus two Highlighted content roll-ups plus Events plus a Conversations feed is already five. Nothing warns you; the page just gets slower on mobile.
- 9 genuine gaps Nine commonly sought web parts do not exist Accordion, FAQ, tabs, rotating carousel, timeline, searchable table, month-grid calendar, alert banner and mega menu are all absent from the picker.
- Vanity breaks it The Conversations web part fails on custom domains It runs only on default onmicrosoft.com domains. This is the usual cause of a blank Viva Engage feed, and no configuration works around it.
- Comms sites only Full-width sections are a communication site feature Team site pages cannot host them, so a Hero on a team site cannot stretch edge to edge. It is a page layout boundary, not a configuration problem.
- SPFx for custom A custom web part is a development project TypeScript and React, packaged as a .sppkg, uploaded to the app catalog and approved. Complete control, plus a build pipeline and ongoing maintenance.
Individual web part references
Detailed pages on the web parts that carry the most configuration — layouts, limits, sizing and the decisions that are hard to reverse.
Filling the gaps without a development project
ShortPoint is a no-code design layer for SharePoint. It adds the components the picker does not have — accordions, tabs, FAQ blocks, carousels, timelines, searchable tables, alert banners, mega menus — and it uses the same SharePoint sites, lists and permissions you already have. No SPFx build, no app catalog deployment, no release pipeline.
- Components added from the same page editor your authors already use
- Live data from your existing lists and libraries, rendered as cards, tables or directories
- Full theming — fonts, colours, spacing — rather than site theme inheritance
- Maintained by content owners, not by a developer queue
Used on 350,000+ SharePoint sites by 12M+ people · Microsoft Solutions Partner · SOC 2 Type 2 · No credit card required
Common questions about SharePoint web parts
What is a SharePoint web part?
A web part is a modular block of content or functionality that you add to a SharePoint page. Everything on a modern page is a web part: the text, the images, the news roll-up, the embedded list, the quick links. You add them from a picker while editing the page, arrange them into sections and columns, and configure each one in its own properties pane. No code is involved for the built-in set, and developers can build custom ones with the SharePoint Framework.
What are the web parts in SharePoint?
Modern SharePoint ships around forty built-in web parts. The most used are Text, Image, Hero, News, Quick links, People, List, Document library, Highlighted content and Events. Others cover structure (Divider, Spacer, Button, Call to action), Microsoft 365 content (Planner, Power BI, Microsoft Forms, Stream, Viva Engage Conversations), and utilities (Weather, World clock, Org chart, Quick chart, Countdown timer, Code snippet, Markdown, Bing maps). Microsoft adds to the set regularly.
How do you add a web part to a SharePoint page?
Open the page and select Edit at the top right. Hover between existing web parts or in an empty section until a circled plus appears, then select it to open the web part picker. Choose a web part from the list or search it by name, and it drops into place. Configure it with the pencil icon to open its properties pane, then Save as draft or Publish. Sections and columns are added the same way, using the layout control on the left of each section.
How many web parts should a SharePoint page have?
Microsoft recommends no more than 20 web parts on a page in total, counting built-in and custom ones together, and no more than 4 dynamic web parts — those that query SharePoint for fresh data on load, such as News, Highlighted content or Site activity. These are performance recommendations rather than enforced limits: a page will still save and publish above them, it will simply load more slowly, most noticeably on mobile and slow connections.
What is the difference between a web part and an extension in SharePoint?
A web part lives inside the page canvas and is added, moved and configured by whoever edits the page. An SPFx extension lives outside the canvas and customises the page frame instead — application customisers inject content into the header or footer across a whole site, field customisers change how a column renders in a list, and command sets add buttons to list toolbars. Both are built with the SharePoint Framework, but only web parts are placed by page authors.
Is there a SharePoint accordion or FAQ web part?
No. Modern SharePoint has no built-in accordion, collapsible section, or FAQ web part, which is why both are among the most searched-for web parts that do not exist. The usual workarounds are stacking Text web parts with headings, which produces a long page rather than a collapsible one, or building a custom web part with the SharePoint Framework. Third-party design tools also supply accordion and FAQ components without development work.
Is there a SharePoint calendar web part?
There are two, and neither is a full calendar. The Events web part shows upcoming events from a list as a card layout with a filmstrip or list display, and the Group calendar web part shows a connected Microsoft 365 group’s calendar. Neither gives you a traditional month-grid calendar view of an arbitrary SharePoint list on a page, which is what most people are looking for. That gap is usually filled with a custom or third-party component.
Can you create a custom SharePoint web part?
Yes, using the SharePoint Framework, which is Microsoft’s supported model for custom development on modern pages. An SPFx web part is a TypeScript and React project that is built, packaged as a .sppkg file, uploaded to the tenant app catalog and then approved before site owners can add it to pages. It gives complete control over rendering and data. The cost is that it is a development project with a build pipeline, a release process and ongoing maintenance.
Sources
- Microsoft Support — Using web parts on SharePoint pages
- Microsoft Learn — SharePoint modern portal site limits
- Microsoft Learn — Overview of SharePoint Framework Extensions