Canvas Apps, Model-Driven Apps, and SPFx: Choosing the Right Approach in the Power Platform

Short summary

This article compares three Microsoft Power Platform approaches — canvas apps, model-driven apps, and SharePoint Framework (SPFx) — to help teams pick the right tool for their business need. Canvas apps offer design freedom and mobile-first UX but struggle with large datasets and maintainability. Model-driven apps leverage Dataverse for structured data and process, while SPFx gives developers full control within Microsoft 365. A key licensing caveat: touching any premium connector requires all users to have a premium license.

• •Canvas apps favor design freedom; model-driven apps favor structured data; SPFx favors developer control
• •Premium connector usage triggers premium licensing for every app user
• •Canvas apps struggle with large datasets beyond 500-2,000 records on non-Dataverse sources

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.