Orbit vs OneNote
Sprocket Orbit vs OneNote
Almost every team that ends up looking for a Teams wiki has already tried OneNote. It is free, it pins into a Teams tab and it stores content in your tenant. It is also a note-taking app rather than a knowledge base, and the difference shows once more than a handful of people are contributing.
Last updated . Competitor pricing verified against vendor pricing pages.
The short answer
Use OneNote for meeting notes, drafts and a small team's working documents. Move to Sprocket Orbit once you need search that works at scale, nested page structure, links between notes, or permissions on individual areas of the wiki, which is usually somewhere past thirty pages or ten contributors.
Side by side
Sprocket Orbit and OneNote compared
| Sprocket Orbit | OneNote | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free for 10 editors, unlimited readers, then $10 per editor per month billed yearly | Included with Microsoft 365 |
| Where content is stored | Your own OneDrive and SharePoint, as markdown files | Your own tenant, in OneNote's notebook format |
| Structure | Nested pages with a navigable tree | Notebooks, sections and pages, two levels deep |
| Search at scale | Full text search scoped to the workspace | Degrades quickly as notebooks grow |
| Links between notes | Backlinks and a workspace graph | Manual links, easily broken |
| Permissions | Follows SharePoint permissions per site or folder | Per notebook only |
| AI assistants | Copilot, Claude and Codex read and write notes over MCP | Copilot in OneNote, reading and drafting within a page |
| Co-authoring | Real-time, with visible cursors | Sync-based, with occasional conflict pages |
Decision guide
Which one fits your team
Stay with OneNote if
- You are a small team with a modest number of documents
- Your content is personal or meeting notes rather than shared reference material
- Freehand and ink input matter to how your team works
- Nobody is complaining that they cannot find things
Move to Sprocket Orbit if
- People have stopped being able to find anything in the notebook
- You need real page hierarchy rather than sections and tabs
- Different parts of the wiki need different permissions
- You want AI assistants writing structured notes into a shared workspace
Questions
Frequently asked
Is OneNote good enough as a team wiki?
For a small team with a modest set of documents, yes. OneNote has no real page hierarchy beyond sections, no meaningful links between notes, no per-section permissions and search that degrades as notebooks grow. Most teams find it stops working somewhere past thirty pages or ten contributors.
Did Microsoft recommend OneNote to replace Teams Wiki?
Yes. When Microsoft retired the built-in Teams Wiki in 2023 it pointed customers towards OneNote and SharePoint pages. Neither offers wiki-style page hierarchy or scoped search, which is why a market of third-party Teams wiki apps grew up in their place.
Can I move OneNote content into a wiki?
Yes, though it takes some manual work. OneNote's export options are limited, so most teams move content section by section, pasting into new pages and taking the opportunity to reorganise. Orbit stores everything as markdown, so once content is in it stays portable.
Other comparisons
Start with the full roundup of Teams wiki apps if you are still shortlisting.
Try Sprocket Orbit free
Install from the Teams Store with 10 free editors and unlimited readers. No payment details, no IT approval needed to start.