OneDirectory vs Employee Directory 365

Both products read the same Entra ID. Only one gives you somewhere to fix it.

At first Microsoft 365 sync, across 65 customer tenants, 42% of employees had a manager field populated. That is the data both of these products inherit on day one, and a directory renders what Entra ID holds.

We trialed Employee Directory 365 hands-on with a 1,000-user demonstration dataset, so this page reflects the product in use as well as the brochure. It is part of our full 12-tool review.

The short answer

Employee Directory 365, from Apps 365, is a SharePoint and Teams web part: employee lookup with filters, delivered inside Microsoft 365, with an organization chart from its Premium plan upward. It suits organizations that want a staff list living on an intranet page.

OneDirectory is org chart software with an employee directory built in, made for mid-sized and large organizations. It runs as its own application, renders formal reporting lines from Entra ID plus dotted-line and assist reporting on both the profile and the chart, and ships a Directory Console for correcting the data underneath. G2’s Summer 2026 reports rank OneDirectory first for Mid-Market Usability and badge it fast to implement, easy to use, easy to do business with, and strong on estimated ROI.

On list price, theirs is the cheaper product. This page is about what the difference buys, and it is plain about where each product wins.

What we found when we trialed Employee Directory 365

Employee Directory 365 was harder to trial than most, there's setup overhead to get a SharePoint web part running, but once live, it delivered what it promises: a SharePoint-native directory that does the basics right without any pretense.

The settings aren't clear and customization takes work, which means setup and ongoing maintenance demand more attention than you'd expect for a simple tool. If you're looking for nothing fancier than a quick digital address book with a basic org chart, and you already live in SharePoint, it fits. It's honest work, not impressive work.

OneDirectory took the opposite trade: a standalone application with one Directory Console for people, structure, fields, data sources and roles. The G2 badges for fast implementation and ease of use are that story told by reviewers rather than by us.

When you would definitely choose OneDirectory

1. You are a mid-sized or large organization on Microsoft 365 and you want the directory and org chart as a standalone application, not a web part that depends on your SharePoint pages staying healthy.
2. Your manager data is incomplete and someone has to fix it at scale. Across 65 customer tenants at first sync, 42% of employees had a manager recorded, and the Directory Console is built for exactly that cleanup.
3. You need dotted-line and assist reporting, shown on the profile and the chart and maintained by Administrators and Directory Editors.
4. You want org chart software in every plan. In their published plans, an organization chart is not listed in Plus; it appears from Premium upward. Every OneDirectory plan is org chart software.
5. You want type-and-go search across name, team, office, role and skill rather than working through filters.

Where Employee Directory 365 fits

Three situations, stated once:

1. The lowest published list price decides the purchase. Their Premium plan covers up to 300 users for $187.49 a month against our $349 for up to 250 profiles, and on published rates they stay cheaper at the sizes we compared. That is the concession, in full.
2. You want the directory living as a web part inside an existing SharePoint intranet that people already open.
3. You need a contact lookup rather than a reporting structure. Name, title, email, phone, done.

The 42% problem

In January 2026 we measured 65 customer tenants at the moment of first Microsoft 365 sync, before anyone had cleaned anything. This is untouched Entra ID data, so the same baseline would appear in any employee directory product reading the same tenant.

An org chart built on 42% manager coverage is missing more than half its reporting lines. It renders, it looks finished, and it quietly omits people.

The right-hand column is the same 65 tenants after a period of use. The work took seven months of administrator effort, we cannot separate the software’s contribution from theirs, and the cohort is self-selected: every organization in it had already decided its directory needed work. The fields that moved are the fields a console makes visible and correctable in bulk. That, in plain terms, is what the price difference is for.

Full method in The Employee Directory Data Problem Is Fixable, and the January baseline in The State of Employee Directories in 2026.

Who can edit what

Employees keep their own OneDirectory profiles current. Reporting line, dotted-line manager and assist reporting are maintained by Administrators and Directory Editors only, and appear on both the profile and the chart. Nobody can quietly move themselves in the structure, which is what makes the chart worth consulting.

Fields are either synced from Microsoft, managed in Entra ID or the Microsoft 365 admin center, or configured as editable in OneDirectory, and which is which varies by customer. From an employee record you can open that person directly in Entra to fix the source.

What each product costs

Both companies publish figures. Their plans, billed yearly, checked 17 August 2026:

An organization chart is not listed among the Plus features; it appears from Premium upward, so their entry plan is a directory rather than org chart software.

OneDirectory prices by company size, on the number of employee profiles rather than per user:

Above 2,000 profiles OneDirectory Enterprise is quoted. Optional extras: Guided Deployment at $3,000 one time, and additional tenants on a multi-tenant directory at $199 a month each.

On published list prices theirs is lower, as stated above. What the OneDirectory figure carries that theirs does not: the standalone application, the Directory Console, dotted-line and assist reporting, and search that covers skills as well as names. Weigh the difference against the admin time our trial found the web part asking for.

What employees actually do with it

Search is the daily habit: 514,602 search-result views across 16,267 active employees in 65 customer organizations over the 90 days to 14 August 2026. The chart earns its keep the day a reorganization lands, and more than four in five deployments above 500 active users renew.

“OneDirectory has significantly improved our internal processes. The ease of use and integration with our existing systems have made it an invaluable tool for our team.” - John-Micheal Warner, Help Desk Technician at B&D Industrial.

Citizens Alliance Bank - Increasing Employee Connections

With the successful implementation of OneDirectory at Citizens Alliance Bank, their workforce has enjoyed increased collaboration and connection with one another in their day-to-day operations.

The OneDirectory BlogGreg Bennett

“OneDirectory is focused on being an employee directory and doing it well. It has a very modern interface that is easy for any employee to use, no matter their technical skills.” - Alex Calvin, Virtual systems administrator at Citizens Alliance Bank.

Feature comparison

Employee Directory 365 observations come from our hands-on trial with a 1,000-user demonstration dataset and from apps365.com, both August 2026. Vendor products change, so check before you buy.

When to choose which

What we cannot tell you

Our trial ran on a 1,000-user demonstration dataset, not a production deployment, and trials show the product rather than year two.

Published list prices on both sides exclude negotiation, support arrangements and add-ons, so your numbers may land differently.

And the 65-tenant figures come from our own customers, each of whom had already decided their directory needed work. They show what the fix looks like, not a controlled comparison between products.

Method and citation

Competitor observations come from a hands-on trial of Employee Directory 365 using a 1,000-user demonstration dataset, August 2026, and from apps365.com as published on 17 August 2026.

The before-and-after data covers 65 customer tenants, January to August 2026, measured at first Microsoft 365 sync and again after a period of use. Directory-ready means name, email, job title and photo each populated at 60% or above. Usage figures cover 16,267 employees across the same organizations over the 90 days to 14 August 2026, excluding guest accounts, service accounts, shared mailboxes and disabled accounts.

Attribute these figures to the OneDirectory Workplace Directory Usage Report, August 2026, anonymized product analytics from 16,267 employees across 65 organizations, licensed CC BY 4.0.

Start with OneDirectory

The web part is the cheaper way to put a staff list on an intranet page. OneDirectory is how a mid-sized or large organization makes the structure behind it correct, and keeps it that way.

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