Comparing limits in SharePoint 2016 / 2013 / 2010

SharePoint Server 2016 has been with us for just over a year, and it has not brought a revolution in limits so far. Nevertheless, some changes have occurred, and we still have customers running SharePoint 2010 or even earlier versions. That gave me the idea to compare the limits of SharePoint 2010, 2013, and 2016 in more detail.

If you are only interested in comparing SharePoint Server 2016 and 2013 limits, I can save you some reading. I reviewed all limits for both versions, and only four parameters have changed. To my surprise, one is higher in 2013 (I believe this is a copying error), and another has exactly the same value, with only ‘greater than’ added.

Specifically:

Limit	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Site collections per farm	750,000 per farm (500,000 rooted with the Personal Sites template and 250,000 rooted with other sites types)	250,000 per site collection / 500,000 Personal Sites/ 250,000 other sites per farm.	Supported
File size	2 GB	10 GB	Boundary
List view threshold	5,000	greater than 5,000	Threshold
Indexed items	10 million per index partition	20 million per index partition	Supported

The reason is simple: SharePoint Server 2016 is largely based on the previous version, so its limits are comparable. However, some SharePoint 2013 limits were lower before SP1 than they are now, and we might expect a similar development for SharePoint Server 2016.

Before we get to the table, let's explain the types of limits.

Each limit can be one of three types:

Boundary: A limit that cannot be exceeded (by design)
Threshold: A limit that can be exceeded for certain requirements
Supported: A limit defined by tested values

Supported limits in SharePoint 2016 / 2013 / 2010

Web application limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Web application		20 per farm	20 per farm	Supported
Zone	5 per web application	5 per web application	5 per web application	Boundary
Managed path for host-named site collections		20 per farm	20 per farm	Supported
Managed path for path-based site collections	20 per web application	20 per web application	20 per web application	Supported
Solution cache size	300 MB per web application	300 MB per web application	300 MB per web application	Threshold

SharePoint server limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Application pools	10 per web server	10 per web server	10 per web server	Threshold

Content database limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Number of content databases	300 per Web application	500 per farm	500 per farm	Supported
Content database size (general usage scenarios)	200 GB per content database	200 GB per content database	200 GB per content database	Supported
Content database size (all usage scenarios)	4 TB per content database	4 TB per content database	4 TB per content database	Supported
Content database size (document archive scenario)	No explicit content database limit	No explicit content database limit	No explicit content database limit	Supported
Content database items	60 million items including documents and list items	60 million items including documents and list items	60 million items including documents and list items	Supported
Site collections per content database	2,000 recommended 5,000 maximum	10,000 maximum (2,500 non-Personal site collections and 7,500 Personal Sites, or 10,000 Personal Sites alone)	10,000 maximum (2,500 non-Personal site collections and 7,500 Personal Sites, or 10,000 Personal Sites alone)	Supported
Remote BLOB Storage (RBS) storage subsystem on Network Attached Storage (NAS)	Time to first byte of any response from the NAS cannot exceed 20 milliseconds	Time to first byte of any response from the NAS should remain within 40 milliseconds 95% of the time.	Time to first byte of any response from the NAS should remain within 40 milliseconds 95% of the time.	Boundary

Site collection limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Site collections per farm	250,000 per site collection	750,000 per farm (500,000 rooted with the Personal Sites template and 250,000 rooted with other sites types)	250,000 per site collection / 500,000 Personal Sites/ 250,000 other sites per farm.	Supported
Web site	250,000 per site collection	250,000 per site collection / 250,000 per farm / 500,000 personal sites per farm.	250,000 per site collection / 250,000 per farm / 500,000 personal sites per farm.	Supported
Site collection size	100 GB per site collection	Maximum size of the content database	Maximum size of the content database	Supported
Number of device channels per publishing site collection		10	10	Boundary

List and library limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
List row size	8,000 bytes per row	8,000 bytes per row	8,000 bytes per row	Boundary
File size	2 GB	2 GB	10 GB	Boundary
Documents	30,000,000 per library	30,000,000 per library	30,000,000 per library	Supported
Major versions	400,000	400,000	400,000	Supported
Minor versions		511	511	Boundary
Items	30,000,000 per list	30,000,000 per list	30,000,000 per list	Supported
Bulk operations	100 items per bulk operation	100 items per bulk operation	100 items per bulk operation	Boundary
List view lookup threshold	8 join operations per query	12 join operations per query	12 join operations per query	Threshold
List view threshold	5,000	5,000	greater than 5,000	Threshold
List view threshold for auditors and administrators	20,000	20,000	20,000	Threshold
Subsite	2,000 per site view	2,000 per site view	2,000 per site view	Threshold
Coauthoring in Word and PowerPoint for .docx, .pptx and .ppsx files	10 concurrent editors per document	10 concurrent editors per document	10 concurrent editors per document	Threshold
Security scope	1,000 per list	50,000 per list	50,000 per list	Threshold

Column limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Single line of text	255	255	255	Threshold
Multiple Lines of Text	192	350	350	Threshold
Choice	255	255	255	Threshold
Choice (multiple selection)		350	350	Threshold
Number	72	550	550	Threshold
Currency	72	550	550	Threshold
Date and Time	48	550	550	Threshold
Lookup	96	750	750	Threshold
Yes / No	96	1000	1000	Threshold
Person or group	96	750	750	Threshold
Hyperlink or picture	127	127	127	Threshold
Calculated	48	255	255	Threshold
GUID	6	350	350	Threshold
Integer	96	750	750	Threshold
Managed metadata	94	190	190	Threshold
Geolocation		2	2	Threshold

Page limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Web parts	25 per wiki or Web part page	25 per wiki or Web Part page	25 per wiki or Web Part page	Threshold

Security limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Number of SharePoint groups a user can belong to	5,000	5,000	5,000	Supported
Users in a site collection	2 million per site collection	2 million per site collection	2 million per site collection	Supported
Active Directory Principles/Users in a SharePoint group	5,000 per SharePoint group	5,000 per SharePoint group	5,000 per SharePoint group	Supported
SharePoint groups	10,000 per site collection	10,000 per site collection	10,000 per site collection	Supported
Security principal: size of the Security Scope	5,000 per Access Control List (ACL)	5,000 per Access Control List (ACL)	5,000 per Access Control List (ACL)	Supported

Search: topology limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Analytics processing components		6 per Search service application; 1 per server	6 per Search service application; 1 per server	Supported
Analytics reporting databases		4 per Search service application	4 per Search service application	Threshold
Link databases		4 per Search service application	4 per Search service application	Supported
Crawl components	16 per search service application	16 per Search service application; 1 per server	16 per Search service application; 1 per server	Supported
Index components		60 per Search service application; 4 per server	60 per Search service application; 4 per server	Supported
Index partitions	20 per search service application; 128 total	25 per Search service application	25 per Search service application	Supported
Index replicas		3 per index partition	3 per index partition	Supported
Content processing components		1 per server	1 per server	Supported
Query processing components		1 per server	1 per server	Supported
Search components		64 per Search service application	64 per Search service application	Supported
Search service applications	20 per farm	20 per farm	20 per farm	Supported
Content sources	50 per search service application	500 per Search service application	500 per Search service application	Boundary

Search: item size limits

Limit	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Document size crawl component can download	64 MB (3 MB for Excel documents)	64 MB (3 MB for Excel documents)	Threshold
Parsed content size	2 million characters	2 million characters	Boundary
Characters produced by the word breaker	1,000,000	1,000,000	Boundary
Indexed managed property size	512 KB per searchable/queryable managed property	512 KB per searchable/queryable managed property	Threshold
Retrievable managed property size	16 KB per managed property	16 KB per managed property	Threshold
Sortable and refinable managed property size	16 KB per managed property	16 KB per managed property	Boundary
Token size	Variable	Variable	Boundary

Search: dictionary limits

Limit	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Number of entries in a thesaurus	1 million	1 million	Supported
Number of entries in a custom entity extraction dictionary	1 million	1 million	Supported
Number of entries in a custom search dictionary	5,000 terms per tenant	5,000 terms per tenant	Boundary

Search: schema limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Crawled properties	500,000 per search application	500,000 per Search service application	500,000 per Search service application	Supported
Managed properties	100,000 per search service application	50,000 per Search service application	50,000 per Search service application	Supported
Managed property mappings	100 per managed property	100 per managed property	100 per managed property	Supported
Values per managed property		1,000	1,000	Boundary
Metadata properties recognized	10,000 per item crawled	100,000 per crawled item	100,000 per crawled item	Supported

Search: crawl limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Start addresses	100 per content source	500 per content source	500 per content source	Supported
Length of machine host name		15 characters	15 characters	Threshold
Crawl databases	10 crawl databases per search service application	15 per Search service application	15 per Search service application	Supported

Search: query and result limits

Limit	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Text length for queries using Keyword Query Language	4 KB (4,096 characters)	4 KB (4,096 characters)	Supported
Number of rows in a result set	500 rows	500 rows	Supported
Results removal	No limit	No limit	Supported
Search alert quota	100,000 alerts per Search service application	100,000 alerts per Search service application	Supported

Search: ranking limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Ranking models		1,000 per tenant	1,000 per tenant	Boundary
Unique contexts used for ranking		15 unique contexts per rank model	15 unique contexts per rank model	Boundary
Authoritative pages	1 top level and minimal second and third level pages per search service application	1 top level and minimal second and third level pages per Search service application	1 top level and minimal second and third level pages per Search service application	Supported

Search: index limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Unique terms in the index		2^31 (>2 billion terms)	2^31 (>2 billion terms)	Boundary
User defined full text indexes		10	10	Boundary
Indexed items	100 million per search service application; 10 million per index partition	10 million per index partition	20 million per index partition	Supported

User Profile Service limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
User profiles	2,000,000 per service application	2,000,000 per service application	2,000,000 per service application	Supported
Social tags, notes and ratings	500,000,000 per social database	500,000,000 per social database	500,000,000 per social database	Supported

Content deployment limits

The following table lists the recommended guidelines for content deployment.

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Content deployment jobs running on different paths	20	20	20	Supported

Blog limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Blog posts	5,000 per site	5,000 per site	5,000 per site	Supported
Comments	1,000 per post	1,000 per post	1,000 per post	Supported

Business Connectivity Services limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
ECT (in-memory)	5,000 per Web server (per tenant)	5,000 per web server (per tenant)	5,000 per web server (per tenant)	Boundary
External system connections	500 per Web server	500 per web server	500 per web server	Boundary
Database items returned per request	2,000 per database connector	2,000 per database connector	2,000 per database connector	Threshold
Response latency		600 seconds	600 seconds	Threshold
Service response size		150,000,000 bytes	150,000,000 bytes	Threshold
Filter Descriptor (in-store)		200 per ECT method	200 per ECT method	Boundary
ECT Identifier (in-store)		20 per ECT	20 per ECT	Boundary
Database Item		1,000,000 per request	1,000,000 per request	Threshold

Workflow limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Workflow postpone threshold	15	15	15	Threshold
Workflow timer batch size	100	100	100	Threshold
Workflow associations		100 per list	100 per list	Supported
List items or documents that can be bulk created or uploaded to start workflow instances		5,000 items	5,000 items	Supported
Published workflow definitions per web site		1,000 per web site	1,000 per web site	Supported
Total workflow associations per site		1,799 per site	1,799 per site	Boundary
Maximum workflow definition (xaml) size		5,120 KB	5,120 KB	Boundary
Maximum depth of a workflow sub-step in xaml (workflow complexity)		121 levels	121 levels	Boundary
Workflow instance activations per second per web server		6 per second	6 per second	Threshold
Rest calls from SharePoint workflow per second per web server		60 per second	60 per second	Supported
Workflow variable value size		256 KB	256 KB	Boundary
Maximum list size for workflow lookups to non-indexed fields		5,000 items per list view	5,000 items per list view	Threshold
Maximum list size for auto-start workflow associations		10 million items per list	10 million items per list	Supported

Managed Metadata limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Number of folders with location-based defaults		1,000 folders per site, or data file size of 256 Mb		Boundary
Number of links in or file size of a document that are updated when the target location changes		1,000 links or file size of 256 Mb per document		Boundary

Managed Metadata term store (database) limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Maximum number of levels of nested terms in a term store	7	7	7	Supported
Maximum number of term sets in a term store	1,000	1,000	1,000	Supported
Maximum number of terms in a term set	30,000	30,000	30,000	Supported
Total number of items in a term store	1,000,000	1,000,000	1,000,000	Supported
Number of Variation Labels		209 per term store	209 per term store	Supported
Number of terms in managed navigation term set		2,000	2,000	Supported
Number of direct child-terms in managed navigation term set			300	Supported

Visio Services limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
File size of Visio web drawings	50 MB	50 MB	50 MB	Threshold
Visio web drawing recalculation time-out	120 seconds	120 seconds	120 seconds	Threshold
Visio Services minimum cache age (data connected diagrams)	Minimum cache age: 0 to 24hr	Minimum cache age: 0 to 24hrs	Minimum cache age: 0 to 24hrs	Threshold
Visio Services maximum cache age (non-data connected diagrams)	Maximum cache age: 0 to 24hrs	Maximum cache age: 0 to 24hrs	Maximum cache age: 0 to 24hrs	Threshold

PerformancePoint Services limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Cells	1,000,000 per query on Excel Services data source	1,000,000 per query on Excel Services data source	1,000,000 per query on Excel Services data source	Boundary
Columns and rows	15 columns by 60,000 rows	15 columns by 60,000 rows	15 columns by 60,000 rows	Threshold
Query on a SharePoint list	15 columns by 5,000 rows	15 columns by 5,000 rows	15 columns by 5,000 rows	Supported
Query on a SQL Server data source	15 columns by 20,000 rows	15 columns by 20,000 rows	15 columns by 20,000 rows	Supported

Word Automation Services limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Input file Size	512 MB	512 MB	512 MB	Boundary
Frequency with which to start conversions (minutes)	1 minute (recommended) 15 minutes (default) 59 minutes (boundary)	1 minute (recommended) 15 minutes (default) 59 minutes (boundary)	1 minute (recommended) 15 minutes (default) 59 minutes (boundary)	Threshold
Number of conversions to start per conversion process	For PDF/XPS output formats: 30 x MFor all other output formats: 72 x M Where M is the value of Frequency with which to start conversions (minutes)	For PDF/XPS output formats: 30 x MFor all other output formats: 72 x M Where M is the value of Frequency with which to start conversions (minutes)	For PDF/XPS output formats: 30 x MFor all other output formats: 72 x M Where M is the value of Frequency with which to start conversions (minutes)	Threshold
Conversion job size	100,000 conversion items	100,000 conversion items	100,000 conversion items	Supported
Total active conversion processes	N-1, where N is the number of cores on each application server	N-1, where N is the number of cores on each application server	N-1, where N is the number of cores on each application server	Threshold
Word Automation Services database size	2 million conversion items	2 million conversion items	2 million conversion items	Supported

Excel Services limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Maximum workbook size		10 MB		Supported

Machine Translation Service limits

Limit	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Input file size for binary files	524,288 KB per file	524,288 KB per file	Threshold
Input file size for text files	15,360 KB per file	15,360 KB per file	Threshold
Maximum character count for Microsoft Word Documents	10,000,000 per document	10,000,000 per document	Threshold
Total concurrent translation processes	5	5	Threshold
Delay between translations	59 minutes	59 minutes	Threshold
Number of translations per translation process	1,000 per process	1,000 per process	Threshold
Maximum concurrent translation requests	300	300	Threshold
Files per translation job	100,000 files	100,000 files	Supported
Machine Translation Service database size	1,000,000 files	1,000,000 files	Supported

Office Online / Office Application Service limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Cache size	100 GB	100 GB	100 GB	Threshold
Renders	One per document per second per CPU core per application server (maximum eight cores)	One per document per second per CPU core per application server (maximum eight cores)	One per document per second per CPU core per application server (maximum eight cores)	Boundary
OneNote concurrent merge operations		8 per document	8 per document	Threshold

Project Server limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
End of project time	Date: 12/31/2049	Date: 12/31/2149	Date: 12/31/2149	Boundary
Deliverables per project plan	1,500 deliverables	1,500 deliverables	1,500 deliverables	Boundary
Number of fields in a view	256	256	256	Boundary
Number of clauses in a filter for a view	50	50	50	Boundary

SharePoint Apps limits

Limit	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Maximum Access/SharePoint App Package size	100 Mb	100 Mb	Boundary
Maximum Access app database storage size in SQL Azure	1 Gb	1 Gb	Boundary
Apps displayed in Manage Licenses page	2,000	2,000	Boundary
Number of app licenses per tenant	1,000,000	1,000,000	Supported
Number of apps displayed in the Add an App page	240	240	Boundary
Number of managers per app license	30	30	Boundary
Number of app licenses assigned to a user viewable by that user	2,000	2,000	Boundary
Number of apps in the corporate catalog viewable by a single user	500	500	Boundary

Distributed cache service limits

Limit	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Number of followable entities (users, documents, sites and hashtags) per cache host	400,000	400,000	Supported
Number of cache hosts in a cluster	16	16	Boundary
Maximum amount of memory dedicated to a cache host	16GB	16GB	Boundary

Miscellaneous limits

Limit	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2013	SharePoint 2016	Limit type
Number of User agent substrings per device channel		150	150	Boundary
Number of SharePoint sources per EDiscovery case		100	100	Boundary
Number of Exchange sources (mailboxes) per EDiscovery case		1,500	1,500	Boundary
Maximum size of EDiscovery Query	200 per site collection	16K characters or 500 keywords	16K characters or 500 keywords	Boundary