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Power Pages and Power Apps portals are the same product at different points in its life. Microsoft relaunched Power Apps portals as Power Pages in 2022, adding a new design studio, templates and a new licensing model, and existing portals became Power Pages sites, so if you are comparing the two today the real question is what changed and what it means for a portal you already run or one you are planning.
Power Pages is the part of the Microsoft Power Platform used to build secure, data-driven websites for people outside your organisation, such as customer portals, supplier and partner portals, grant or membership applications, and booking sites. It still runs on the same foundations as portals did, so the underlying data, security model and developer tools carried over.
Is Power Pages the same as Power Apps portals?
Yes, in that Power Pages is built on the Power Apps portals platform and is its direct replacement. Microsoft announced Power Pages in May 2022 and it became generally available in October 2022. Portals were moved across rather than retired, and the old Power Apps portals name and licences have been phased out. What you get now is the same core capability with a different studio, more low-code options, AI features and licensing based on monthly users.
What changed when Power Apps portals became Power Pages?
| Area | Power Apps portals | Power Pages |
|---|---|---|
| Building the site | Portals Studio with limited configuration, so makers often had to leave it to set up things like identity providers | Design studio with workspaces for pages, styling, data, security and setup in one place |
| Starting point | A small set of starter portals | A wider set of templates for common scenarios |
| Skills needed | A good site usually needed HTML, CSS, JavaScript or Liquid | Low-code design for most sites, with code still available for anything more advanced |
| AI | None | Copilot can help generate pages, forms and text from a description, and agents can be added to sites |
| External user licensing | Logins capacity, counted as daily unique logins, and page view capacity for anonymous users | Authenticated and anonymous users per website per month, by subscription or pay-as-you-go |
| Licensing prerequisites | Needed a Dynamics 365 or Power Apps base licence, and each extra site used 1 GB of Dataverse capacity | Can be bought standalone, with no Dataverse capacity needed to provision a site and Dataverse storage included |
| Security defaults | Sites created before October 2022 were public as soon as they were provisioned | New sites are private by default until a maker makes them public |
What stayed the same between portals and Power Pages?
A fair amount stayed the same, which is why existing portals moved across without being rebuilt:
- Microsoft Dataverse is still the data platform, so information submitted on the site is available to internal teams working in Power Apps or Dynamics 365
- table permissions, web roles and page permissions still control what each user can see and do
- external users can still sign in with a range of identity providers, and anonymous browsing is still supported
- Liquid templates, the portals Web API, Visual Studio Code and the Power Platform CLI are all still available for professional developers
- sites can still use Power Automate flows and embed Power BI reports
How is Power Pages licensed now?
Power Pages is licensed by unique users per website per month, with separate capacity for authenticated users (people who sign in) and anonymous users (people who browse without signing in). Authenticated capacity comes in packs of 100 users and anonymous capacity in packs of 500, or you can use pay-as-you-go meters based on actual use. Internal staff who already have a Power Apps per user licence or a Dynamics 365 enterprise licence can use Power Pages sites without extra Power Pages capacity, subject to Microsoft's rules on which sites and environments that covers. CDN and web application firewall capabilities are included.
The change from daily logins to monthly users makes a big difference for sites where people sign in often. Under the old model, 100 people logging in every day for a month counted as roughly 3,000 logins, whereas under Power Pages licensing it counts as 100 users.
What should you do if you still have an old Power Apps portal?
Your portal is already a Power Pages site, so there is no migration project in the sense of moving to a new product. There are still a few things worth reviewing:
- check that your licences have moved to Power Pages capacity, as the old portals login and page view licences were only available during the transition period
- open the site in the Power Pages design studio and check that custom code, templates and styling behave as expected
- review table permissions and web roles, particularly on older sites that have been added to over several years
- look at whether newer features, such as Copilot or agents answering common questions on the site, would reduce the load on your support teams
Older portals were sometimes built with a lot of custom code because the studio could not do what was needed. It is often worth looking at whether some of that can now be replaced with standard configuration, which makes the site easier to support.
Is Power Pages the right choice for your website?
Power Pages works best when the site is closely tied to business data and processes, for example where external users submit applications, track the status of a case, update their details or book appointments, and your internal teams work with that same data in Power Apps or Dynamics 365. For a purely marketing website with no sign-in or business data behind it, a content management system is usually a better fit. Our Power Pages page covers the kind of portals we build, and we offer Power Platform support for sites already in production.
Frequently asked questions
When were Power Apps portals renamed Power Pages?
Microsoft announced Power Pages in May 2022 and it became generally available in October 2022, when Power Apps portals became part of Power Pages.
Do I need to rebuild my Power Apps portal in Power Pages?
No. Existing portals became Power Pages sites and continue to run on the same platform. You should review licensing and test the site in the Power Pages design studio, but there is no need to rebuild it.
Can I still buy Power Apps portals licences?
No. The portals login and page view licences were only available during a transition period, and new and renewing customers now buy Power Pages authenticated and anonymous user capacity instead.
If you would like to talk about a new portal or review an existing one, get in touch with us.
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