Difference between SharePoint and AD groups

There are two types of groups which you can find in SharePoint. Those are Domain groups and SharePoint groups. This blog post describes the differences between those two groups briefly.

Domain Groups

• These groups are created and maintained by the IT department.
• Domain groups can be used across different SharePoint sites and Site Collections.
• Organizations may already have good AD group structures that map well to SharePoint implementations.
• We can add another AD Group as a member to an existing AD group – can be nested.
• There are no features for users to submit a request to join a group.

SharePoint Groups

• The creation of groups can be done by business users.
• When a group is being created, we can define who "owns" the group.
• Allow users to submit a request to join a group.
• Can determine who has permissions to see the users within groups.
• Groups which have created within a particular Site Collection cannot be used in other site collections
• We cannot add a SharePoint Group as a member of another SharePoint group -no nesting
• SharePoint Groups cannot be used in other systems (e.g. network Shares)
• SharePoint Groups are separate from Active Directory