Microsoft retires InfoPath on July 14, 2026. The forms you depend on stop working, the workflows underneath them lose their foundation, and the work to replace them is bigger than most teams think. This guide is the playbook.
If your organization still runs business processes on Microsoft InfoPath, the runway is short. Microsoft has set July 14, 2026, as the full retirement date for InfoPath Forms Services across SharePoint Online, SharePoint Server 2016, SharePoint Server 2019, and SharePoint Server Subscription Edition. The forms stop opening, submitting, and rendering in SharePoint Online. On-premises forms continue to render but become unsupported.
This guide is for the team responsible for that migration. It covers exactly what is ending, why on-premises customers face a different problem than cloud-only customers, the four serious replacement options on the market in 2026, the eight-step playbook to migrate without surprises, and how NITRO Studio by Crow Canyon Software replaces InfoPath end to end. Every number is sourced. Every recommendation comes from a Microsoft Solutions Partner that has been doing this work for 27+ years.
What this guide covers
- The 2026 retirement timeline and what each milestone actually breaks
- Why SharePoint on-premises customers have a harder problem than cloud-only customers
- Three migration anti-patterns that cost teams six months
- The four serious replacement options: NITRO Studio, Power Apps and Power Automate, FlowForma, Plumsail Forms
- The eight-step InfoPath migration playbook
- How NITRO Studio replaces InfoPath, end to end, across SharePoint On-Premises and SharePoint Online / Microsoft 365 deployments
- Real customer migrations: Air Wisconsin (400+ forms) and Honu Services
- Pricing, scope, and platform comparison across all four options
- Frequently asked questions
Section 1. The 2026 InfoPath retirement timeline
InfoPath has been on a long, public glide path. Microsoft stopped active development in 2014. Extended support has kept the product alive while customers planned alternatives. The 2026 timeline closes the window across two milestones that affect different parts of the environment in different ways.
Milestone 1: May 18, 2026. Publishing is blocked.
This is the date most external coverage misses. On May 18, 2026, Microsoft began blocking the publishing of new InfoPath forms and the publishing of updates to existing InfoPath forms across every Microsoft 365 tenant. The block applies to all Microsoft 365 environments, including GCC and GCC High.
In practical terms, a designer can still open InfoPath Designer 2013 on a workstation and edit a form file locally, but the publish action into SharePoint Online no longer completes. Existing already-published forms keep working. End users can still open them, fill them in, and submit them. But the forms cannot be patched, modified, or replaced through SharePoint Online. If a business rule needs to change between May 18 and July 14, the only path forward is to rebuild that form on a replacement platform.
The failure mode has already shifted, well ahead of the final retirement date. The fix for a broken InfoPath form is no longer an InfoPath fix. It is a migration.
Milestone 2: July 14, 2026. InfoPath retires.
On July 14, 2026, the following actions take effect across Microsoft’s InfoPath surface:
- InfoPath Forms Services is removed from SharePoint Online for all tenants. Existing forms no longer open, submit, or render in SharePoint Online lists, libraries, or content types.
- Configuration capabilities are removed from the SharePoint Admin Center. Custom InfoPath forms can no longer be created or modified.
- InfoPath Client 2013 reaches the end of its extended support period.
- Extended support for InfoPath Forms Services on SharePoint Server 2016, SharePoint Server 2019, and SharePoint Server Subscription Edition ends.
- SharePoint Server 2016 and SharePoint Server 2019 themselves reach the end of extended support on the same date. For on-premises customers, the entire farm becomes unsupported, not just the forms layer.
- SharePoint Designer 2013 sharing the same retirement date means InfoPath forms and paired legacy workflows will lose support at the exact same time.
- The SharePoint 2010 workflow engine retires on the same date. SharePoint Server Subscription Edition keeps SharePoint 2013-based workflows beyond July 14 only via the new SharePoint Workflow Manager (a separate Microsoft product), not the legacy engine.
What this means for SharePoint on-premises customers, specifically
Cloud-only InfoPath deployments have a sharp deadline. On July 14, the forms will stop working. The path forward is clean, even if the migration is hard. SharePoint on-premises customers have a more complicated picture.
InfoPath forms on SharePoint Server 2016, 2019, or Subscription Edition will not stop loading overnight on July 14, 2026. They will keep rendering. They will keep accepting submissions. But Microsoft will no longer issue security patches, compatibility fixes, or bug fixes for InfoPath Forms Services. SharePoint Server 2016 and 2019 themselves lose Microsoft support on the same date. Future Windows updates, browser updates, or SharePoint cumulative updates can break form rendering or business logic silently.
For Government, Healthcare, and Banking organizations, this is the bigger problem. Running production business processes on Microsoft-unsupported infrastructure is a compliance finding. Auditors do not accept the argument that the software still functions. CMMC, FedRAMP, HIPAA, and PCI DSS frameworks all require vendor-supported platforms for production workloads. The day after July 14 is the day the audit clock starts on the InfoPath deployments, even if no end user notices anything different.
On-premises customers also carry two parallel problems: the InfoPath migration and the SharePoint Server migration. SharePoint Server Subscription Edition is the supported path forward for organizations that need to stay on-premises. The realistic plan addresses both projects in coordinated phases, not sequentially.
Section 2. The real cost of waiting
The deadline is fixed. The work to migrate is not. Three pressures tighten between now and July 14, and they tighten faster than most teams expect.
A. Implementation capacity is finite
Implementation partners with deep InfoPath experience are working through a fixed pool of migrations. Capacity tightens as the July 14 deadline approaches, and late-cycle migrations also lose access to the optional pre-cutover phases (assessment, parallel run, structured user training) that make adoption stick. Rush quotes may carry rush rates.
B. Data extraction gets harder, then very hard
Before July 14, InfoPath data and templates can still be downloaded from SharePoint libraries via the SharePoint Admin Center. After July 14, those Admin Center options will be removed. Existing form templates (.xsn files) and form data (.xml files) can still be opened locally, but only through InfoPath Client 2013 on a workstation that still has it installed and the file permissions to access the source library. Every quarter that passes after July 14 makes that legacy toolchain harder to source, license, and run, particularly in environments where new device images no longer ship Office 2013-era components.
C. Hidden dependencies surface late
Most InfoPath deployments are not pure InfoPath. They are InfoPath forms feeding SharePoint Designer workflows, often paired with Nintex on top, with downstream connectors into Exchange, Active Directory, on-premises file shares, or external systems. When InfoPath retires, the foundation underneath those workflows shifts too. Teams that scope the migration as “just the forms” usually find the workflow rebuild halfway through the project. The earlier the dependency map is built, the smaller the surprise.
Section 3. Three migration anti-patterns that cost teams six months
Before the playbook, three patterns to avoid. These come from migration projects that hit walls late in the cycle and had to be partially redone.
Anti-pattern 1: Replacing forms-only without the workflow
An InfoPath form is rarely an island. It is usually the entry point of a SharePoint Designer workflow, a Nintex process, or an Exchange routing flow. Teams that scope the project as “swap the forms” rebuild the visible layer and discover the connecting tissue still depends on the retired engine. The right scope is forms plus workflows plus the downstream connectors that feed them. Treating any layer as out of scope creates a second migration project.
Anti-pattern 2: Waiting for Microsoft to extend the deadline
Microsoft has extended InfoPath’s life multiple times since 2014. The 2026 dates feel like they could move again. They will not. Microsoft has stated publicly, on its Tech Community blog and in Message Center notifications, that there is no option to extend InfoPath Forms Services in SharePoint Online beyond July 14, 2026. The earlier publish-side restrictions Microsoft has already enforced in 2026 are evidence that the schedule is locked, not soft. Treating the deadline as flexible is the most expensive assumption a team can make this year.
Anti-pattern 3: Assuming Power Apps is a like-for-like replacement
Microsoft’s recommended path is to combine Power Apps for forms, Power Automate for workflows, and Microsoft Forms for lightweight collection. That works for some teams. For organizations that built real business applications on InfoPath, the gap between “three Microsoft products stitched together” and “one platform that replaces what InfoPath did” is meaningful. Power Apps does not run on SharePoint Server 2016, 2019, or Subscription Edition. Teams whose deployments include on-premises and cloud environments cannot use Power Apps as the unified destination. The right replacement decision is made after mapping the actual environment, not from the assumption that the Microsoft default fits.
Section 4. The four serious InfoPath replacement options
Microsoft does not offer a one-to-one InfoPath replacement. The market has filled the gap with platforms of different shapes. Four are commonly evaluated in 2026. Here is an honest summary of each, in the order organizations typically shortlist them when scope includes both forms and workflows, both cloud and on-premises.
1. NITRO Studio by Crow Canyon Software
NITRO Studio is a no-code/low-code Application Builder Platform purpose-built for Microsoft 365 and SharePoint. It is the platform Crow Canyon has built and refined since 1999, and the platform Crow Canyon uses to migrate organizations off InfoPath today. Crow Canyon Software is headquartered in California. Over a thousand organizations run on NITRO Studio, including the State of California Franchise Tax Board, US Department of Justice, Office of Naval Intelligence, Ballad Health, FSU Credit Union, National University of Singapore, University of Houston, Ventura Foods, AstenJohnson, and Air Wisconsin.
Where it fits:
- Microsoft 365 and SharePoint organizations in Government, Healthcare, Banking, and other industries where security matters
- Teams that need forms, workflows, portals, dashboards, list views, reports, and a clean connection with other purpose-built business applications available from Crow Canyon
- NITRO Studio supports SharePoint On-Premises in two modes, Normal Mode connected to Crow Canyon’s Azure and a fully air-gapped mode through NITRO Secure, and SharePoint Online / Microsoft 365 with the NITRO Studio Engine hosted in Crow Canyon’s Azure (Shared), the customer’s own commercial Azure (Dedicated), the customer’s Microsoft GCC, or the customer’s Microsoft GCC High.
- Buyers who want flat, predictable pricing instead of per-form, per-flow, per-process, or per-connector meters
What it covers:
- Drag-and-drop form designer with cascading lookups, conditional rules, validations, and permissions at the field level
- Workflow manager with approvals, parallel branches, timers, SLAs, and escalations
- Purpose-built business applications available from Crow Canyon as separately licensed add-ons built on NITRO Studio: IT Help Desk, HR Help Desk, Purchasing, Asset Management, Work Orders, and more
- The entire application layer: dedicated user portals, executive dashboards, custom list views, and graphical reports right inside SharePoint
- NITRO Copilot AI features (AI-generated emails, AI-powered workflows) on cloud deployments
- A structured InfoPath migration delivered as a Crow Canyon professional service, which tracks form inventory, conversion status, and cutover progress.
Pricing:
- Starts at $5,988 per 100 users per year for the NITRO Studio license. Flat rate. Unlimited forms. Unlimited workflows. No usage overages or surprise fees. No AI usage credit fees from Crow Canyon. Organizations integrating third-party AI models (for example, GPT) may have separate usage costs from those providers. Pricing varies by deployment (on-premises and cloud have different SKUs); contact Crow Canyon for deployment-specific pricing.
2. Microsoft Power Apps and Power Automate
Microsoft’s recommended path. The full Microsoft path combines Power Apps for forms, Power Automate for workflows, and Microsoft Forms for lightweight data collection. Power Apps handles the form-building layer. Power Automate handles the workflow layer. The combination is well-documented and tightly integrated with Microsoft 365.
Where it fits:
- Cloud-first organizations already standardized on Microsoft 365
- Teams with developer support, comfortable working in Power Fx, Dataverse, and connectors
- Use cases where the application layer and the workflow layer are roughly equal in complexity
Where it falls short:
- No native deployment on SharePoint Server 2016, 2019, or Subscription Edition. Organizations that need to keep any portion of the environment on-premises cannot use Power Apps as the unified destination.
- Per-user, per-flow licensing means costs climb with usage. Premium connectors, Process Mining, and AI Builder are separate add-ons.
- Power Apps Premium is $20 per user per month. Power Automate Premium is $15 per user per month (Microsoft published pricing). Stacked for a typical InfoPath replacement scope, the math lands at roughly $42,000 per year for 100 users. The $12 per user volume tier requires a 2,000-seat minimum, which is outside the typical mid-market and government buyer profile.
- Building a complete business application means stitching Power Apps, Power Automate, Microsoft Forms, and often Power BI together. The learning curve on Power Fx and Dataverse is real.
- Power Platform functionality is reduced in GCC and GCC High environments. NITRO Studio’s is not.
For a full breakdown, see the NITRO Studio vs Power Apps comparison.
3. FlowForma
FlowForma is a no-code process automation platform with strong content presence in the Nintex replacement and InfoPath replacement space. Headquartered in Dublin with offices in New York and London.
Where it fits:
- Mid-sized cloud organizations running a small number of well-governed processes
- Industries like construction, healthcare, and finance, where audit and governance features are central to the buying decision
- Teams that want to write workflows in business-readable steps rather than developer logic
Where it falls short:
- Process-based licensing. The Essentials plan starts at $28,164 per year for up to 3 processes. The Professional plan is approximately $39,516 per year for up to 30 processes. Process counts grow faster than buyers expect. That is roughly five times the cost of NITRO Studio’s flat-rate license for a comparable migration.
- Cloud only. No support for SharePoint on-premises, GCC High, or air-gapped environments. For regulated industries that require those environments, this is a dealbreaker.
- Forms and workflow-centric. For organizations that need a full application platform with portals, dashboards, list views, and pre-built business applications, FlowForma covers part of that scope, not all of it.
For a head-to-head, see the NITRO Studio vs FlowForma comparison.
4. Plumsail Forms
Plumsail Forms is a focused SharePoint forms product from a Latvia-based vendor. Well-regarded by SharePoint developers for customization depth, particularly the JavaScript and CSS hooks that let teams extend forms beyond default behavior.
Where it fits:
- Teams that already have SharePoint developer skills and want a forms layer that exposes hooks into JavaScript and CSS
- Small to mid-sized deployments where the scope really is forms-only
- Organizations on SharePoint Online or SharePoint Server 2019 / Subscription Edition
Where it falls short:
- Forms-focused product, not a full application platform. Workflow, portals, dashboards, and business applications come from other Plumsail products or external tools.
- No support for SharePoint Server 2016 on-premises. Organizations still on SharePoint Server 2016 (a meaningful share of regulated environments) need a different path.
- Plumsail Forms is licensed as a flat subscription per tenant domain for cloud deployments (unlimited users and forms). On-premises deployments use a per-Web Front End (WFE) server model with separate annual maintenance renewals and standalone development licenses to build and test forms safely.
- Advanced customization often requires developer skills in JavaScript, which sits closer to a developer tool than a no-code/low-code platform for business users.
- Plumsail’s cloud automation connectors are completely unavailable within GCC High environments. Plumsail Forms can be installed in GCC High via manual App Catalog upload, but automation connectors do not function there.
For a head-to-head, see the NITRO Studio vs Plumsail Forms comparison.
Section 5. Side-by-side comparison
| Capability | NITRO Studio | Power Apps + Power Automate | FlowForma | Plumsail Forms |
| Product category | Full Application Builder Platform (forms, workflows, portals, dashboards, applications) | Two Microsoft products stitched together | Process automation platform | SharePoint forms add-in |
| SharePoint Online | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SharePoint Server 2016 | Yes | No | No | No |
| SharePoint Server 2019 / SE | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| GCC | Yes | Yes (US Sovereign Cloud, US Gov Community / US Gov High environments) | No | Yes |
| GCC High | Yes | Yes (US Sovereign Cloud – US Gov Community / US Gov High environments) | No | Forms only (manual App Catalog upload); cloud automation connectors not available in GCC High |
| Air-gapped / on-prem secure | Yes (NITRO Secure) | No | No | No |
| Pricing model | Flat annual, unlimited forms and workflows | Per user, per month, per flow, plus connectors | Per process, monthly | Per user (cloud) or per WFE server (on-prem) |
| 100-user reference cost (full scope) | Starts at $5,988 per year | Starts at $42,000 / year | Starts at $28,164 per year flat (Essentials, up to 3 processes); scales with process count | Varies by user count and WFE configuration |
| Dedicated InfoPath migration team | Yes (dedicated Crow Canyon migration team) | Self-serve or third-party partner | InfoPath conversion utility available | Self-serve or developer-led |
Section 6. The Crow Canyon InfoPath migration playbook
This is the framework Crow Canyon uses for InfoPath migrations. It applies whether the destination platform is NITRO Studio or another option. The work is the same. The platform changes what “rebuild” looks like.
Step 1. Inventory every InfoPath form in the environment
Most organizations underestimate how many InfoPath forms they have. Forms live in obvious places (HR onboarding, finance approvals, IT requests) and unobvious ones (one-off departmental forms built by a former employee years ago and still in active use). Microsoft provides the Microsoft 365 Assessment Tool to scan a tenant for InfoPath usage. Crow Canyon provides PowerShell scripts that read InfoPath forms on the SharePoint server and output the inventory to CSV. Either approach is fine. The point is to have a complete list before scoping the migration.
Step 2. Categorize forms by business criticality and complexity
Not every form deserves the same effort. A single-page departmental survey used twice a year is not in the same category as a multi-stage purchase request that touches three approval levels. Split the inventory into three buckets: retire (the form is no longer used), simplify (rebuild with reduced scope), and full rebuild (replicate the existing functionality).
Step 3. Map data connections and workflow logic
InfoPath forms rarely live in isolation. Most pull data from SharePoint lists, push data to external systems, or trigger SharePoint Designer workflows on submission. Document every data connection, every workflow trigger, and every external integration before rebuilding. This is the work that surfaces hidden dependencies and prevents Anti-pattern 1.
Step 4. Choose the destination platform
By this point, the inventory and the dependency map make the platform decision sharper. If the deployment is entirely cloud and the team has Power Platform skills, Power Apps, and Power Automate may fit. If the scope is forms-only on SharePoint 2019 or Subscription Edition, Plumsail Forms is workable. If there are fewer than thirty cloud-only processes and price isn’t a concern, FlowForma may be worth a demo. If the deployment includes on-premises and cloud, NITRO Studio is the option that covers SharePoint On-Premises (connected or air-gapped via NITRO Secure) and SharePoint Online / Microsoft 365 (with the engine hosted in Crow Canyon’s Azure (Shared), your own commercial Azure (Dedicated), your Microsoft GCC, or your Microsoft GCC High) under one platform and one license.
Step 5. Rebuild forms and workflows on the destination platform
This is the step most teams scope as “the migration,” but it is one of eight, not the entire project. On NITRO Studio, rebuilds reuse the same SharePoint constructs (lists, libraries, permissions, content types) that InfoPath uses, which keeps the timeline shorter than a paradigm shift to Power Platform. Most NITRO Studio customers reach go-live within approximately three months on this step, though the actual time varies with the volume of forms and the depth of workflow logic in scope.
Step 6. Test, validate, and run in parallel
Run the new forms and workflows in parallel with InfoPath for a defined period. Compare outputs side by side. Validate that every business rule survived the rebuild. Get sign-off from the business owners of each process before the cutover. This is the step that catches the “we forgot about that form” surprise before it becomes a production incident.
Step 7. Extract InfoPath form data and templates
Now that the replacement is built and validated in Step 6, download the InfoPath form data (.xml files) and templates (.xsn files) from SharePoint libraries before July 14, 2026. Doing this before rebuilds were complete would pull the active interface down and break live business processes prematurely; doing it now preserves the source artifacts safely for archive and audit. After July 14, the SharePoint Admin Center options for InfoPath are removed, and the only access path is the local InfoPath Client 2013 on a workstation that still has it installed. Crow Canyon’s professional migration services track this extraction step alongside the rebuild work.
Step 8. Cutover and decommission InfoPath
Switch users to the new platform. Archive InfoPath data per the organization’s retention policy. Remove InfoPath form templates from SharePoint libraries. Document the cutover in the change log. The earlier this step lands in the calendar relative to July 14, 2026, the lower the risk of running a parallel period inside an unsupported window.
Section 7. How NITRO Studio replaces InfoPath, end to end
NITRO Studio is built around the same SharePoint constructs that InfoPath uses. Lists, libraries, permissions, and content types. The forms layer feels familiar to InfoPath builders, with a designer that maps cleanly to InfoPath patterns. The workflow layer maps to the kind of approval logic InfoPath designers were already wiring into SharePoint Designer.
That overlap shortens the rebuild. Teams that built or maintain the original InfoPath deployments can rebuild it in NITRO Studio without learning a new authoring paradigm. This is the practical reason Crow Canyon’s InfoPath migrations land faster than parallel migrations to Power Platform, where forms move into Power Apps, workflow moves into Power Automate, and the SharePoint data model often shifts into Dataverse.
Deployment options for NITRO Studio
NITRO Studio runs in any major Microsoft 365 and SharePoint environment. For organizations whose InfoPath deployment is in one environment, NITRO Studio fits there. For organizations whose InfoPath deployment is in more than one environment, NITRO Studio is installed separately in each environment, but Crow Canyon delivers all the installations as one coordinated migration, so the project does not split across two products. Here are the deployment options:
- SharePoint On-Premises (SharePoint Server 2016, SharePoint Server 2019, and SharePoint Server Subscription Edition), available in two modes:
- Normal Mode, where the on-premises NITRO Studio installation connects to Crow Canyon’s Azure.
- NITRO Secure (air-gapped) is a fully disconnected, high-security mode with no external communication, designed for organizations with stringent security requirements, including defense, intelligence, space, and nuclear operations.
- SharePoint Online within the customer’s Microsoft 365 tenant, with the NITRO Studio Engine hosted in one of four locations:
- NITRO Studio Engine is hosted in Crow Canyon’s Azure environment (Shared).
- NITRO Studio Engine is hosted in the customer’s own commercial Azure tenancy (Dedicated).
- NITRO Studio Engine is hosted within the customer’s Microsoft Government Community Cloud (GCC) environment, enabling customers in regulated industries, as well as U.S. federal, state, and local government agencies, to maintain full control over both their data and software.
- NITRO Studio Engine is hosted within the customer’s Microsoft GCC High environment, enabling organizations handling Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) and ITAR-regulated data to maintain full control over both their data and software while meeting stringent security and compliance requirements. This option is particularly suited for highly regulated industries, defense organizations, and government agencies.
For GCC and GCC High deployments, NITRO Studio runs inside the customer’s own Microsoft government tenant, not on infrastructure managed or hosted by Crow Canyon. Your data and software stay where your compliance mandate requires them to.
What InfoPath did, and what NITRO Studio adds
| InfoPath did this | NITRO Studio adds this |
| Custom forms tied to SharePoint lists | Modern, mobile-responsive forms with conditional rules, cascading lookups, validations, and tabs |
| Form publishing to SharePoint libraries | The entire application layer: dedicated user portals, executive dashboards, custom list views, and graphical reports right inside SharePoint |
| Data connections to SharePoint and external sources | Native SharePoint integration plus API connections to external systems |
| Workflow triggers via SharePoint Designer | Visual workflow designer with approvals, parallel branches, SLAs, and escalations |
| Manual repetition of departmental processes | Purpose-built business applications available to add from Crow Canyon as separately licensed add-ons built on NITRO Studio: IT Help Desk, HR Help Desk, Purchasing, Asset Management, Work Orders, and more |
| No AI | NITRO Copilot AI features (AI-generated emails, AI-powered workflows) on cloud deployments |
Section 8. How real customers migrated off InfoPath
Air Wisconsin: 400+ InfoPath forms replaced with NITRO Studio
Air Wisconsin’s business processes were highly dependent on Microsoft InfoPath, SharePoint Workflows, and other legacy systems. The challenge was scale. More than 400 InfoPath forms supported airline operations and back-office processes. The team needed a replacement that could match the existing functionality, reproduce it inside their Microsoft environment, and survive the InfoPath retirement without disrupting day-to-day operations.
Air Wisconsin moved to NITRO Studio. The migration covered both the InfoPath forms layer and the SharePoint Workflows underneath. The team rebuilt the deployments on a platform that runs natively inside SharePoint and uses the same list, library, and permission constructs Air Wisconsin’s developers were already familiar with.
Read the full case study: Air Wisconsin InfoPath Replacement Options.
Honu Services: from InfoPath to NITRO Studio across a dozen client environments
Honu Services, based in Hawai’i, provides business expertise, back-office support, and strategic development to more than a dozen small businesses and government agencies on the islands. The team needed a SharePoint-based forms and workflow solution that was dynamic, responsive, and easy to use across multiple client environments. The replacement had to reproduce applications across different clients and allow quick creation of forms without coding.
After moving from InfoPath to NITRO Studio, the team’s verdict was direct.
“NITRO Forms is far superior to InfoPath, and provides more functionality paired with great responsive technology. The limitations of InfoPath and lack of support prompted us to switch to NITRO Studio.”
Honu Services
Read the full case study: Honu Services NITRO Studio Review.
Section 9. Who should choose which platform
Here is the honest answer, based on your needs.
Choose NITRO Studio if…
- Your environment is one or more of: SharePoint Online, SharePoint Server 2016, 2019, or Subscription Edition, your Microsoft GCC, your Microsoft GCC High, or air-gapped on-premises via NITRO Secure (even just one of these environments is a great fit)
- You are in Government, Healthcare, Banking, or another industry where security matters
- Your InfoPath deployment is large or paired with SharePoint Designer workflows
- You want flat, predictable pricing instead of per-form, per-flow, per-process, or per-connector meters
- You want forms, workflows, portals, dashboards, and the option to add purpose-built business applications (Help Desk, Purchasing, HR, Asset Management, Work Orders, and more)
Choose Power Apps and Power Automate if…
- Your environment is cloud-only on Microsoft 365
- You have developer support for Power Fx, Dataverse, and connectors
- Your InfoPath scope was narrow, and the rebuild is small
- You have headroom in the Microsoft license bill for approximately $42,000 per year per 100 users
Choose FlowForma if…
- Your environment is cloud-only
- You have a budget of roughly $30,000 or more per year (about five times the cost of NITRO Studio’s flat-rate license)
- You have a small, well-defined set of processes (under 30), and the process count will not grow much
- You do not need SharePoint on-premises, GCC, GCC High, or air-gapped deployment
- Process governance and audit features are the dominant requirements
Choose Plumsail Forms if…
- Your scope is genuinely forms-only and will stay that way
- Your environment is SharePoint Online, SharePoint Server 2019, or Subscription Edition (not 2016)
- You have SharePoint developer skills in JavaScript and CSS
- You are comfortable assembling the workflow, portal, and dashboard layers from other tools
- You can budget separately for Power Automate or another workflow product to handle automation, since Plumsail Forms by itself does not replace InfoPath’s workflow side
Section 10. Why Crow Canyon Software
Crow Canyon Software, Headquartered in California, has been a Microsoft Solutions Partner for 27+ years. The InfoPath replacement work is not a new offering. It is the work the company has been doing since InfoPath was first deprecated in 2014. Over a thousand organizations run on NITRO Studio today, with strong adoption in Government, Healthcare, and Banking, the three most highly regulated industries, where data residency, compliance, and platform security are non-negotiable.
The trust signal list spans US federal agencies, state agencies, large enterprises, healthcare systems, financial institutions, airlines, higher education, non-profits, space agencies, and power plants. Specific customers include the State of California Franchise Tax Board, US Department of Justice, Office of Naval Intelligence, US Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, California Air Resources Board, Renton Regional Fire Authority, Ballad Health, IDT Biologika GmbH, FSU Credit Union, Air Wisconsin, Ventura Foods, Ingram, AstenJohnson, National University of Singapore, and University of Houston.
Three things make the Crow Canyon InfoPath engagement different from a typical platform purchase:
- A structured migration approach, delivered through Crow Canyon’s professional services, that tracks form inventory, conversion status, and cutover progress throughout the project.
- A dedicated migration team that runs the rebuild as a managed engagement when the customer prefers turnkey delivery, or works alongside the customer’s internal team in a hybrid model.
- Support for SharePoint On-Premises (connected or air-gapped via NITRO Secure) and SharePoint Online / Microsoft 365 (with the NITRO Studio Engine hosted in Crow Canyon’s Azure (Shared), your own commercial Azure (Dedicated), your Microsoft GCC, or your Microsoft GCC High) under one platform, so organizations with mixed cloud and on-premises deployments do not split the migration across two products, and organizations using a single environment get the same platform built for any of them.
Pricing starts at $5,988 per 100 users per year for the NITRO Studio license, with unlimited forms and unlimited workflows. There are no usage overages or surprise fees. The license price stays stable through the year. Professional migration services are quoted separately based on the scope of your deployment. Whatever the InfoPath deployment looks like at the start of the migration, the license commitment you make is what you pay for the year.
Move off InfoPath before the deadline
Thirty minutes with a Crow Canyon specialist. We will look at your InfoPath inventory, your SharePoint environment, and your deadline, and tell you what the realistic migration timeline looks like from where you stand today. No charge, no commitment.
Frequently Asked Questions
On July 14, 2026, Microsoft fully retires InfoPath Forms Services across SharePoint Online, SharePoint Server 2016, SharePoint Server 2019, and SharePoint Server Subscription Edition. After that date, InfoPath forms no longer open, submit, or render in SharePoint Online. InfoPath Client 2013 reaches the end of its extended support period on the same date. The retirement applies across all Microsoft 365 environments, including GCC and GCC High.
Yes. Microsoft is fully retiring InfoPath. Active development stopped in 2014 with InfoPath 2013. Extended support ends on July 14, 2026. Since May 18, 2026, Microsoft has also blocked the publishing of new InfoPath forms and updates to existing InfoPath forms across Microsoft 365 tenants, ahead of the full retirement date.
Four serious platforms are commonly evaluated: NITRO Studio by Crow Canyon Software, Microsoft Power Apps with Power Automate, FlowForma, and Plumsail Forms. NITRO Studio is the option that covers SharePoint On-Premises (connected or air-gapped via NITRO Secure) and SharePoint Online / Microsoft 365, with the NITRO Studio Engine hosted in Crow Canyon's Azure (Shared), the customer's own commercial Azure (Dedicated), the customer's Microsoft GCC, or the customer's Microsoft GCC High. Power Apps fits cloud-only environments with developer support. FlowForma fits mid-sized cloud organizations with a small process count. Plumsail Forms fits forms-only scopes on SharePoint Online or SharePoint Server 2019 and Subscription Edition.
Follow an eight-step playbook:
- Inventory every InfoPath form
- Categorize by criticality
- Map data connections and workflow logic
- Choose the destination platform
- Rebuild forms and workflows on the destination platform
- Test and validate in parallel
- Extract InfoPath form data and templates
- Cut over and decommission InfoPath
Crow Canyon provides PowerShell scripts for inventory, conversion tracking, and a dedicated professional services team that runs the rebuild as a managed engagement or alongside the customer's internal team.
In SharePoint Online, yes. After July 14, 2026, InfoPath forms no longer open, submit, or render in SharePoint Online lists, libraries, or content types. On SharePoint Server 2016, 2019, and Subscription Edition, existing InfoPath forms continue to load technically, but Microsoft no longer provides security patches, compatibility updates, or bug fixes. Running unsupported software is a compliance finding in regulated industries.
No. Since May 18, 2026, Microsoft has blocked the publishing of new or updated InfoPath forms across all Microsoft 365 tenants, including GCC and GCC High. Existing published forms remain available until July 14, 2026, but cannot be modified or replaced through SharePoint Online. The only way to change a form between now and the retirement date is to rebuild it on a replacement platform.
No. Microsoft's recommended path is to combine Power Apps for forms, Power Automate for workflows, and Microsoft Forms for lightweight data collection. There is no single Microsoft product that replaces InfoPath end-to-end. NITRO Studio by Crow Canyon Software is designed as a purpose-built InfoPath replacement that covers forms, workflows, portals, and dashboards under one platform.
NITRO Studio starts at $5,988 per 100 users per year, flat rate, with unlimited forms and workflows. The realistic, scope-matched cost for Power Apps Premium plus Power Automate Premium is approximately $42,000 per year for 100 users. NITRO Studio also runs on SharePoint Server 2016, 2019, Subscription Edition on-premises, either in Normal Mode connected to Crow Canyon's Azure or fully air-gapped through NITRO Secure, and on SharePoint Online / Microsoft 365 with the NITRO Studio Engine hosted in Crow Canyon's Azure (Shared), the customer's own commercial Azure (Dedicated), the customer's Microsoft GCC, or the customer's Microsoft GCC High, which Power Apps does not cover natively in any single offering. Power Platform's functionality is also reduced in GCC and GCC High environments; NITRO Studio's is not.
Yes. NITRO Studio runs on SharePoint On-Premises (connected or air-gapped via NITRO Secure) and on SharePoint Online / Microsoft 365 with the NITRO Studio Engine hosted in Crow Canyon's Azure (Shared), the customer's own commercial Azure (Dedicated), the customer's Microsoft GCC, or the customer's Microsoft GCC High. For GCC and GCC High deployments, NITRO Studio runs inside the customer's own Microsoft government tenant, not on infrastructure managed or hosted by Crow Canyon. Pricing varies by deployment (on-premises and cloud SKUs differ); contact Crow Canyon for deployment-specific pricing. Each environment is a separate installation, but Crow Canyon delivers all installations as one coordinated migration.
Most NITRO Studio customers reach go-live within approximately three months. The actual timeline varies widely with the number of forms, the depth of associated workflows, the number of external integrations, and the regulatory review process. High-priority subsets of the deployments can be rebuilt faster. Government and regulated environments can take longer because of compliance reviews.
NITRO Studio starts at $5,988 per 100 users per year, flat rate, with unlimited forms and workflows. FlowForma starts at approximately $28,164 per year for the Essentials plan (up to 3 processes) and approximately $39,516 per year for the Professional plan (up to 30 processes), so the annual cost grows with the number of workflows. That is roughly five times the cost of NITRO Studio's flat-rate license for a comparable migration. FlowForma is cloud-only and does not support SharePoint on-premises, GCC High, or air-gapped environments. Plumsail Forms is licensed as a flat subscription per tenant domain for cloud deployments (unlimited users and forms), and shifts to a per-Web Front End (WFE) server model for on-premises deployments with separate annual maintenance renewals and standalone development licenses. For organizations running more than a handful of processes or a multi-server SharePoint farm, NITRO Studio's flat-rate model is typically lower over a three-year horizon.
Three things. First, Crow Canyon delivers InfoPath migration as a professional service that tracks form inventory, conversion status, and cutover progress through the migration, available from Crow Canyon. Second, a dedicated migration team that runs the rebuild as a managed engagement when the customer prefers turnkey delivery, or works alongside the customer's internal team in a hybrid model. Third, support for SharePoint On-Premises and SharePoint Online / Microsoft 365 (with the NITRO Studio Engine hosted in Crow Canyon's Azure (Shared), your own commercial Azure (Dedicated), your Microsoft GCC, or your Microsoft GCC High) under one platform. Each environment is a separate installation, but Crow Canyon delivers them as one coordinated migration so organizations with mixed cloud and on-premises deployments do not split the project across two products.


