As we know that we cannot deploy site definitions on Office 365, Then what are the alternative approaches to achieve the site definitions ?
I think Site provisioning and feature stapling can be the alternative options. Is there any other alternative way to full fill site definitions on SharePoint Online ?
Thanks Jhalak
You can save a site as a template and deploy it to Office 365 site but it will be deployed as a sandboxed solution which is kinda deprecated.
The recommended way now to change your site structure and UI is through remote provisioning. Basically, you will build an App (Console or SharePoint Provider Hosted App) which will pragmatically upload all the needed master pages, page layouts, list definitions and instances).
Everything will be stored in the content DB which is recommended to avoid any linkage to the file system
Microsoft Patterns and Practices team has developed some useful libraries for this purpose, below are some links
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/pnp_articles/pnp-remote-provisioning https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/pnp_articles/branding-and-site-provisioning-solutions-for-sharepoint https://dev.office.com/blogs/feature-framework-vs-remote-provisioning https://dev.office.com/blogs/introduction-to-office-365-dev-pnp-provisioning-engine
You can also check the latest addition, the SharePoint Framework
https://blogs.office.com/2016/05/04/the-sharepoint-framework-an-open-and-connected-platform/
