What is the difference between sharing rules and permission sets?

Hi Avnish,

Permission sets only provide general permissions to objects. Creating a permission set is like extending a profile. If your org wide sharing rules for an object are set to private then creating a permission set with create/read/write on that object will only allow them to create and manage their own records and not records owned by other users. If you want them to be able to edit/update other users records then those records need to be shared with tem. You provide access to records, as you have already kind of figured out, using sharing rules.

Sharing rules to extend sharingaccess to users in public groups or roles. As with role hierarchies, sharing rules can never be stricter than your org-wide default settings. They just allow greater access for particular users. You can share records owned by certain users or meeting certain criteria.

Permission sets only provide general permissions to objects. Creating a permission set is like extending a profile. If your org wide sharing rules for an object are set to private then creating a permission set with create/read/write on that object will only allow them to create and manage their own records and not records owned by other users.