The present work examines the fabrication and numerical modelling of honeycomb core sandwich sheets utilizing Friction Stir Spot Welding (FSSW) techniques as prospective substitutes for adhesive-bonded structures. Here, the sandwich sheet contains AA5052-H32 skins and AA3003 honeycomb core. Two strategies, FSSW with disc insert (FSSW_D) and FSSW with disc insert and adhesive bonding (FSSW_D_AB), were evaluated against traditional adhesive-bonded sandwiches using peel test performance and finite element (FE) simulation with cohesive zone modelling (CZM). In the CZM, a homogenized core with an equivalent cohesive layer was substituted for the honeycomb core and cohesive layer. The utilization of FSSW_D and FSSW_D_AB methods resulted in substantial improvements in maximum load capacity, with enhancements in the hybrid sandwich specimen ranging from 254 % to 399 % compared to adhesive-bonded connections. The maximum load of hybrid joints (FSSW_D_AB) was 15 %–23 % higher than that of ordinary spot-welded joints (FSSW_D). An approach to model the hybrid sandwich specimen using both the homogenized core and equivalent cohesive zone model accurately was proposed. FE analysis, including peel tests of adhesive-bonded, spot-welded, and hybrid joints, was performed, and the numerical predictions agreed satisfactorily with the experimental values for all the joint types.