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Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store) vs Dropbox comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 17, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon EBS (Elastic Block S...
Ranking in Cloud Storage
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Dropbox
Ranking in Cloud Storage
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Content Collaboration Platforms (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Cloud Storage category, the mindshare of Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store) is 2.1%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dropbox is 4.8%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Storage
 

Featured Reviews

MuhammadAzhar Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Diverse features and affordability drive effective resource management
Amazon EBS offers diverse features. It can be used for multi-purpose storage, supporting single, multiple, or heavy loads. It has different types for various use cases, allowing me to choose based on my specific requirements. The primary advantage of Amazon EBS is affordability compared to other solutions like EFS or FSX. It acts as a hard drive for servers, making it essential for operation.
Edgar  Paez - PeerSpot reviewer
Work from anywhere and backup easily while being practical
I recommend Dropbox, yet not for all of the features it has. I am a basic user. In a personal mode, we have about 100 employees, and maybe 20 of them use Dropbox as a personal backup system. ShareFile is more secure than Dropbox. Five years ago, ShareFile was qualified as having better security control, access privilege management, and version control recovery, among many features that we were using for private documentation. Overall, I would rate Dropbox an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Overall, I rate Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store) a nine out of ten."
"I rate the overall solution ten out of ten."
"EBS is a very crucial tool as it acts like a hard disk on cloud, providing cost savings compared to physical hard disks, and only incurring costs based on actual usage."
"EBS can handle Apex, which helps us manage many issues. EBS is easy to use and has high performance."
"The main advantage is the ability to scale up and scale down easily without any downtime."
"The tool's most valuable feature is reliability."
"The solution provides big space that is reasonably priced."
"If EBS is attached to an EC2 instance, it allows secure document storage."
"The user interface is very user-friendly."
"We don't really use the collaboration features because we have only a small organization. Dropbox is valuable having the hard drive space available, and the access to be able to upload and access the content."
"Many people can use the Dropbox service and edit the data, it is simple to use."
"The features that I find most valuable are the ability to sync across devices, easily access/share files and organize them among myself and my team."
"For me, the biggest thing is version history. I can easily go back and view older versions."
"Dropbox is an easy-to-use solution that has good stability."
"The most valuable features I have found to be accessibility and ease of use."
"It offers convenience. It can connect with all devices that you own."
 

Cons

"In Amazon EBS, it is difficult to reduce the space chosen by the customer. The cost increases the moment the size of the storage increases, and I will have to pay for two TB of the tool instead of one TB."
"I see a need for improvement in the scalability of Amazon EBS. If I need something more scalable, I rely on another storage solution like S3."
"Amazon EBS is scalable, but not auto-scaling. I have to manually scale it, especially in Windows instances, which requires downtime."
"Amazon EBS needs to improve its user interface for data transactions."
"The initial setup is not easy."
"One of the major issues in the tool arises whenever it handles a large amount of traffic in the system, making it an area where improvements are required."
"Amazon EBS could improve by offering immutability of the data."
"There are limitations in sharing resources across multiple regions and availability zones. I recommend improving EBS by introducing multi-availability zone support to enhance its functionality."
"The storage is not large enough."
"I would like to have a document flow. S"
"I would like to be able to unarchive my files online."
"Sometimes, it takes a while to start Dropbox services and files are not synced."
"They can maybe provide a bit more free space. By default, they give you 2 Gigabytes. The storage space could be a bit more."
"Currently, it permits up to five users, but for larger families, it would be beneficial to have a more flexible offering."
"They should archive the data."
"The product must provide users with the ability to edit and modify documents."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"On a scale of one to ten, where one is low price, and ten is high, I rate the price a seven."
"The solution is reasonably priced."
"On a scale of one to ten, if one point is a cheap solution and ten points is very expensive, I rate the product price an eight."
"The solution is quite costly."
"The product is low-priced than other solutions."
"The pricing models may be for general purposes, such as Amazon EBS Provisioned IOPS Volume or Amazon EBS Cold HDD Volumes."
"It is a cost-effective solution."
"You need to pay additional costs for support."
"One area that has been a big issue for me is when I tried to close my accounts, it is difficult. We had small personal accounts, and we then wanted to consolidate everything to the business account, but then to cancel and close those smaller accounts, it's a big issue. I still haven't done it and it's quite a long process."
"I was using the free version of the product."
"The solution is paid for annually."
"I use the free version of the solution."
"I don't pay any licensing costs."
"The solution allows one only a certain amount of free storage, but he must pay for a subscription, perhaps on a six-month basis, if he wishes to maintain this."
"While the pricing is comparable, especially for users of Microsoft Office 365, the value proposition might not be as competitive for those seeking primarily storage options."
"A basic version of Dropbox is available for free with a paid subscription from Microsoft."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
50%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Educational Organization
65%
Computer Software Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
3%
University
3%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Amazon's S3 Glacier or EBS (Elastic Block Store)?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon's S3 Glacier or Elastic Block Store data storage software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Amazon's S3 Glacier, whi...
What do you like most about Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store)?
The durability and snapshot capabilities are good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store)?
The cost of Amazon EBS storage is high. I rate the price as eight out of ten. It is expensive to store a lot yet provides significant cost-efficiency as I pay only for the storage time required.
What do you like most about Dropbox?
For me, the biggest thing is version history. I can easily go back and view older versions.
What needs improvement with Dropbox?
I would like to have a document flow. Sharing documents with other people in the same division or department and being able to work without downloading the file would be ideal. Working online would...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bazaar Voice, Crowd Strike, Adobe, Gamevil, Hess, CopperEgg, TotalJobs Group, SuperCell, Dropcam, Unilever
Vita Coco, BCBGMAXAZRIA Group, Centric Project, Kayak, FourSquare, Asana, Huge Adversting , USA Gymnastics, Appen, Valliant, Radio Lab
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store) vs. Dropbox and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
846,617 professionals have used our research since 2012.