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Dropbox vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP 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

Dropbox
Ranking in Cloud Storage
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
Content Collaboration Platforms (1st)
NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP
Ranking in Cloud Storage
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (1st), Cloud Backup (14th), Public Cloud Storage Services (6th), Cloud Software Defined Storage (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Cloud Storage category, the mindshare of Dropbox is 5.1%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is 12.5%, down from 14.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Storage
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Pramod-Talekar - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows customers to manage SAN and NAS data within a single storage solution
The tool's most valuable features are the SnapLock and SnapMirror features. If something goes wrong with the data, we can restore it. This isn't a mirror; we store data in different locations. If there's an issue on the primary site, we can retrieve data from the secondary site. Multiprotocol support in NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is beneficial because it allows customers to manage SAN and NAS data within a single storage solution. This feature eliminates the need to purchase different types of storage.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The setup was straightforward."
"The solution is reliable and user-friendly."
"The performance is good."
"Dropbox is a very easy-to-use site that allows me to save files to the cloud for retrieval from almost any device (laptop, iPhone, iPad, etc...)."
"One of the advantages of Dropbox is that you can share files with people who are external to your organization without any additional costs. It is also easy to use, stable, and trustworthy."
"It ensures all our staff are using the current version of our documents."
"I use the product to open files."
"Dropbox is an easy-to-use solution that has good stability."
"The ability for our users to restore data from the Snapshots is very valuable."
"It is much easier to control data since we can run queries across all our platforms with just one solution. Not only that, we can also monitor all the platforms with Active IQ, where we can see all the alerts, messages, and space consumption through a single application. This is regardless if the data is on-prem or AWS. It is much more efficient."
"It gives a solution for storage one place to go across everything. So, the customer is very familiar with NetApp on-prem. It allows them to gain access to the file piece. It helps them with the training aspect of it, so they don't have to relearn something new. They already know this product. They just have to learn some widgets or what it's like in the cloud to operate and deploy it in different ways."
"The solution’s Snapshot copies and thin clones in terms of operational recovery are good. Snapshot copies are pretty much the write-in time data backups. Obviously, critical data is snapshotted a lot more frequently, and even clients and end users find it easier to restore whatever they need if it's file-based, statical, etc."
"They have very good support team who is very helpful. They will help you with every aspect of getting the deployment done."
"ONTAP is great for helping you migrate on-premise workflows to cloud environments."
"NetApp's XCP Migration Tool... was pretty awesome. It replicated the data faster than any other tool that I've seen. That was a big help."
"One of the most valuable features is its similarity to the physical app, which makes it familiar. It's almost identical to a real NetApp, which means you can run all of the associated NetApp processes and services with it. Otherwise, we would definitely have to deploy some hardware on a site somewhere, which could be a challenge in terms of CapEx."
 

Cons

"Dropbox could probably be improved around the integrated security, but those options are probably available. I don't have much of a view on improvements, based on the relatively few occasions that I use it."
"The product improvement could include better integration with other tools and more advanced file versioning features."
"DropBox is a little more complicated to scale up than OneDrive. It isn't as seamless to scale up storage or change the number of users. We have two or three users in Mumbai, and we don't plan to add more."
"Improve the ease of use. Sometimes, occasional users struggle to login again and access documents."
"One area of improvement would be to allow multiple users to edit a file simultaneously and see edits in real time, similar to OneDrive."
"The price for storage space is a little expensive."
"Sometimes, it takes a while to start Dropbox services and files are not synced."
"They should archive the data."
"The navigation on some of the configuration parameters is a bit cumbersome, making the learning curve on functions somewhat steep."
"We have used technical support. As long as they don't call me at four o'clock in the morning to tell me that a drive failed and they are sending me another one, I like it. They have a tendency to do that."
"I rate the scalability a five out of ten."
"I think the challenge now is more in terms of keeping an air gap. The notion that it is in the cloud, easy to break, etc. The challenge now is mostly about the air gap and how we can protect that in the cloud."
"I would like this solution to be brought to all the three major players. Right now it's supported only on AWS and Azure. They should bring it to Google as well, because we would like to have flexibility in choosing the underlying cloud storage provider."
"The data tiering needs improvement. E.g., moving hard data to faster disks."
"The solution is not stable when using single nodes. This is a problem. NetApp should work on this solution to make it more stable with HA nodes and resolve this issue."
"I would want more visibility and data analytics where we can see anomalies within the shares within the GUI."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Dropbox offers a freemium model which is very convenient and affordable. Beyond that, the pricing is favorable."
"I find their pricing to be fairly standard and competitive when compared to the rest of the market."
"My company makes monthly payments towards the licensing charges associated with the product. I think it's a reasonably priced product."
"There is a subscription-based pricing model and I pay monthly."
"Its price is quite cheap. It is quite competitive. You just need to pay for the license. There are no additional costs."
"The product is free up to a certain limit."
"The pricing for non-corporations is expensive. They have raised their prices and have low storage capacity."
"Cost is a big factor, because a lot of companies can't afford enterprise grade equipment all the time. They skimp where they can. I would recommend that they improve the cost."
"They have a very good price which keeps our customers happy."
"The pricing could be improved. It is a good product, but it is very expensive for me."
"The solution's pricing is reasonable."
"The cost is quite high."
"I know the licensing is a bit on the high-end. That's when we had to downsize our MetroCluster disks and just migrate to disks that were half used. We migrated into those just to reduce maintenance costs."
"It is expensive. There are no costs in addition to their standard licensing fees."
"Some flexibility around the licensing model would help. The product is licensed based on capacity. Basically, the largest capacity license that you can buy is 368 terabytes. At this point, NetApp is addressing some people's concerns around this."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
63%
Computer Software Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Construction Company
3%
Educational Organization
41%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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?
One area of improvement would be to allow multiple users to edit a file simultaneously and see edits in real time, similar to OneDrive. In Dropbox, once a file is opened on one system, it locks the...
What do you like most about NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?
So a lot of these licenses are at the rate that is required for capacity. So they're they're able to reduce the license consumption and also the consumption of the underlying cloud storage.
 

Also Known As

No data available
ONTAP Cloud, CVO, NetApp CVO
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Vita Coco, BCBGMAXAZRIA Group, Centric Project, Kayak, FourSquare, Asana, Huge Adversting , USA Gymnastics, Appen, Valliant, Radio Lab
1. Accenture 2. Acer 3. Adidas 4. Aetna 5. AIG 6. Apple 7. Bank of America 8. Barclays 9. Bayer 10. Berkshire Hathaway 11. BNP Paribas 12. Cisco 13. Coca-Cola 14. Comcast 15.ConocoPhillips 16. CVS Health 17. Dell 18. Deutsche Bank 19. eBay 20. Eli Lilly 21. FedEx 22. Ford 23. Freescale Semiconductor 24. General Electric 25. Google 26. Honeywell 27. IBM 28. Intel 29. Intuit 30. JPMorgan Chase 31. Kellogg's 32. KeyCorp 33. Liberty Mutual 34. L'Oréal 35. Mastercard
Find out what your peers are saying about Dropbox vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
854,338 professionals have used our research since 2012.