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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
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Content Collaboration Platforms (1st)
NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP
Ranking in Cloud Storage
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (1st), Cloud Backup (9th), Public Cloud Storage Services (5th), Cloud Software Defined Storage (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Cloud Storage category, the mindshare of Dropbox is 4.8%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is 12.9%, down from 13.8% 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 product's most valuable feature is storage."
"As the solution is cloud-based, installation is easy."
"Many people can use the Dropbox service and edit the data, it is simple to use."
"The search functionality and the ability to preview images are quite good."
"The primary standout feature for me is the effortless synchronization across various devices."
"I like how user-friendly the solution is."
"Irrespective of the geographical location that you are present in, and even if you don't have any storage devices, you can access your data and files with the help of Dropbox."
"The initial setup was very easy."
"For us, the value comes from the solution's flexibility, speed, and hopefully cost savings in the long term."
"I like how you can easily pair on-prem with the cloud and the cloud backup feature. I like the whole integration with on-prem and the cloud for SnapMirror relationships."
"The initial setup was straightforward. We started with a small pilot and we then moved to production with no downtime at all."
"The FlexClones make all the management easier for us."
"It's very easy to set up, and within 40 minutes, you can apply storage notes in Azure."
"The ability to do a straight SnapMirror from our on-prem to the cloud with no other data transitions is excellent."
"We use the mirroring to mirror our volumes to our DR location. We also create snapshots for backups. Snapshots will create a specified snapshot to be able to do a DR test without disrupting our standard mirrors. That means we can create a point-in-time snapshot, then use the ability of FlexClones to make a writeable volume to test with, and then blow it away after the DR test."
"They have very good support team who is very helpful. They will help you with every aspect of getting the deployment done."
 

Cons

"I'd like to see security improved a bit."
"Currently, it permits up to five users, but for larger families, it would be beneficial to have a more flexible offering."
"We are moving to Microsoft Teams. Instead of Dropbox, we will be using Microsoft Teams that has the advantage of saving the versions. It supports file versioning so that you can always go back to the previous version if you want to. If somebody has made a change in one of the files and you don't know what changes have been made, you can always go back to the previous version. This feature led us to migrate to Microsoft Teams. With Dropbox, there is no option for simultaneous work. This feature is there in Google Files. In Microsoft Teams, you can invite team members to collaborate. That is the reason why I prefer Microsoft Teams over Dropbox. It should also have more integration with other solutions."
"Dropbox, like many file sharing tools, needs to synch to a local hard drive. That is a bit difficult with 5TB Dropbox content."
"The price for storage space is a little expensive."
"The arrangement of documents can be simplified. Personally, I am used to it, but for a new user, it might be a little confusing. It can maybe have a feature to allow people to collaborate or work on the same document at the same time. I'm just using it to load and access information, and I haven't faced many challenges. However, I have seen that the whole system or laptop slows down a bit when I am synchronizing files to Dropbox. I don't know if it is because of my system. It might be good if they can enhance the synchronization process so that we can specify that synchronization should be done after 30 minutes. In addition, synchronization should only be done for the documents that have been uploaded."
"The solution could be more scalable."
"The interface could have bigger buttons."
"I rate the scalability a five out of ten."
"I would like NetApp to come up with an easier setup for the solution."
"The only issue we had lately was that outside our VPC we could not reach the virtual IP, the floating IP. I heard that they have fixed that..."
"The product is more restricted with underlying cloud."
"We've just been dealing with general pre-requisite infrastructure configuration challenges. Once those are out of the way, it is easy."
"How it handles erasure coding. I feel it the improvement should be there. Basically, it should be seamless. You don't want to have an underlying hardware issue or something, then suddenly there's no reads or writes. Luckily, it's at a replication site, so our main production site is still working and writing to it. But, the replication site has stopped right now while we try to bring that node back. Since we implemented in bare-metal, not in appliance, we had to go back to the original vendor. They didn't send it in time, and we had a hardware memory issue. Then, we had a hard disk issue, which brought the node down physically."
"NetApp CVO needs to have more exposure and mature further before it will have greater acceptance."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are using the unlicensed free version of Dropbox."
"A bigger discount for existing users would be appreciated."
"I need to pay towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. The solution is expensive."
"We pay for the license yearly."
"The product is free up to a certain limit."
"Dropbox offers a freemium model which is very convenient and affordable. Beyond that, the pricing is favorable."
"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."
"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."
"We find the pricing to be favorable due to the educational sector we belong to."
"They have a very good price which keeps our customers happy."
"Our licensing costs are folded into the hardware purchases and I have never differentiated between the two."
"It is not a cheap solution because we need to pay for the license and pay for Azure resources as well."
"If we wanted to use the AWS solution, we would have to manage two or three different platforms and pay more money than what we should have to pay, as some of the features don't even exist. If we wanted to, we could use AWS cloning, but it is useless because it uses more space, is more expensive, and takes more time."
"The pricing of this solution is definitely higher than what the typical Azure Files and AWS solutions charge, but given the features and the stability NetApp has provided, we are okay with it. We are not complaining about the pricing."
"Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace was good, but it was a test system, not a real purchase."
"For NetApp it's about $20,000 for a single node and $30,000 for the HA."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
66%
Computer Software Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
3%
University
3%
Educational Organization
49%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

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?
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...
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: April 2025.
848,989 professionals have used our research since 2012.