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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
6th
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 (10th), Public Cloud Storage Services (5th), Cloud Software Defined Storage (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Cloud Storage category, the mindshare of Dropbox is 4.2%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is 13.5%, down from 13.7% 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

"Its usability is valuable. It is easy to use."
"The most valuable features of Dropbox are it can be used as a repository of all the photographs and videos that you have on the cloud. You do not need to worry about the hard disk crashing."
"What I like most about Dropbox is that it's very, very easy to use. It's also easy to share files through it."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy."
"Dropbox is easy to use."
"It is very practical and so easy to upload and download files and carry on without my computer."
"The security is very good."
"For me, the biggest thing is version history. I can easily go back and view older versions."
"If anything happens, their technical support will come onsite and fix it."
"Unified Manager, System Manager, and Cloud Manager are all GUI-based. It's easy for somebody who has not been exposed to this for years to pick it up and work with it."
"It offers ease of use and a comprehensive suite of applications, including features like SnapMirror, SnapVault, and unified snapshot management, all bundled into a single product."
"This solution has made everything easier to do."
"Lastly, the API and web services are fairly good. That is an important feature too. We write some code to do different things. We have code that runs to make sure that everything is being backed up as we say it is and we try to also detect places where we may have missed a backup."
"The most valuable features are tiering to S3 and being able to turn it on and off, based on a schedule."
"Multiprotocol is the most valuable because Amazon was not able to provide us with access to the same data from Linux and from Windows clients. That was our value proposition for CVO, Cloud Volumes ONTAP."
"CVO gives us the ability to access data as quickly as possible, which is critical because of the mission set we handle. Some things cannot wait. For example, we tried having the data in the cloud itself, but it took too long for us to retrieve it from cold or deep storage. If we have it ONTAP or on-prem, it's so much easier to pull it within minutes."
 

Cons

"Dropbox can improve by enhancing the capacity of storage in the free version."
"It would be good if they could market themselves as a safe solution for corporates. Currently, most corporates don't see it as a safe area to share within."
"I'd rate the scalability maybe a seven out of ten. Once I stop paying, it is an issue."
"2 Gb of free space and then a not so cheap subscription (also if the competitors have similar proposals for customers)."
"While generally user-friendly, there is room for improvement in the user interface, especially with the introduction of new integrations and features."
"The problem with the storage is that you are only able to synchronize the information within the amount of storage that you have. It doesn't matter if you are accessing from a team member who has more storage, the limitations are with your storage."
"It could be more secure."
"There is a potential improvement regarding storage capacity and offering more than its current four gigabytes."
"It would be fantastic if NetApp could offer a solution that's as user-friendly as Google Drive for seamless cloud storage integration."
"There is room for improvement in tier one support, especially with potential language barriers and communication challenges."
"In terms of improvement, I would like to see the Azure NetApp Files have the capability of doing SnapMirrors. Azure NetApp Files is, as we know, is an AFF system and it's not used in any of the Microsoft resources. It's basically NetApp hardware, so the best performance you can achieve, but the only reason we can't use that right now is because of the region that it's available in. The second was the SnapMirror capability that we didn't have that we heavily rely on right now."
"The solution could be better when we're connecting to our S3 side of the house. Right now, it doesn't see it, and I'm not sure why."
"The navigation on some of the configuration parameters is a bit cumbersome, making the learning curve on functions somewhat steep."
"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..."
"If they could include clustering together multiple physical Cloud Volumes ONTAP devices as an option, that could be helpful."
"I would like to see something from NetApp about backups. I know that NetApp offers some backup for Office 365, but I would like to see something from NetApp for more backup solutions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing for non-corporations is expensive. They have raised their prices and have low storage capacity."
"A bigger discount for existing users would be appreciated."
"I am using the free solution, which provides me with 2GBs of storage, and for me, it's sufficient."
"Dropbox is one of the cheapest tools in the market."
"The product is free up to a certain limit."
"I was using the free version of the product."
"I use the free version of the solution."
"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."
"Our licensing is based on a yearly subscription. That is an additional cost, but because of the storage efficiencies that the NetApp gives, even with the additional cost of the NetApp license, you still end up saving money versus straight Azure native for storage. It's definitely worth it."
"The standard pricing is online. Pricing depends. If you're using the PayGo model, then it's just the normal costs on the Microsoft page. If you're using Bring Your Own License, which is what we're doing, then you get with your sales contact at NetApp and start figuring out what price is the best, in the end, for your company."
"For enterprise customers, it's a very cost effective. But in the SMB segment, yeah, pricing is a little bit challenge for your time."
"The cost is quite high."
"The AWS consumer-based pricing model makes it easy for developers to use their credit cards to spin up virtual servers immediately."
"Our licensing costs are folded into the hardware purchases and I have never differentiated between the two."
"Make sure you investigate what your requirements are going to cost you using the native cloud solutions versus what NetApp is going to cost you, to make sure you have a business case to go with NetApp."
"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
5%
Financial Services Firm
3%
University
3%
Educational Organization
56%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

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: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.