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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."
"It offers security, accessibility, and user-friendly features."
"Its usability is valuable. It is easy to use."
"I don't need to carry my laptop while traveling. I just synchronize whatever I've been doing to Dropbox. After the document is synchronized, I can leave my laptop and use Dropbox wherever I am. I can also easily share a document with my colleagues, no matter how big it is. I can allow them to edit, and the editing will be instant. I can see whatever changes they've made to the document. It doesn't delete a document automatically. If I make a mistake and delete a file, it doesn't automatically delete the file. It gives you the warning to say you're deleting a file. In terms of security, I haven't had any challenges with Dropbox where they tell you that your data is compromised."
"Dropbox is an easy-to-use solution that has good stability."
"I use the product to open files."
"The performance has been good."
"The most valuable feature of Dropbox is its user-friendliness. You can drag and drop files you want to store easily. Additionally, the speed of the solution is great if you have a fast connection."
"For us, the value comes from the solution's flexibility, speed, and hopefully cost savings in the long term."
"The initial setup was straightforward. We started with a small pilot and we then moved to production with no downtime at all."
"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."
"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 fast recovery time objective with the ability to bring the environment back to production in case something happens."
"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."
"It's very easy to set up, and within 40 minutes, you can apply storage notes in Azure."
"The most valuable features are tiering to S3 and being able to turn it on and off, based on a schedule."
 

Cons

"While I feel the price being charged to be reasonable, it should either be more cost-effective or account for an increased amount of storage space."
"The scalability of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"Security could be enhanced."
"Dropbox needs to improve its integration with Google platforms, including Google Sheets, Google Docs, and Google Slides, which facilitate easier collaboration."
"I would like to see more storage included and more lessons on how to optimize it."
"The solution could improve by being more secure and having more storage."
"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 a bit less expensive."
"Only AWS and Azure public clouds are currently available from China, and I would like to see support for Aliyun (Alibaba Cloud)."
"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."
"NetApp's support could improve"
"NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP should improve its support."
"The key feature, that we'd like to see in that is the ability to sync between regions within the AWS and Azure regions. We could use the cloud sync service, but we'd really like that native functionality within the cloud volume service."
"Multipathing for iSCSI LUNs is difficult to deal with from the client-side and I'd love to see a single entry point that can be moved around within the cluster to simplify the client configuration."
"I would like to see them improve the perspective of start and search in the panels. This would allow for better visualization of the contents that are captured in the tool."
"The product is more restricted with underlying cloud."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The amount of free space they provide is sufficient for me. However, if you want more space I don't believe is very expensive."
"I am on a monthly subscription for the solution and I am somewhat satisfied with the pricing. However, the price could a bit better."
"A basic version of Dropbox is available for free with a paid subscription from Microsoft."
"I find their pricing to be fairly standard and competitive when compared to the rest of the market."
"The solution is purchased on a subscription basis, and there are purchasing options. If you purchase annually there is a discount."
"Given the price and limitations, there are more competitive options available."
"We must pay when we upsize to a larger space."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 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."
"In addition to the standard licensing fees, there are fees for Azure, the VMs themselves and for data transfer."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
65%
Computer Software Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
3%
University
3%
Educational Organization
55%
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: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.