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Dropbox vs ownCloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Content Collaboration Platforms
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Storage (6th)
ownCloud
Ranking in Content Collaboration Platforms
20th
Average Rating
10.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Content Collaboration Platforms category, the mindshare of Dropbox is 8.4%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ownCloud is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Content Collaboration Platforms
 

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.
SC
Self-hosted file sync tool used to deploy custom web UIs.
I think it’s probably the best self-hosted file sync tool on the market. It’s a full web application platform, an indispensable tool for a business of any size that needs to deploy any kind of custom web UI. If you build an ownCloud app, you’ve got authentication, storage, security, caching, and database layers already fully baked for you. You just need to build your UI and custom logic. Your app doesn’t even need to interact with files, sync, or interact with other ownCloud features. Any web UI can be included without ownCloud. It can even be a portal to web interfaces of other applications within a business using the external app to display external sites within ownCloud. This is the case as long as that site allows itself to be displayed within a frame.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is easy to install. It is stable and scalable."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its convenience, I can retrieve files online from various places. It has backup options in case something was to go wrong with my computer I can restore my files."
"Dropbox allows me to organize files well. I can name files in such a way as to lead students to the right destination."
"I had a good experiment with the technical support from Dropbox."
"The solution is very clear and easy to use."
"I think Dropbox is a good option for Windows users because it's easy to use in Windows and a user can access all other products and software."
"I like how user-friendly the solution is."
"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."
"I think it’s probably the best self-hosted file sync tool on the market."
 

Cons

"The product could always offer more storage."
"I would like to see more storage included and more lessons on how to optimize it."
"I would like to see integration with Office products, it would be very helpful."
"It is difficult to set up. I'd rate the solution maybe a six or seven out of ten."
"The free storage can be increased."
"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."
"The solution could be a bit less expensive."
"The pricing could be better and/or more clear. Right now, they have a strange way of splitting pricing. It's a bit complicated and not clear for users."
"Even with fast disks, it still takes a fair bit of time to write most schema changes to multi-GB tables."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price is quite cheap. It is quite competitive. You just need to pay for the license. There are no additional costs."
"Given the price and limitations, there are more competitive options available."
"I need to pay towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. The solution is expensive."
"Dropbox could be less expensive, and I pay monthly."
"A basic version of Dropbox is available for free with a paid subscription from Microsoft."
"We use a yearly license. The pricing is not a bad price. I'd rate it about a five out of ten, with ten being expensive and one being cheap."
"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."
"There is a subscription-based pricing model and I pay monthly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
63%
Computer Software Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
3%
University
3%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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...
Ask a question
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Comparisons

No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Vita Coco, BCBGMAXAZRIA Group, Centric Project, Kayak, FourSquare, Asana, Huge Adversting , USA Gymnastics, Appen, Valliant, Radio Lab
CERN, Joy Global, Sciebo, Bauhaus, datto
Find out what your peers are saying about Dropbox, Google, Microsoft and others in Content Collaboration Platforms. Updated: February 2025.
838,737 professionals have used our research since 2012.