Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) vs. Dropbox

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud. Users can launch instances with a variety of OSs, load them with custom application environments, manage network access permissions, and run images on multiple systems.
$0.01
per IP address with a running instance per hour on a pro rata basis
Dropbox
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Dropbox is a cloud storage solution, equipped with features that help users to save time, improve productivity, and collaborate with others. Users can edit PDFs, share videos, sign documents, and collaborate with stakeholders without leaving Dropbox.
$9.99
per month
Pricing
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Dropbox
Editions & Modules
Data Transfer
$0.00 - $0.09
per GB
On-Demand
$0.0042 - $6.528
per Hour
EBS-Optimized Instances
$0.005
per IP address with a running instance per hour on a pro rata basis
Carrier IP Addresses
$0.005 - $0.10
T4g Instances
$0.04
per vCPU-Hour Linux, RHEL, & SLES
T2, T3 Instances
$0.05 ($0.096)
per vCPU-Hour Linux, RHEL, & SLES (Windows)
Plus
$9.99
per month
Essentials
$18
per month
Business
$20
per month per user
Business Plus
$26
per month per user
Basic
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Dropbox
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Dropbox
Considered Both Products
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

No answer on this topic

Dropbox
Chose Dropbox
First of all the dropbox was the one of the earliest cloud storage services among the its' alternatives. It is offering a decent amount of free storage for everyone. That is, it is gaining popularity from the prospective customers. We selected it because it allows us super …
Features
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Dropbox
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
8.8
27 Ratings
7% above category average
Dropbox
-
Ratings
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime9.525 Ratings00 Ratings
Dynamic scaling9.226 Ratings00 Ratings
Elastic load balancing9.625 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-configured templates8.726 Ratings00 Ratings
Monitoring tools8.225 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-defined machine images8.625 Ratings00 Ratings
Operating system support8.526 Ratings00 Ratings
Security controls8.626 Ratings00 Ratings
Automation8.216 Ratings00 Ratings
File Sharing & Management
Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Product A and Product B
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
-
Ratings
Dropbox
8.0
1336 Ratings
4% below category average
Versioning00 Ratings8.11110 Ratings
Video files00 Ratings7.91092 Ratings
Audio files00 Ratings8.1988 Ratings
Document collaboration00 Ratings7.81162 Ratings
Access control00 Ratings8.41234 Ratings
File search00 Ratings7.61280 Ratings
Device sync00 Ratings8.31230 Ratings
Cloud Storage Security & Administration
Comparison of Cloud Storage Security & Administration features of Product A and Product B
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
-
Ratings
Dropbox
8.5
1265 Ratings
1% below category average
User and role management00 Ratings8.41130 Ratings
File organization00 Ratings8.41246 Ratings
Device management00 Ratings8.61110 Ratings
Cloud Storage Platform
Comparison of Cloud Storage Platform features of Product A and Product B
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
-
Ratings
Dropbox
8.3
1255 Ratings
4% below category average
Performance00 Ratings7.91244 Ratings
Reliability00 Ratings8.91251 Ratings
Storage Reports00 Ratings8.2954 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Dropbox
Small Businesses
DigitalOcean Droplets
DigitalOcean Droplets
Score 9.4 out of 10
SugarSync
SugarSync
Score 4.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
Druva Security Cloud
Druva Security Cloud
Score 9.4 out of 10
Enterprises
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
Druva Security Cloud
Druva Security Cloud
Score 9.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Dropbox
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(73 ratings)
8.5
(1348 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(41 ratings)
Usability
9.2
(11 ratings)
8.1
(496 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
6.8
(3 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
6.0
(8 ratings)
Support Rating
8.5
(12 ratings)
6.6
(38 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
7.5
(4 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
6.4
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
6.6
(4 ratings)
User Testimonials
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Dropbox
Likelihood to Recommend
Amazon AWS
Suitable for companies that are looking for performance at a competitive price, flexibility to switch instance type even with RI, flexibility to add-on IOPS, option to lower running cost with the regular introduction of new instance type that comes with higher performance but at a lower cost.
Read full review
Dropbox
Let me describe a scenario that happened recently in our organization's marketing team storing thousands of images videos and pdfs and Dropbox is done a great perfomer in this situation by the product features which is very helpful for the team, such as smart sync reduces disc usage, preview support for many media formats & Integrate with Adobe Creative Cloud.
Read full review
Pros
Amazon AWS
  • Huge Diverse range of machine shapes are available which cater to our demand.
  • Ability to combine the machines and integrate them with any other service in AWS (Ex: RDS, S3)
  • Handling performance and scalability using auto-scaling, ELB configuration and high performance machine shapes.
Read full review
Dropbox
  • I can share projects I need feedback on.
  • I can make projects available to editors so that they can do their work.
  • Dropbox is a place where I can store files that I can access from anywhere, even if I don't have my laptop with me at the time.
  • I have an old friend who is an acting professor in Tokyo. He loves the dialogue that I write in my novels. He converts chapters into scenework for his acting students. They get very excited when there's new material!
Read full review
Cons
Amazon AWS
  • The choices on AMIs, instance types and additional configuration can be overwhelming for any non-DevOps person.
  • The pricing information should be more clear (than only providing the hourly cost) when launching the instance. AWS DynamoDB gives an estimated monthly cost when creating tables, and I would love to see similar cost estimation showing on EC2 instances individually, as not all developers gets access to the actual bills.
  • The term for reserving instances are at least 12 months. With instance types changing so fast and better instances coming out every other day, it's really hard to commit to an existing instance type for 1 or more years at a time.
Read full review
Dropbox
  • I’d like to be able to hover over an image/document and have it expand/enlarge without actually opening it
  • I’d love to see a carousel that lets me thumb through more quickly
  • I’m almost always in thumbnail view. I’d like to see them re-organize automatically when something is moved or deleted instead of leaving an empty space.
  • AI options for photo editing.
  • Easier pdf markups
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Dropbox
Dropbox is a user-friendly, easy tool which requires little to no skill and they offer a free version with a good amount of storage available. There are other file sharing tools available however at a cost. Dropbox free version I have used for years and it serves every purpose I need.
Read full review
Usability
Amazon AWS
You an start using EC2 instances immediately, is so easy and intuitive to start using them, EC2 has wizard to create the EC2 instances in the web browser or if you are code savvy you can create them with simple line in the CLI or using an SDK. Once you are comfortable using EC2, you can even automate the process.
Read full review
Dropbox
It works extremely well, and we have never had any issues with connecting or sharing files. It's very easy to use, and any team member can share, add, and delete files to a virtual drive. This is extremely helpful, and it's an amazing tool to use, ensuring everyone can connect and work together effectively.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Dropbox
I really recommend the product for the Dropbox availability is a great having very very less downtimes, they errors are less I have been faced yet, due to connectivity sometimes we are getting errors. Only sometimes the limitations of some features show some errors.
Read full review
Performance
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Dropbox
Dropbox is really useful, you can access any file from anywhere and you can upload and even edit files online, but, sometimes it can be slow. Downloading, uploading, and syncing is a bit slow, it can take several minutes. Furthermore, the search engine for large amounts of data can be slow too and it is not powerful.
Read full review
Support Rating
Amazon AWS
AWS's support is good overall. Not outstanding, but better than average. We have had very little reason to engage with AWS support but in our limited experience, the staff has been knowledgeable, timely and helpful. The only negative is actually initiating a service request can be a bit of a pain.
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Dropbox
They immediately responded like in an example that I gave where one of our staff members accidentally deleted the whole Special Hope Network Dropbox, we immediately contacted Dropbox they walked us through the steps of how to retrieve the information and luckily enough we were able to retrieve the entire Dropbox and we have had back and forth with Dropbox on what to do when an employee leaves how to remove them how to add another employee.
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In-Person Training
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Dropbox
The person for corporate product dealing and knowledge of the product explore and better and secure use are properly handover to us. Also provide full software and tool training from the basic to the pro level with each and every possible explanation. Provide many sessions regarding every doubt. Also Guide better suitable options for our business to migrate and integrate for the expansion in all places employee smoothly.
Read full review
Online Training
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Dropbox
I did not personally take any training for Dropbox so I am self taught but I know when our Vice President selected Dropbox, he personally did do some training modules on it and I'm assuming it was very easy and simple to understand since he now acts like he is a pro at it!
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Dropbox
I needed to stay current in improving my daily operations. Dropbox
was suggested to me by a former colleague two-years ago and I've been using it just fine ever since.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Amazon AWS
Amazon EC2 is super flexible compared to the PaaS offerings like Heroku Platform and Google App Engine since with Amazon EC2, we have access to the terminal. In terms of pricing, it's basically just the same as Google Compute Engine. The deciding factor is Amazon EC2's native integration with other AWS services since they're all in the same cloud platform.
Read full review
Dropbox
I prefer the layout and visual aspect of Dropbox as it mirrors my files on my computer. I feel that I am more organized, and it's easier to find my files in Dropbox than it was with Google Drive.
Read full review
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Dropbox
I would recommend to this product directly to the sales team of Dropbox for the best deal provide to my referred person and provide the best service to them.
Read full review
Scalability
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Dropbox
It's easy to integrate with the systems of Windows and Linux, easy to have web versions accessible, which provide the web login credentials. Also, it can be installed for individuals for the best autosync features.
Read full review
Professional Services
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Dropbox
Their services are highly rated for moving massive, complex data sets from legacy on-premise servers to the cloud with minimal downtime.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Amazon AWS
  • It reduced the need for heavy on-premises instances. Also, it completely eliminates maintenance of the machine. Their SLA criteria are also matching business needs. Overall IAAS is the best option when information is not so crucial to post on the cloud.
  • It makes both horizontal and vertical scaling really easy. This keeps your infrastructure up and running even while you are increasing the capacity or facing more traffic. This leads to having better customer satisfaction.
  • If you do not choose your instance type suitable for your business, it may incur lots of extra costs.
Read full review
Dropbox
  • When it works (usually if a client already has Dropbox, so they don't get the solicitation to sign up), it works flawlessly.
  • I've had multiple clients not see the "continue with download only" at the bottom and email me to resend the media another way because they don't have a Dropbox account.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Dropbox Screenshots

Screenshot of the action bar, that sits across the browser page can be used to record the screen, edit PDFs, upload files, create folders, get signatures, or send and track documents.Screenshot of Dropbox Replay, that lets collaborators leave frame-accurate feedback and markups directly on project files.Screenshot of Dropbox Capture, which can be used to take screen recordings, screenshots, and GIFs with one click and share them with a link.Screenshot of the interface where Dropbox lets users upload, edit, send, and sign PDFs in one place.