Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) vs. Box

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Amazon S3
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Amazon S3 is a cloud-based object storage service from Amazon Web Services. It's key features are storage management and monitoring, access management and security, data querying, and data transfer.N/A
Box
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Box is an online Intelligent Content Management solution that caters to individual users as well as businesses.
$21
per month 3 users (minimum)
Pricing
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)Box
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Business Starter
$7
per month per user (3 minimum)
Business
$20
per month per user (3 minimum)
Business Plus
$33
per month per user (3 minimum)
Enterprise
$47
per month per user (3 minimum)
Enterprise Plus
$50
per month (billed annually) per user (3 minimum)
Enterprise Advanced
Contact us
per month per user (35 minimum)
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Amazon S3Box
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsA discount is available for annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)Box
Features
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)Box
Data Center Backup
Comparison of Data Center Backup features of Product A and Product B
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
8.9
11 Ratings
7% above category average
Box
-
Ratings
Universal recovery8.810 Ratings00 Ratings
Instant recovery8.210 Ratings00 Ratings
Recovery verification8.37 Ratings00 Ratings
Business application protection8.67 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple backup destinations8.910 Ratings00 Ratings
Incremental backup identification9.24 Ratings00 Ratings
Backup to the cloud9.111 Ratings00 Ratings
Deduplication and file compression8.85 Ratings00 Ratings
Snapshots9.27 Ratings00 Ratings
Flexible deployment9.211 Ratings00 Ratings
Management dashboard7.910 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform support8.810 Ratings00 Ratings
Retention options9.77 Ratings00 Ratings
Encryption9.78 Ratings00 Ratings
Enterprise Backup
Comparison of Enterprise Backup features of Product A and Product B
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
8.7
11 Ratings
6% above category average
Box
-
Ratings
Continuous data protection9.510 Ratings00 Ratings
Replication9.010 Ratings00 Ratings
Operational reporting and analytics8.211 Ratings00 Ratings
Malware protection8.54 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-location capabilities9.211 Ratings00 Ratings
Ransomware Recovery8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Enterprise Content Management
Comparison of Enterprise Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
-
Ratings
Box
7.3
26 Ratings
10% below category average
Content capture & imaging00 Ratings8.119 Ratings
File sync, storage & archiving00 Ratings9.625 Ratings
Document management00 Ratings8.324 Ratings
Records management00 Ratings7.020 Ratings
Content search & retrieval00 Ratings7.724 Ratings
Enterprise content collaboration00 Ratings8.021 Ratings
Content publishing & creation00 Ratings5.115 Ratings
Security, risk management & information governance00 Ratings8.026 Ratings
Contract lifecycle management00 Ratings7.712 Ratings
Automated workflows00 Ratings7.714 Ratings
Artificial intelligence00 Ratings2.111 Ratings
Mobile support00 Ratings6.223 Ratings
Integration00 Ratings9.023 Ratings
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Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)Box
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Score 9.6 out of 10
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Score 9.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Bacula Enterprise
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Score 9.7 out of 10
MediaValet
MediaValet
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
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Score 9.7 out of 10
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Score 9.5 out of 10
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User Ratings
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)Box
Likelihood to Recommend
9.1
(77 ratings)
8.0
(154 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(12 ratings)
Usability
8.4
(15 ratings)
8.0
(21 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(5 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(12 ratings)
Support Rating
9.8
(21 ratings)
8.5
(29 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(6 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)Box
Likelihood to Recommend
Amazon AWS
Amazon S3 is a great service to safely backup your data where redundancy is guaranteed and the cost is fair. We use Amazon S3 for data that we backup and hope we never need to access but in the case of a catastrophic or even small slip of the finger with the delete command we know our data and our client's data is safely backed up by Amazon S3. Transferring data into Amazon S3 is free but transferring data out has an associated, albeit low, cost per GB. This needs to be kept in mind if you plan on transferring out a lot of data frequently. There may be other cost effective options although Amazon S3 prices are really low per GB. Transferring 150TB would cost approximately $50 per month.
Read full review
Box
I think Box is great for research teams or anyone that has a large number of files that need to be securely stored. Particularly in the case of social science research, where it is important to protect identifying data, Box is a great option. In cases where teams need a more reliable means for real-time collaboration, I would probably consider a different alternative
Read full review
Pros
Amazon AWS
  • Fantastic developer API, including AWS command line and library utilities.
  • Strong integration with the AWS ecosystem, especially with regards to access permissions.
  • It's astoundingly stable- you can trust it'll stay online and available for anywhere in the world.
  • Its static website hosting feature is a hidden gem-- it provides perhaps the cheapest, most stable, most high-performing static web hosting available in PaaS.
Read full review
Box
  • The main feature that I like the most in Box is that it makes collaboration seamless, workers can easily check the documents any time and make changes according to the needs.
  • Box manages and backs up all of your files on its cloud servers, and provides a very nice interface for creating, viewing, editing, and collaborating on the most commonly used file types (PDF, XLS, DOC, etc.).
  • Over the past few years, Box has built on top of its basic cloud storage management with a host of other tools, such as workflows, AI, monitoring, and analytics.
  • It is helping us to make good connections with clients and our workers themselves as to its syncing and viewing feature to all is very much helpful and easy to go.
Read full review
Cons
Amazon AWS
  • Web console can be very confusing and challenging to use, especially for new users
  • Bucket policies are very flexible, but the composability of the security rules can be very confusing to get right, often leading to security rules in use on buckets other than what you believe they are
Read full review
Box
  • The graphic design of the dashboard should be simpler and more tangible that can be changed to the liking of the Admin.
  • Sometimes there are some syncing issues in the background.
  • The product has very limited functionality in some areas which could be a bit frustrating at times.
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Likelihood to Renew
Amazon AWS
Due to princing, availability and scalability.
Read full review
Box
I like the security features and I like the website. It's easy to use and create and move things around as needed. The main reason for a lower rating is because the Box Sync app is just not a good program. It's a memory hog, it's slow, transfer speeds are slow, and it's not the most efficient route. If you have a large Box account and you need to get a computer up to speed on a large amount of data within Box, you are in for the long haul. Last time I had to do this, it took 3 days to sync all of the files and we are talking around 100 GB worth of data
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Usability
Amazon AWS
It is tricky to get it all set up correctly with policies and getting the IAM settings right. There is also a lot of lifecycle config you can do in terms of moving data to cold/glacier storage. It is also not to be confused with being a OneDrive or SharePoint replacement, they each have their own place in our environment, and S3 is used more by the IT team and accessed by our PHP applications. It is not necessarily used by an average everyday user for storing their pictures or documents, etc.
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Box
Everything with Box is seamless. It can be integrated into virtually any other software or application. You can even get the app for your phone or tablet to work on the go. File syncing is so quick. The only reason I gave it a 9 is the issue I discussed earlier about the local file application rebooting and not continuing to sync files. Other than that, it's great!
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Reliability and Availability
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Box
Yeah, it's always worked, I've never had any kind of connection issues, the only issues I've had it I've been on our end when the Internet hasn't worked.
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Performance
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Box
The general operation and management of Box is very efficient, both when accessing the account, and when adding files, downloading or modifying any document directly. The web platform, mobile and desktop versions work really well and quickly, making all the work and process flow smoothly and without setbacks. So far I have not been able to observe any inconvenience
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Support Rating
Amazon AWS
AWS has always been quick to resolve any support ticket raised. S3 is no exception. We have only ever used it once to get a clarification regarding the costs involved when data is transferred between S3 and other AWS services or the public internet. We got a response from AWS support team within a day.
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Box
I found their support community lacking in clarity when I experienced a login issue. The error messaging was poor on my Box Sync application. I did not reach out to support staff for help, instead, I reasoned that I should try downloading the Box Sync application again and reinstall it. That fixed my issue, thankfully. I think a less computer-savvy user would've been much more frustrated.
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In-Person Training
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Box
The in person training was done in house and I helped with the training, people seem to respond well.
Read full review
Online Training
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Box
The documentation is good. Since Box is a popular service, there were also a number of YouTube videos and other sources that were helpful as we were considering the product and planning for deployment. Also, the ability to try the free version helped to prepare us.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Box
Be careful with settings. It is easy to get overwhelmed with updates. For example, you don’t want to be updated when doing historical data uploads. I recommend taking off notifications initially and then turn on post you have done your historical data upload.
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Alternatives Considered
Amazon AWS
Overall, we found that Amazon S3 provided a lot of backend features Google Cloud Storage (GCS) simply couldn't compare to. GCS was way more expensive and really did not live up to it. In terms of setup, Google Cloud Storage may have Amazon S3 beat, however, as it is more of a pseudo advanced version of Google Drive, that was not a hard feat for it to achieve. Overall, evaluating GCS, in comparison to S3, was an utter disappointment.
Read full review
Box
They are kind of the same. And both of them do their job as promised. But for company and project wise I think that Box slightly wins for some points. Which [makes him] win over Google Drive (don't forget that Google Drive is very easy to use and has a lot [of] nice features too).
Read full review
Scalability
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Box
It's great, as we put more files on there it's done very well.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Amazon AWS
  • It practically eliminated some real heavy storage servers from our premises and reduced maintenance cost.
  • The excellent durability and reliability make sure the return of money you invested in.
  • If the objects which are not active or stale, one needs to remove them. Those objects keep adding cost to each billing cycle. If you are handling a really big infrastructure, sometimes this creates quite a huge bill for preserving un-necessary objects/documents.
Read full review
Box
  • Box has been an only positive experience. It provides a seamless way for me and my team to collaborate on documents in such a way where we're not sending the document back/forth via email. It's a huge timesaver.
  • Box reduces the risk of sharing a sensitive document to the wrong person via email.
  • Box has provided a platform where my team can share notes in meetings - this has helped streamline and organize our meetings. Our meetings are more productive and actionable.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Box Screenshots

Screenshot of an overview of Box's intelligent content management platform. It provides a unified, AI-powered approach to managing and securing your unstructured data, or content. ICM provides organizations with collaboration, AI, security, compliance, and workflow tools, interoperable and customizable, to get the most from their content.Screenshot of how with Box AI, AI can be accessed right where enterprise content exists. While that work can reside within Microsoft, Google, Apple, and other productivity suites, Box helps users to tap the full potential of AI for unstructured data.Screenshot of how Box creates a central workspace to edit, review, and assign tasks. Users can automate business processes and centralize content workflows in Box, including a configurable content submission, unlimited e-signatures, user-drive no-code workflow, and task assignment to power approvals.Screenshot of how Box secures content from threats, including malware and ransomware, and recover from attacks if they happen. This helps to maintain a zero trust architecture to ensure proper usage of corporate data, and prevent data theft.Screenshot of how Box can connect to any productivity suite, including Microsoft, Google, and Apple. This extends any existing security investments with integrations into key DLP, SIEM, and network security tools. Thus, seamless experiences can be built for users in any system they use, whether that’s a business tool like Salesforce or ServiceNow, or communications engines like Zoom and Slack.Screenshot of an overview describing Box's scalability. With unlimited storage capabilities Box has an exabyte (1,000PB) of customer data plus 1 gigabit per second upload and download speed. At its core, Box is a multi-tenant global SaaS platform with enterprise-grade reliability and end-to-end encryption to secure content.