Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) vs. Box

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Amazon S3
Score 9.1 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 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Box is an online cloud content management solution that caters to individual users as well as businesses.
$7
per month per user (minimum of 3 users)
Pricing
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)Box
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Starter
$60.00
per year per user (minimum of 3 users)
Business
$180.00
per year per user (minimum of 3 users)
Business Plus
$300.00
per year per user (minimum of 3 users)
Enterprise
$420
per year per user (minimum of 3 users)
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Amazon S3Box
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsBox is available as an annual subscription. Many customers opt for either the Digital Workplace or Digital Business suite, which includes the baseline software plat (Box Enterprise) plus multiple additional features including Box Shield for data loss prevention and threat detection, Box Governance for retention management and legal holds, Box Relay for no-code workflow, and Premier Services. Customers are eligible for discounting beyond volume list prices, depending on a number of conditions.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)Box
Top Pros
Top Cons
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)
8.3
1 Ratings
5% below category average
Box
-
Ratings
Multiple backup destinations8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Backup to the cloud9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Deduplication and file compression7.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Snapshots9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Management dashboard10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Retention options8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Encryption7.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Enterprise Backup
Comparison of Enterprise Backup features of Product A and Product B
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
8.3
1 Ratings
1% below category average
Box
-
Ratings
Replication9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Operational reporting and analytics7.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-location capabilities9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Enterprise Content Management
Comparison of Enterprise Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
-
Ratings
Box
8.7
34 Ratings
3% above category average
Content capture & imaging00 Ratings8.931 Ratings
File sync, storage & archiving00 Ratings9.233 Ratings
Document management00 Ratings9.030 Ratings
Records management00 Ratings8.519 Ratings
Content search & retrieval00 Ratings9.032 Ratings
Enterprise content collaboration00 Ratings9.231 Ratings
Content publishing & creation00 Ratings7.917 Ratings
Security, risk management & information governance00 Ratings9.033 Ratings
Contract lifecycle management00 Ratings7.810 Ratings
Automated workflows00 Ratings9.024 Ratings
Artificial intelligence00 Ratings7.613 Ratings
Mobile support00 Ratings8.933 Ratings
Integration00 Ratings9.232 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)Box
Small Businesses
Carbonite Safe
Carbonite Safe
Score 10.0 out of 10
PowerDMS
PowerDMS
Score 9.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Carbonite Safe
Carbonite Safe
Score 10.0 out of 10
MediaValet
MediaValet
Score 9.9 out of 10
Enterprises
Bacula Enterprise
Bacula Enterprise
Score 9.2 out of 10
OpenText Content Suite Platform
OpenText Content Suite Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)Box
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(67 ratings)
8.5
(163 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(12 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(10 ratings)
9.0
(18 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(10 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(24 ratings)
Support Rating
9.8
(38 ratings)
8.4
(57 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(12 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.
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Box
Very likely to use it. It gives you the comfort that all the files are being stored in [the] same places from different team members. It is easy to organize in folders and also very useful by adding time stamps. [With] an easy setup u can have and box extension installed on your laptop and use it directly. So you can sync files easily.
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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.
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Box
  • File security - Box makes file storage, sharing[,] and collaboration very [secure]. Its modular features such as encryption, data privacy[,] etc make Box one of the best cloud file storage programs when it comes to adhering to file security protocols.
  • Electronic signature provisions, which [make] it easier to append signatures to critical business documents.
  • Integrations with [day-to-day] applications, which helps us ensure content consistency across different applications we use.
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
No answers on this topic
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.
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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.
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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
Most of these cloud storage platforms have a simple interface and provide a feature of drag and drop to easily upload a file to the online drive with little or no expert knowledge. However, Box goes a step further to store data across redundant servers so that even if one of the data centers collapses, our data is still managed by the other data centers, and it's entirely impossible to lose data.
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Scalability
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Box
It's great, as we put more files on there it's done very well.
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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 In the Content Cloud, you get a single, secure, easy-to-use platform built for the entire content lifecycle, from file creation and sharing, to editing, signature, and retention.Screenshot of Keep your files safe with cloud-native security and compliance capabilities like granular access controls, watermarking, and classification. Stay proactive with Box Shield’s machine learning and the ability to set policies that detect threats.Screenshot of Power secure collaboration from anywhere with a central workspace to edit, review, and assign tasks.Screenshot of Integrate your tech stack across 1,500+ best-of-breed apps.Screenshot of Get e-signatures right where your content lives in Box. Power a simple, seamless signing experience for critical business documents like sales contracts and offer letters.Screenshot of Create workflows in minutes, so you spend more time on what matters most.