Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) vs. Dropbox Business

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Amazon S3
Score 8.6 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
Dropbox Business
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Dropbox Business expands on the company's cloud storage service by providing additional features, such as lost file recovery for an extended period, integration with popular office suites (e.g. Office 365), the Dropbox Paper collaboration extension, two-factor authentication (2FA) and single sign-on (SSO), tiered administrator controls and granular permission sharing, remote device wipe, API, and other features of use to larger groups and businesses.
$15
per month
Pricing
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)Dropbox Business
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Standard
$15
per user/per month
Advanced
$25
per user/per month
Enterprise
Contact sales team
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Amazon S3Dropbox Business
Free Trial
NoYes
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 S3 (Simple Storage Service)Dropbox Business
Considered Both Products
Amazon S3
Chose Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
Amazon S3 compared to all of these has the worst user interface. Drive and Dropbox as everyone knows is simpler and used for shared work files with a user-friendly interface. Google Cloud Storage and Amazon S3 are both in the same boat for large application files and great for …
Chose Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
Several issues with Dropbox where it was hard to set up in the application I was using and once it was set up it would work fine but then become disconnected for really no reason and the support from Dropbox was not that great. The one time that I had to bring back a backup it …
Dropbox Business
Chose Dropbox Business
On a purely cost per TB of storage comparison for large amounts of data, Dropbox for Business is cheaper. Its user interface is also friendlier for non-technical users. I found that Google Drive was on the expensive side and Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) required a higher …
Chose Dropbox Business
Desktop application and syncing with a Dropbox folder can be done.
Features
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)Dropbox Business
Data Center Backup
Comparison of Data Center Backup features of Product A and Product B
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
8.8
11 Ratings
2% above category average
Dropbox Business
-
Ratings
Universal recovery8.710 Ratings00 Ratings
Instant recovery8.210 Ratings00 Ratings
Recovery verification8.37 Ratings00 Ratings
Business application protection8.67 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple backup destinations8.810 Ratings00 Ratings
Incremental backup identification9.24 Ratings00 Ratings
Backup to the cloud9.011 Ratings00 Ratings
Deduplication and file compression8.85 Ratings00 Ratings
Snapshots9.17 Ratings00 Ratings
Flexible deployment9.211 Ratings00 Ratings
Management dashboard7.910 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform support8.710 Ratings00 Ratings
Retention options9.67 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
2% above category average
Dropbox Business
-
Ratings
Continuous data protection9.410 Ratings00 Ratings
Replication8.910 Ratings00 Ratings
Operational reporting and analytics8.111 Ratings00 Ratings
Malware protection8.64 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-location capabilities9.011 Ratings00 Ratings
Ransomware Recovery8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
File Sharing & Management
Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Product A and Product B
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
-
Ratings
Dropbox Business
8.8
130 Ratings
5% above category average
Versioning00 Ratings8.9102 Ratings
Video files00 Ratings9.2113 Ratings
Audio files00 Ratings9.1106 Ratings
Document collaboration00 Ratings8.2120 Ratings
Access control00 Ratings8.4126 Ratings
File search00 Ratings9.1126 Ratings
Device sync00 Ratings8.9123 Ratings
Cloud Storage Security & Administration
Comparison of Cloud Storage Security & Administration features of Product A and Product B
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
-
Ratings
Dropbox Business
9.0
129 Ratings
4% above category average
User and role management00 Ratings9.2114 Ratings
File organization00 Ratings9.2126 Ratings
Device management00 Ratings8.7108 Ratings
Cloud Storage Platform
Comparison of Cloud Storage Platform features of Product A and Product B
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
-
Ratings
Dropbox Business
8.8
126 Ratings
2% above category average
Performance00 Ratings9.0126 Ratings
Reliability00 Ratings9.0126 Ratings
Storage Reports00 Ratings8.592 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)Dropbox Business
Small Businesses
Cove Data Protection
Cove Data Protection
Score 9.8 out of 10
SugarSync
SugarSync
Score 4.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Bacula Enterprise
Bacula Enterprise
Score 9.6 out of 10
Druva Security Cloud
Druva Security Cloud
Score 9.6 out of 10
Enterprises
Bacula Enterprise
Bacula Enterprise
Score 9.6 out of 10
Druva Security Cloud
Druva Security Cloud
Score 9.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)Dropbox Business
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(77 ratings)
8.5
(131 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(1 ratings)
5.0
(4 ratings)
Usability
8.4
(15 ratings)
9.0
(19 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(15 ratings)
Support Rating
9.8
(21 ratings)
8.4
(27 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)Dropbox Business
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
Dropbox
Everywhere as aforementioned it is well suited ... The largest and most appropriate... A business can never ever have too many locations of its data stored. This option allows my company to have our data stored in one location and everyone works it in real time whereas the updates go in "Real time" no matter who is working that file. This is the most awesome trick of the entire program not to mention that I can see everything that Bobbiesue is working on out west at the same time pull another activity report to see if indeed Peggy logged in for work from home at 2p yesterday as she stated she did. Its a check and balance for small businesses such as ours that runs on the honor system for telework employees. At this time, there just is not any less appropriate!
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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.
Read full review
Dropbox
  • It enables us to share documents and workflow to all employees for whom access is allowed regardless of where in the world they may be located.
  • Dropbox Business provides a means to safely store our documents without having to have physical copies.
  • Dropbox also allows for easy organization of our documents in folders and such in the system.
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
Dropbox
  • I deeply dislike the navigation. I find it very clunky and hard and not intuitive. A few years ago Dropbox redesigned its navigation and I'm frequently at a loss to figure out where to access the option I need.
  • It should be quicker and easier to figure out how to send a file. I wish I could do that from the drop-down menu in my taskbar under the Dropbox logo.
  • I wish I had the option under the same drop-down menu in my taskbar under the Dropbox logo to go to where the files are on my laptop, which I find much easier to navigate.
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Likelihood to Renew
Amazon AWS
Due to princing, availability and scalability.
Read full review
Dropbox
Dropbox is very expensive and its price is not as competitive as it was. We are looking for an alternative that will enable as to subscribe more users at a more affordable cost. Also, we did not like Dropbox customer service, and felt that they should have found a way to compensate us for some of the damage they were responsible for when restoring our 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.
Read full review
Dropbox
Well-designed, smart, packed with functionality without being overwhelming—Dropbox knows what they are doing and they do it well. They know what users want from the service and they make sure that all the normal use cases are intuitive and at your fingertips. I have never had a hard time finding things with Dropbox and I think their usability is excellent.
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Reliability and Availability
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Dropbox
At least once a week the app crashes on my computer and causes files to stop syncing. It is an easy fix to re-open the app, however I have to notice the app stopped working to realize it needs to be reopened.
Read full review
Performance
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Dropbox
The Dropbox site and tools load in a reasonable amount of time. I don't feel like their site and app performance is any better or worse than any other paid product that I've seen offered by any other large company. Compared to a competing product like Google Drive, the performance is probably about the same.
Read full review
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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Dropbox
I give it a nine because I haven't ever had to use the support or help. I would give it a ten but since I've never had to use them, I can't really give a full review of how their support works. I've talked to market research teams from Dropbox about new features, but have not had to get any assistance with a problem yet.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Dropbox
The implementation was actually very simple. Again, as stated previously, the most intriguing part of the entire exercise was the implementation of the directory structure for each account. Once you design and implement it for one, it becomes quite simple to replicate for each account you implement thereafter. You just really need to take time to ensure you implement the first perfectly and those that follow on will be likewise work efficiently and easily.
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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
Dropbox
Dropbox Business is dependable, adaptable, and cost-effective for our businesses. On the inside, it’s comparable to other file-sharing and storage. Also, file access and navigation are much faster. We use it to share documents and store data and files for our business purposes. And I’ve never been convinced of other tools’ integrity or dependability. Dropbox Business has good connectivity and is smooth to use.
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Scalability
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Dropbox
We've used this when we were 2 users and when we were 20. It did not make any difference. Even when we've had to scale down and fire 10 employees, it was still easy to salvage all the material and keep it organized within Dropbox.
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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
Dropbox
  • Improved risk mitigation - know our files are encrypted.
  • Expiring Shared Links are a must have.
  • Positive impact from Happy Customers. No more trying to send cumbersome encrypted emails that customers struggle with. Dropbox makes it easy for them to retrieve their files.
  • Collaboration makes it faster for us to complete plan documents with our customers.
Read full review
ScreenShots