Box vs. IBM Cloud Object Storage

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Box
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Box is an online cloud content management solution that caters to individual users as well as businesses.
$5
Per Month (Paid Annually) per user (minimum of 3 users)
IBM Cloud Object Storage
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
IBM Cloud Object Storage is an IBM Cloud product in the endpoint backup and IaaS categories. It is commonly used for data archiving and backup, for web and mobile applications, and as scalable, persistent storage for analytics.N/A
Pricing
BoxIBM Cloud Object Storage
Editions & Modules
Business Starter
$5
Per Month (Paid Annually) per user (minimum of 3 users)
Business
$15
Per Month (Paid Annually) per user (minimum of 3 users)
Business Plus
$25
Per Month (Paid Annually) per user (minimum of 3 users)
Enterprise
$35
Per Month (Paid Annually) per user (minimum of 3 users)
Enterprise Plus
Custom
Contact Us
Lite Plan
Free
Up to 25 GB/mo. For all terms go to https://www.ibm.com/cloud/object-storage
Standard Plan
There is no minimum fee, pay only for what you use
For pricing and all terms go to https://www.ibm.com/cloud/object-storage
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BoxIBM Cloud Object Storage
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
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.The Lite and Standard service plans for Cloud Object Storage include resiliency options, flexible data classes and built-in security. Pricing is based on the choice of location, storage class and resiliency choice.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BoxIBM Cloud Object Storage
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
BoxIBM Cloud Object Storage
Enterprise Content Management
Comparison of Enterprise Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Box
7.9
23 Ratings
4% below category average
IBM Cloud Object Storage
-
Ratings
Content capture & imaging7.519 Ratings00 Ratings
File sync, storage & archiving8.222 Ratings00 Ratings
Document management8.621 Ratings00 Ratings
Records management8.117 Ratings00 Ratings
Content search & retrieval7.421 Ratings00 Ratings
Enterprise content collaboration8.020 Ratings00 Ratings
Content publishing & creation7.014 Ratings00 Ratings
Security, risk management & information governance7.823 Ratings00 Ratings
Contract lifecycle management7.510 Ratings00 Ratings
Automated workflows8.112 Ratings00 Ratings
Artificial intelligence8.110 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile support7.921 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration8.021 Ratings00 Ratings
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
Box
-
Ratings
IBM Cloud Object Storage
8.4
141 Ratings
3% above category average
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime00 Ratings8.0129 Ratings
Dynamic scaling00 Ratings8.9131 Ratings
Elastic load balancing00 Ratings8.2128 Ratings
Monitoring tools00 Ratings8.4131 Ratings
Security controls00 Ratings8.7136 Ratings
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BoxIBM Cloud Object Storage
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Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
MediaValet
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Score 9.8 out of 10
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
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Score 9.8 out of 10
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Score 9.1 out of 10
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User Ratings
BoxIBM Cloud Object Storage
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(151 ratings)
8.5
(145 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(12 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(18 ratings)
8.1
(5 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.1
(12 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.5
(29 ratings)
9.1
(8 ratings)
In-Person Training
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(3 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(6 ratings)
5.5
(4 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BoxIBM Cloud Object Storage
Likelihood to Recommend
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
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IBM
IBM Cloud Object Storage is well suited for businesses that require scalable and cost-effective data storage solutions. It excels in scenarios involving massive unstructured data, like multimedia content, backups, and archives. However, it may be less appropriate for organizations with minimal storage needs or those requiring high-performance, low-latency access to data, as it's optimized for durability and data integrity rather than real-time data retrieval.
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Pros
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.
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IBM
  • Cloud storage allows you to save data and files in an off-site location that you access either through the public internet or a dedicated private network connection.
  • Cloud storage delivers a cost-effective, scalable alternative to storing files on on-premise hard drives or storage networks.
  • Cloud storage services provide elasticity, which means you can scale capacity as your data volumes increase or dial down capacity if necessary.
  • Business continuity of Storing data offsite supports business continuity in the event that a natural disaster or terrorist attack cuts access to your premises.
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Cons
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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IBM
  • Unexpected errors are known to occur when downloading/uploading files.
  • Not easy to get started. In order to take full advantage of the platform and its features, additional training and reading documentation is needed.
  • The UI of the platform can get a bit confusing and it's easy to get lost.
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Likelihood to Renew
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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IBM
because it is a robust, safe and flexible product
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Usability
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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IBM
For my use cases, it has been a very smooth experience. Even my new colleagues have been able to get on top of things very quickly. This shows how easy it is to work with
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Reliability and Availability
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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IBM
No answers on this topic
Performance
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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IBM
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
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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IBM
I have been working in IT sector for more than 15 years. I have worked with various vendors. IBM's sales team, support team have been really helpful. After we start to use their product, their UX design team also contacted us to get feedback from us. They are really interested about our experience.
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In-Person Training
Box
The in person training was done in house and I helped with the training, people seem to respond well.
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IBM
No answers on this topic
Online Training
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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IBM
I just researching and applying the tools on their platforms to ensure a good learning path, based on my needs. Reading the documentation related with resources, tools. Is too big, but I am trying to know more about it every day. It is a good way to know more about their resources. A new way to attract new customers. At the end of the day, we are all involved in improvement and automation of our tasks and resources for customers and end-users.
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Implementation Rating
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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IBM
IBM's professional service for migrating data and implementing new cloud environment was perfect. They started to help us before we begin to bring together all data such as how can it could be best to transfer all data without problems. During the migration they watched all the process closely to prevent any failure. Lastly, after the migration, they gave us trainings on implementation.
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Alternatives Considered
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).
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IBM
Amazon S3 is a great service to safely back up your data where redundancy is guaranteed, and the cost is fair. In the past I have used 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. Amazon S3 service is a good option, but based on the features it provides compared with IBM Cloud Object Storage, it is less suitable. IBM Cloud Object Storage is also integrated with more services, like IBM Cloud SQL and IBM Aspera, which AWS does not provide to transfer files at maximum speed in the world.
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Scalability
Box
It's great, as we put more files on there it's done very well.
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IBM
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
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.
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IBM
  • This allows us to recommend a platform to our clients that will quickly help them create new, efficient business processes with very little development.
  • This saves clients hours and days of manual analysis of images, allowing the system to do the work when attaching Object Storage to models.
  • There is a learning curve in utilizing the storage and the modeling, but once up and running, it works well during deployment.
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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.

IBM Cloud Object Storage Screenshots

Screenshot of Cloud Object Storage set upScreenshot of storage bucket creationScreenshot of the Access Management interfaceScreenshot of the interface to create, add and management of Storage BucketsScreenshot of data uploadingScreenshot of usage details