Box vs. Dropbox

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
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)
Dropbox
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Dropbox is a service for file syncing and sharing, or for cloud storage.
$11.99
per month
Pricing
BoxDropbox
Editions & Modules
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)
Plus
$11.99
per month
Family
$19.99
per month
Basic
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BoxDropbox
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
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.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BoxDropbox
Considered Both Products
Box
Chose Box
I like using Box much better than Dropbox although I have not used Dropbox in ten or so years, so their performance and [user] interface may have improved. Box is more user friendly and easy to navigate. When I was using Dropbox, I disliked that it did not sync well or quickly, …
Chose Box
Box has excellent file sharing options and easy link creation. Most of the file share companies are top-notch, but Box is more user-friendly than Dropbox, and an interface that’s easier to navigate than Google Drive's. In my industry, I have to be versatile and able to use …
Chose Box
Box is compatible with other cloud-based storage solutions like Dropbox or Google Drive. While the latter is probably the most customizable, user-friendly and widely adopted, Box and Dropbox are fantastic alternatives for companies that shy away from the Google suite of …
Chose Box
Box is more secure than Dropbox and has a better user interface on desktop clients. We also like Box's UI for editing documents in the cloud and Box's offerings for sharing documents outside our organization over competitors like Dropbox. However, Dropbox is better known for …
Chose Box
Box is better for large file sets than Dropbox, and doesn't have the collaboration abilities of Sharepoint (But that's not a negative! Sometimes it's just not needed).
Chose Box
This platform was a recent selection but before switching to Box we used Hiver, MS SharePoint, Dropbox, and Asana. We moved to Box because of many reasons like cost factors, usability factors, support team rating, and much more. With my
Chose Box
Our university previously used a private VPN, and we've used Google Drive as well before. At a previous university, I had experience with Dropbox. While I was unhappy about the switch to Box at first (change is always hard), Box seems superior in ease of use and collaboration …
Chose Box
The first benefit of using Box that comes to my mind is the cost advantage. Box is generally more affordable and easy-to-use than Dropbox Business because it eliminates the cost of hardware and maintenance which translates into significant cost savings. Box team maintains, …
Chose Box
Box has fewer features than Dropbox and that makes it easier to use.
Chose Box
Among many other solutions box has been vetted by our security professionals and deemed to be the best solution for our particular organization. This lends to many of box's security features that still allow for collaboration and secure file sharing.
Chose Box
Box has cheap storage pricing and so is preferred by small organizations, and easy to use app and sync make it a good product to use.
Cross platform file sharing and editing over the cloud is one of the best features it has.
Chose Box
I prefer Box over all of these alternatives because I find Box to be a lot more user-friendly and intuitive. Box has a lot more integrations as compared to the previous alternatives I used in my company. Moreover, this tool has led to an improvement in risk mitigation because …
Chose Box
Simply put, having unlimited file storage is a clear differentiator. Furthermore, the number of integrations offered by Box is simply unmatched. If you are looking for pure document and file sharing, I don't think there is a better product on the market. The benefits from …
Chose Box
Box and its competitors are all quite similar in their filesharing and storing capabilities. I think the closest, most similar product would be OneDrive, which I use quite often. Google Drive provides a bit more of real-time updating and version control of documentation that I …
Chose Box
A simple secure link and a password protection is what employees use to share files. Box is made different from other cloud content collaboration software because of the commenting feature which keeps all discussions together and enables any collaborator to provide feedback on …
Chose Box
Box was selected prior to me starting with the company. We eventually switched to Sharepoint because of the cost savings, but otherwise, we would have preferred to stay on Box. OneDrive did not stack up to Box because it was determined that it was best suited for storing work …
Chose Box
Box has a similar, but easier interface.
Chose Box
Box is a professional tool that has a rich suite of features that go head to head with Google and has many more use cases [than] iCloud. For the price, Box is a great alternative to other cloud storage and data asset management software offers. Box is a great addition to any …
Chose Box
Box was the most versatile and cheaper of these options, also had more granular admin capabilities and platform agnostic (whether your are using MS Office or Google Docs).
Chose Box
Box has added some new protections to try and prevent multiple people from working on the same document at the same time without knowing, but I have yet to test them out. That has been an issue in the past that has led to some weird file uploads where now there are multiple …
Chose Box
The more familiar products perform better and are generally preferred by users. The reason to use Box is for compliance with rules.
Chose Box
Both of these services are fine but they both seem to either be missing features or are much slower to do what needs to be done. Price might be the biggest difference since Google Drive is free but paying for Box is still worth it.
Dropbox
Chose Dropbox
We switched over to box because of some integration tools we wanted for Salesforce, and to have a platform that could be better utilized by others outside of our design and production team. We found that box has better usability for our users that aren't as fluent in computers. …
Chose Dropbox
I have used Box, Google Drive and MS OneDrive. Honestly, most of the company has trust issues with Microsoft and Google as they have a history of leaks and system hacks. Box is good but not as complete a business solution compared to Dropbox. Dropbox is fast and reliable and it …
Chose Dropbox
I've been a longtime user of Dropbox, for me, I'm already invested. I never have any issues across different devices or platforms. "Dropbox Life"!
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
BoxDropbox
Enterprise Content Management
Comparison of Enterprise Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Box
8.7
34 Ratings
3% above category average
Dropbox
-
Ratings
Content capture & imaging8.931 Ratings00 Ratings
File sync, storage & archiving9.233 Ratings00 Ratings
Document management9.030 Ratings00 Ratings
Records management8.519 Ratings00 Ratings
Content search & retrieval9.032 Ratings00 Ratings
Enterprise content collaboration9.231 Ratings00 Ratings
Content publishing & creation7.917 Ratings00 Ratings
Security, risk management & information governance9.033 Ratings00 Ratings
Contract lifecycle management7.810 Ratings00 Ratings
Automated workflows9.024 Ratings00 Ratings
Artificial intelligence7.613 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile support8.933 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration9.232 Ratings00 Ratings
File Sharing & Management
Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Product A and Product B
Box
-
Ratings
Dropbox
7.1
113 Ratings
14% below category average
Versioning00 Ratings6.997 Ratings
Video files00 Ratings6.9105 Ratings
Audio files00 Ratings7.2101 Ratings
Document collaboration00 Ratings7.6104 Ratings
Access control00 Ratings7.1111 Ratings
File search00 Ratings7.2112 Ratings
Device sync00 Ratings6.8108 Ratings
Cloud Storage Security & Administration
Comparison of Cloud Storage Security & Administration features of Product A and Product B
Box
-
Ratings
Dropbox
7.2
109 Ratings
17% below category average
User and role management00 Ratings6.9101 Ratings
File organization00 Ratings7.7108 Ratings
Device management00 Ratings7.194 Ratings
Cloud Storage Platform
Comparison of Cloud Storage Platform features of Product A and Product B
Box
-
Ratings
Dropbox
7.3
113 Ratings
14% below category average
Performance00 Ratings7.5113 Ratings
Reliability00 Ratings7.7113 Ratings
Storage Reports00 Ratings6.687 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BoxDropbox
Small Businesses
PowerDMS
PowerDMS
Score 9.5 out of 10
SugarSync
SugarSync
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
MediaValet
MediaValet
Score 9.9 out of 10
Druva Data Resiliency Cloud
Druva Data Resiliency Cloud
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
OpenText Content Suite Platform
OpenText Content Suite Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
Druva Data Resiliency Cloud
Druva Data Resiliency Cloud
Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BoxDropbox
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(163 ratings)
7.3
(132 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(12 ratings)
4.5
(21 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(18 ratings)
8.6
(23 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(10 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Performance
9.1
(24 ratings)
8.8
(10 ratings)
Support Rating
8.4
(57 ratings)
7.3
(60 ratings)
In-Person Training
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(3 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(12 ratings)
10.0
(4 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BoxDropbox
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
Read full review
Dropbox
Well-Suited Scenarios: Large Design Files: Dropbox is well-suited for architects who work with large design files, such as blueprints, CAD files, and 3D models. Dropbox's large file sharing capabilities make it easy to share these files with team members and clients, while its version control features allow architects to track changes over time. Limited Customization: Dropbox may be less appropriate for me who require a high level of customization in my workflow or project management.
Read full review
Pros
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
Dropbox
  • We are transferring large files and multiple files with various internal and external parties due to the ease of sharing files and folders.
  • Smart sync, so you don't have to worry about device space and search large file batches quickly.
  • Synchronizing a data file across organizations without the user having to do anything other than work is a significant benefit of cloud computing.
  • Allowing only the people who need it to have access is a huge perk and works well with other enterprise software.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Dropbox
  • At one point 2 gigs [were] deemed enough for the "Free" version of Dropbox and its competition. However as even the most simple picture from a phone gets larger, 2 gigs might no longer be enough. Might want to increase the free size to adjust for file size inflation.
  • Dropbox's app is very presumptive of updating itself every time you log on to a system that it's installed on. I know that's a feature you can turn off, but the assumption to turn that feature on by default is annoying.
  • Dropbox could use a phone app function that would initiate a download to a designated computer hard drive. It would eliminate having to see the file on your phone, go to your computer, turn it on and then download the file.
Read full review
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
Read full review
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
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!
Read full review
Dropbox
Dropbox is dead simple to us since right out of the box, it creates a folder on your PC and anything added to it gets synced to the cloud and any other device signed into that account. You can then dive deeper into permissions, version history, etc. Overall though, the minimalist approach is welcome since not everyone we work with is highly technical and that itself saves us time and money. Many of our colleagues already use Dropbox for their personal cloud so no training is required when using it at work other than going over our own company guidelines and best practices.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Dropbox
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
Read full review
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
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.
Read full review
Dropbox
It has not been necessary to go to customer support lately, since everything works perfectly. However, I must add that at the beginning when I started using Dropbox, and I had any doubts about how it worked, customer support was always attentive and found the best solutions effectively.
Read full review
In-Person Training
Box
The in person training was done in house and I helped with the training, people seem to respond well.
Read full review
Dropbox
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.
Read full review
Dropbox
No answers on this topic
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.
Read full review
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
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.
Read full review
Dropbox
Compared to Google Cloud Storage, the Dropbox app has proven to be more stable and dependable. In the meantime, Google has improved and is a great alternative. But now that we've decided to stick with Dropbox, we'll keep using it. In terms of ease of use, Dropbox appears to be the better option. It has all of the features that we require and more. It's easier to use for simple tasks, making it more convenient.
Read full review
Scalability
Box
It's great, as we put more files on there it's done very well.
Read full review
Dropbox
I can add and add a tin files large files and Dropbox is still working great!
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Dropbox
  • Dropbox has a very generous free option. Once surpassed, the cost is relatively inexpensive, which makes it a low cost option for file sharing.
  • It allows us to easily share files with clients without needing to pay for other services that are email based.
  • It's wide usage and wide acceptance in the business world makes it easy to work with other individuals and companies, speeding up collaboration.
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.