Dropbox Business vs. Panzura CloudFS

Dropbox Business is an excellent tool for organizing files transmitted among multiple people. Users can upload files to an uploaded folder, protected by the service’s high security. Its stability allows us to be more productive. Intuitive system integration and numerous sharing options are provided. Dropbox Business streamlines and organizes my file-sharing, storage, and saving procedures. It has also been updated to make adding and removing users easier. My experience with Dropbox Business has been nothing but positive since I began using it. For the price, it’s better than Google Drive.

Panzura works well for companies that have a high amount of data with cross site collaboration being done. The caching ensures you don't need huge investments of storage at each site and the cloud storage ensures high availability over what can be done locally. Also helps eliminate duplicate data across sites and/or small variations in the same data.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Real time file locking
• Backup and recovery
• Easy access to all your files

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• I would like to see more connectors. Tie in to traditional block storage or NAS. Additional cloud connectors to products like Hitachi Content Platform.
• I would like to see a collaborative product created between Panzura and Riverbed. I envision an almost perfect small footprint ROBO solution where Riverbed provides the compute+WAN optimization and Panzura provides the storage/risiliancy components. Combine the boxes into a single 4U solution and you have a near perfect product for remote offices.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Hands down support is the best part of Panzura. Their techs are always helpful, always knowledgeable, and consistently solve complex problems quickly. You can definitely tell they hire their support folks from the top tier of other companies and they go above and beyond what I have come to expect in terms of support compared to other companies.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Dropbox Business just works better across multiple platforms without taking up too many resources locally. I use iCloud for my personal stuff as well, but would never even think of using it across an entire organization. The access and navigation to documents is way easier in my opinion and I've never been convinced of the security integrity of Box.

Incentivized

There are several other devices but Panzura is best of class.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Exceptional positive impact on availability - as users move so do their files.
• Panzura+DFS allowed for simple chargeback models to be implemented.

Incentivized