Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Dropbox
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Dropbox is a service for file syncing and sharing, or for cloud storage.
$11.99
per month
OneNote
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft's OneNote is a digital note-taking app, supporting photos, annotating, web page clipping, emailing, and synchronizing notes across devices.N/A
Pricing
DropboxOneNote
Editions & Modules
Plus
$11.99
per month
Family
$19.99
per month
Basic
Free
Microsoft OneNote
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
DropboxOneNote
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
DropboxOneNote
Considered Both Products
Dropbox
Chose Dropbox
We briefly considered Mozy and Carbonite as solutions against Dropbox, but their focus is backup first. To be honest, I'm not sure if either even offers a file sync feature any longer. They didn't solve the problem that Dropbox does in an elegant way. Apple iCloud is very …
OneNote
Chose OneNote
I tried organizing various online hard drive storage products like Dropbox, iCloud and Google Drive and One Drive. However, I like the visual aspects of OneNote when I save a document or webpage. It's simpler and I am able to know immediately if I have found the item I am …
Chose OneNote
The only real product that I can directly hold in juxtaposition to OneNote is Evernote. OneNote ultimately wins that battle because of its zero cost. It compares like for like in most other ways to Evernote, with the exception of its organizational system. If you intend to …
Chose OneNote
I chose OneNote on the recommendation of a colleague. I found that OneNote is more useable than Evernote, although both are very good. Both products organize your notes in the same way, so it could also just come down to familiarity with OneNote, but I really like how the …
Chose OneNote
As far as I'm concerned, OneNote is the 'go-to' note-taking application. Evernote is not helpful and it's also confusing. OneNote has so much more functionality, putting Evernote to shame. Once I started using OneNote, Evernote became a thing of the past.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
DropboxOneNote
File Sharing & Management
Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Product A and Product B
Dropbox
7.2
114 Ratings
14% below category average
OneNote
-
Ratings
Versioning7.098 Ratings00 Ratings
Video files6.9106 Ratings00 Ratings
Audio files7.3102 Ratings00 Ratings
Document collaboration7.8105 Ratings00 Ratings
Access control7.2112 Ratings00 Ratings
File search7.3113 Ratings00 Ratings
Device sync6.8109 Ratings00 Ratings
Cloud Storage Security & Administration
Comparison of Cloud Storage Security & Administration features of Product A and Product B
Dropbox
6.9
109 Ratings
21% below category average
OneNote
-
Ratings
User and role management6.7101 Ratings00 Ratings
File organization7.4108 Ratings00 Ratings
Device management6.694 Ratings00 Ratings
Cloud Storage Platform
Comparison of Cloud Storage Platform features of Product A and Product B
Dropbox
6.8
113 Ratings
21% below category average
OneNote
-
Ratings
Performance6.9113 Ratings00 Ratings
Reliability7.3113 Ratings00 Ratings
Storage Reports6.387 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
DropboxOneNote
Small Businesses
SugarSync
SugarSync
Score 10.0 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
Druva Data Resiliency Cloud
Druva Data Resiliency Cloud
Score 9.4 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Enterprises
Druva Data Resiliency Cloud
Druva Data Resiliency Cloud
Score 9.4 out of 10

No answers on this topic

All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
DropboxOneNote
Likelihood to Recommend
7.0
(133 ratings)
8.3
(70 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
4.8
(21 ratings)
10.0
(13 ratings)
Usability
8.6
(23 ratings)
9.5
(10 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(2 ratings)
10.0
(4 ratings)
Performance
8.8
(10 ratings)
8.8
(6 ratings)
Support Rating
7.3
(60 ratings)
8.7
(20 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
DropboxOneNote
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
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Microsoft
In my opinion OneNote is a must for anyone who does business. It’s versatile, stable and sustainable. It can keep private information private - like passwords. It can be used for collaborative work - like standard operating procedures. It is fairly easy to use and far superior to pen and paper. When used for meeting notes, it can be flagged with icons that are searchable - like ideas or important items. You can even create Outlook tasks on the fly
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Pros
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.
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Microsoft
  • Because of its flexibility and ability to hold different types of content (text, images, tables), it is a great tool for collecting content from different resources and organizing it in one place.
  • Technical support analysts are using sections for their support case analysis; they paste pieces of logs, screen-shots, document their steps in troubleshooting etc., all in one section, to get the full picture yet stay organized.
  • The logic of content structure; Notebook>Section>Page>Paragraph, allows you to manage and collect all needed information by the areas of the user's responsibility. For example; each of my projects has its own section, in which each page is a task.
Read full review
Cons
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.
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Microsoft
  • The table editing tools are too simplistic and lack the features found in other Office products.
  • Some content loses its rich text formatting when being pasted into OneNote. A workaround is to paste the content first into Outlook or Word and then copy/pasting that into OneNote.
  • Microsoft is moving away from a local install of OneNote, which means notebooks have to be in the cloud in Office 2019. This will actually reduce the usefulness of OneNote in some environments and opens the door to competitor products.
  • Update: Microsoft has now announced that it will continue to support OneNote 2016 through 2023. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Office-365-Blog/Your-OneNote/ba-p/954922
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Likelihood to Renew
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.
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Microsoft
As this is not a compulsory tool in our organization, I would say all depends on the decision makers, however since this is a part of MS Office, I am sure we will have it for as long as we will possibly need it. However, I would not be so sure, if it was a separate product
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Usability
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.
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Microsoft
I find OneNote incredibly usable. I'm fairly middle of the road when it comes to tech savvy-ness. The platform was very easy to learn and explore. I like that OneNote is no clunky and offers a clean interface. This is important when it comes to deciding if a tool is usable for multiple people.
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Performance
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.
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Microsoft
Overall, I rate OneNote's performance highly. In general, notebooks, sections and pages load quickly. OneNote integrates with other apps and info ca easily be shared/copied to and from the tool to other tools. Moreover, Notebooks tend to sync quickly meaning shared notebooks are up to date almost immediately provided there are no syncing issues.
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Support Rating
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.
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Microsoft
Since it is part of Microsoft Office and used across the globe there are a lot of support options available. It's quickest to just do a google search which will have plenty of articles to help you since there are so many OneNote users but as an Office customer you also have access to Microsoft support and I have had good experiences with their support (probably because I'm with a large company who is a large customer to them).
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Implementation Rating
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
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
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
Microsoft
I tried using Evernote and it is an equally usable tool, however, I prefer the interface and capabilities of OneNote. OneNote seems much easier to use and understand. I think that may primarily be because OneNote is a Microsoft application and I am very used to using Microsoft applications such as Word, Excel, etc. I also use OneNote to keep my grocery list. It does as good of a job as the grocery list applications out there, only I like the flexibility I have with OneNote and how I specifically do my shopping.
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Scalability
Dropbox
I can add and add a tin files large files and Dropbox is still working great!
Read full review
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
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.
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Microsoft
  • OneNote has become our organizational standard method of taking electronic notes (though some still prefer pen and paper.) It has been a zero cost outlay due to its freely available nature.
  • Its integration with other Microsoft Office products makes it easy to share notes and content between products, allowing for easy collaboration where needed.
  • OneNote's integration with OneDrive ensures that individual's notes are always safe and secure, taking away the tedious responsibility of backup from the user, and makes it happen seamlessly in the background.
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ScreenShots