OneDrive vs. OneNote

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
OneDrive
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
OneDrive from Microsoft is a cloud storage and file syncing service.
$5
per month
OneNote
Score 8.3 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
OneDriveOneNote
Editions & Modules
OneDrive for Business Plan 1
$5.00
Per Month (Annual Commitment)
Microsoft 365 Business Basic
$5.00
Per Month (Annual Commitment)
OneDrive for Business Plan 2
$10.00
Per Month (Annual Commitment)
Microsoft 365 Business Standard
$12.50
Per Month (Annual Commitment)
Microsoft OneNote
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
OneDriveOneNote
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsOneDrive can be purchased as a standalone tool, or as part of a Microsoft 365's business suite.—
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
OneDriveOneNote
Considered Both Products
OneDrive
Chose OneDrive
Though Dropbox has been in existence and popular, I found OneDrive to be much more effective in terms of pricing. And app support is better with OneDrive. Also as mentioned the new feature of not downloading all files but showing the names gets my vote for OneDrive. One more …
Chose OneDrive
It's roughly the same as Googe Drive but underperforms when compared to Box and Dropbox.
Chose OneDrive
I would say OneDrive is better than Amazon and Dropbox and about on par with iCloud and Google. OneDrive was best for us since we are a Microsoft shop. Its storage, collaboration, and office integration made it the best option for us. Google Drive is also used by us when …
Chose OneDrive
Though I would say that iCloud is more reliable, it is only compatible with Apple products. I use iCloud personally, but we do not own any Apple products as a business. I find that Dropbox can be confusing and not consistent with storage management. OneDrive solves the problem …
Chose OneDrive
Dropbox might be less popular and slower. It is not that well integrated into document editing software (Office or OneNote), but Dropbox has one key (for me) feature that OneDrive does not. In Dropbox you have to upload simple HTML page, share the link to that HTML document and …
OneNote
Chose OneNote
Integration with other Microsoft Office products is much better with OneNote than any other note-taking tool. It's also crucial to have cloud-based syncing because I have used other products that only do local storage and you lose a lot of important information if that software …
Chose OneNote
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 …
Chose OneNote
For me, OneNote is way simpler and easier to use. Furthermore, the storage options was one of the key factors that I choose OneNote. Since it's a software for my PC, I can just store all the documents on my computer and I will never have the fear of running out of space and …
Chose OneNote
S-Note is very local and works only on your Samsung device. Attempting to share S-Note notes across devices will turn them into pictures, which are hardly useful on a PC. OneNote's format is standardized between PC/Mobile/Web. Also, OneNote is clearly better for the different …
Chose OneNote
OneNote is by far the easiest to get familiar with for our end users as well as its integration into the Microsoft suite has made adoption much easier with our employees. OneNote allows for Active Directory setting internally which help us administer and deploy the product …
Chose OneNote
I had used IBM Doors for requirement gathering though a document repository. It was hard to maintain as we had to always download the latest docs on a local [drive]. OneNote overcame this issue.
Chose OneNote
The handwriting recognition is ideal. I also trust Microsoft to be around in 10 years. The integration with Outlook might be used at some point to manage tasks.
Chose OneNote
OneNote has a wider selection of fonts. OneNote also allows for more flexibility in formatting. Evernote, on the other hand, is a free service. Even though Office 365 allows for several GB of space on OneDrive, it is still a paid service, and Evernote gives free users more …
Chose OneNote
OnenOte has a great usability features that I like and the way it is integrated with the rest of the MS ecosystem of products which I use makes it that much more valuable.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
OneDriveOneNote
File Sharing & Management
Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Product A and Product B
OneDrive
7.7
113 Ratings
9% below category average
OneNote
-
Ratings
Versioning8.289 Ratings00 Ratings
Video files6.5100 Ratings00 Ratings
Audio files7.194 Ratings00 Ratings
Document collaboration7.9107 Ratings00 Ratings
Access control7.9108 Ratings00 Ratings
File search7.9113 Ratings00 Ratings
Device sync8.0111 Ratings00 Ratings
Cloud Storage Security & Administration
Comparison of Cloud Storage Security & Administration features of Product A and Product B
OneDrive
7.5
108 Ratings
14% below category average
OneNote
-
Ratings
User and role management7.496 Ratings00 Ratings
File organization7.7108 Ratings00 Ratings
Device management7.391 Ratings00 Ratings
Cloud Storage Platform
Comparison of Cloud Storage Platform features of Product A and Product B
OneDrive
7.3
112 Ratings
15% below category average
OneNote
-
Ratings
Performance8.0111 Ratings00 Ratings
Reliability7.1112 Ratings00 Ratings
Storage Reports7.086 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
OneDriveOneNote
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 9.6 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Enterprises
Druva Data Resiliency Cloud
Druva Data Resiliency Cloud
Score 9.6 out of 10

No answers on this topic

All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
OneDriveOneNote
Likelihood to Recommend
7.6
(113 ratings)
8.1
(70 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(5 ratings)
10.0
(13 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(12 ratings)
9.5
(10 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.8
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(36 ratings)
8.7
(10 ratings)
User Testimonials
OneDriveOneNote
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
I'll start with what I would not use OneDrive for! I would not use it as a primary source for code repository, there are other more robust tools out there that can help you with storing and making available code repos. Where I would use OneDrive is in a platform for managing files, and with that I mean any file that can be saved offline and access a OneDrive access point, share, or mount. This could be personal, business, or data from a system that is saved in a standard file format. The OneDrive platform is great for documents collaboration as well, with the ability to allow for share and links to be provided to for easy access and collaboration. I would also recommend if you are someone who likes to use cloud services and rely less and less on offline storage. OneDrive excels in this area!
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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
Microsoft
  • Sync functions allow to access work virtually anywhere
  • Collaboration options make working with others easier, increasing productivity
  • It works seamlessly in different devices
  • The one drive online functions allows to use office programs like work and excel without having them installed in a device
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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.
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Cons
Microsoft
  • I wish OneDrive would allow you to sync multiple personal/individual accounts to your computer. At this time, you can only sync one account at a time. That means that my personal OneDrive and individual corporate OneDrive can't be synced to my computer at the same time.
  • OneDrive has a file size limitation of 15 GB. I know that that is a very large amount, but I have several files that are larger than 15 GB that I wish I could get to sync. I'm hoping that file size limitation changes in the future.
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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
Microsoft
Due to its tight integration into the Microsoft ecosystem and its bundling into the Office 365 service, continued use of the product is all but guaranteed. Unless there's a shift away from Microsoft, I can see no competing product offering the same ease of use and integrations taking the place of OneDrive
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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
Microsoft
Using OneDrive is very intuitive and has been improved over the years. It's just like using native file management on either your Mac or PC. It's drag and drop functionality is easy and it clearly shows when files are uploaded to the cloud or if there are errors
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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
Microsoft
It has a good performance, the pages load normally, access to the files, management, reports, everything is working well. With regard to integration with other systems, we have not done so yet.
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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
Microsoft
It's a Microsoft product so there is a wealth of information online both from Microsoft directly and from millions of users but as a corporate user we also have access to direct Microsoft support through a variety of avenues (phone, email, etc.). This makes finding answers to issues more accessible, however, it does also mean that any new feature requests will get buried.
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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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Alternatives Considered
Microsoft
Box is another file-sharing application that is very similar to OneDrive. Box falls short of OneDrive in its syncing capabilities. OneDrive is very quick with syncing so you never have to be concerned that you are not using the most up-to-date materials. Box was always a bit delayed and did not always accurately sync across systems. OneDrive benefits from being backed by Microsoft, so you expect the connection across applications that it allows. OneDrive also provides consistency for use and intuitive understanding because of that Microsoft consistency. I'd prefer OneDrive over Box.
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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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Return on Investment
Microsoft
  • OneDrive allows us to save much time on creating and archiving backup copies of our data. Microsoft gives a guarantee on the possibility of recovery of files or folders even from 30 days ago. It provides a great comfort of work.
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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