The most similar in functions would be Google Drive, however I chose One Drive because first, it allows to use all of office 365 software, which is universally used and preferred because of its trajectory. One Drive syncs directly with windows, which allows to use the desktop …
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!
It is the most appropriate tool to quickly share documents with someone you don't want to give access to your company's own online library, yet you have to share files. It's great that there's no need to create a user, nor for uploading or downloading files. Just have in mind that the documents on the link have an expiration day!
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.
With the free version, you are limited to 2GB of file transferring. Likely if you are sending lots of files, you'll be upgrading to Plus instead.
Download links expire after a certain amount of time. It's important to download each link immediately and not forget where you left the downloaded files.
I like Box better. If you sign into Microsoft using a personal account, be EXTREMELY careful. All of your downloads could suddenly be available to your entire company, and that is incredibly embarrassing. Did that happen to me? Not going to say, but just always check which MS account you sign into.
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
I am generally very satisfied with the service. The free version alone takes care of 90% of my needs. The same holds for a lot of other people. It's a very smart business model as it gained mass market appeal (e.g. personal use) and thereby carries a lot of trust. I also never had issues using it.
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.
WeTransfer is extremely reliable 99% of the time. There has been twice in 4 years that their service was unavailable due to server outage for several hours.
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.
I've only reached out to WeTransfer support once, but they were prompt, courteous, and answered my question. I assume that future interactions would be the same, I'm looking forward to being a long term customer.
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.
While Dropbox does offer features that WeTransfer does not in terms of collaboration & organization, WeTransfer is the better option for simple file transfers. In my experience, WeTransfer is much faster for uploads & downloads. The premium version of WeTransfer also offers a lot of customization options that Dropbox does not.
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.
When we've had our BETA testing programs for our products, we always used WeTransfer to send our BETA version of our products. Doing this using WeTransfer was free and we also didn't have to worry about unauthorized people later down the road downloading these versions as WeTransfer deletes the files after a small number of days.
