Dropbox vs. ownCloud

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Dropbox
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Dropbox is a cloud storage solution, equipped with features that help users to save time, improve productivity, and collaborate with others. Users can edit PDFs, share videos, sign documents, and collaborate with stakeholders without leaving Dropbox.
$9.99
per month
ownCloud
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
ownCloud is a self-hosted open source file syncing and sharing option, from the Boston-based company of the same name.
$5
per month
Pricing
DropboxownCloud
Editions & Modules
Plus
$9.99
per month
Essentials
$18
per month
Business
$20
per month per user
Business Plus
$26
per month per user
Basic
Free
Standard
$5
per month
Enterprise
$12
per month
For Teams
$13
per month
For Single Users
$15
per month
Community
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
DropboxownCloud
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
DropboxownCloud
Considered Both Products
Dropbox
Chose Dropbox
Box.com is slightly better when it comes to storage space it provides to normal users. ownCloud has an advantage of sharing and keeping everything written in our hard disk. This could be a nice feature as well a horrifying one - thanks to security features. Each software has …
ownCloud
Chose ownCloud
I have a very similar experience between Google Drive and Dropbox. Both offer real-time sharing and collaboration. Google Drive limits external access and requires the recipient of shared files to have a Google account. In the case of both Dropbox and GoogleDrive, they limit …
Chose ownCloud
Other tools with similar functionality have been much better for me to use. However, my company uses ownCloud as its software of choice, so I use it to remain consistent with them.
Chose ownCloud
The most important advantage for our research group is security and access control to our files, which cannot be guaranteed with 3rd party services

The sync client is great and outperforms OneDrive for sure and sometimes even Google Drive depending on the number and size of the …
Chose ownCloud
ownCloud is one of the only self-hosted solutions worth it. It is open source and free, meaning that anyone with a Linux VM or an old laptop can host its own feature-rich cloud server. Many all-in-one firewalls will mix OwnCloud and CrashPlan, joining document management and …
Chose ownCloud
I have used several products based on public (DropBox, Google Drive, Microsoft Drive, etc) and private cloud (Citrix). Most of them work on public cloud space so they could present problems with compliance. Also, it is usually difficult to protect the information contained in …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
DropboxownCloud
File Sharing & Management
Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Product A and Product B
Dropbox
7.5
584 Ratings
12% below category average
ownCloud
8.5
13 Ratings
1% above category average
Versioning7.2446 Ratings9.010 Ratings
Video files7.9453 Ratings7.89 Ratings
Audio files8.3402 Ratings8.19 Ratings
Document collaboration7.6508 Ratings7.812 Ratings
Access control7.5545 Ratings9.512 Ratings
File search7.0566 Ratings8.112 Ratings
Device sync7.4536 Ratings9.312 Ratings
Cloud Storage Security & Administration
Comparison of Cloud Storage Security & Administration features of Product A and Product B
Dropbox
7.3
561 Ratings
17% below category average
ownCloud
8.5
13 Ratings
2% below category average
User and role management7.1507 Ratings9.012 Ratings
File organization7.8552 Ratings8.713 Ratings
Device management7.1471 Ratings7.79 Ratings
Cloud Storage Platform
Comparison of Cloud Storage Platform features of Product A and Product B
Dropbox
7.5
557 Ratings
12% below category average
ownCloud
8.8
13 Ratings
4% above category average
Performance7.6554 Ratings8.813 Ratings
Reliability7.9556 Ratings9.113 Ratings
Storage Reports7.0422 Ratings8.410 Ratings
Best Alternatives
DropboxownCloud
Small Businesses
SugarSync
SugarSync
Score 10.0 out of 10
SugarSync
SugarSync
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Druva Data Resiliency Cloud
Druva Data Resiliency Cloud
Score 9.6 out of 10
Druva Data Resiliency Cloud
Druva Data Resiliency Cloud
Score 9.6 out of 10
Enterprises
Druva Data Resiliency Cloud
Druva Data Resiliency Cloud
Score 9.6 out of 10
Druva Data Resiliency Cloud
Druva Data Resiliency Cloud
Score 9.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
DropboxownCloud
Likelihood to Recommend
7.3
(606 ratings)
7.8
(13 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
5.8
(27 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.5
(26 ratings)
8.7
(4 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.3
(6 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
5.1
(33 ratings)
8.0
(3 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.1
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
DropboxownCloud
Likelihood to Recommend
Dropbox
Dropbox is well-suited for file sharing within our organization. We have employees who do not work out of a traditional office and need to access files from a variety of locations: at home, in client meetings, and while traveling. Dropbox allows us to continue to work from anywhere and collaborate with each other by sharing our files.
Read full review
ownCloud
I'd easily recommend ownCloud to small businesses or teams within organizations. I've not used ownCloud in large deployments, so I'd hesitate before suggesting it in a situation where more than 10 users need support. That said, ownCloud is easy to set up and multiple instances could be used to service a large user base.
Read full review
Pros
Dropbox
  • Dropbox's real-time collaboration features, including simultaneous editing and commenting, have revolutionized the way our teams work together.
  • On multiple occasions, we've accidentally overwritten important documents or needed to retrieve deleted files. With Dropbox, we can easily revert to previous versions or recover deleted files, preventing data loss and minimizing disruptions.
  • Dropbox excels in making file sharing a breeze. With just a few clicks, we can generate shareable links or invite colleagues to shared folders.
Read full review
ownCloud
  • Attention and dedication to making the product a world class product with continual product updates.
  • Ease of use from an administration standpoint, and a very Clear UI.
  • The price -- you can't beat free!
  • Mobile applications are great.
  • Integration with public S3 cloud providers like AWS S3 and Wasabi S3.
  • 2FA authentication is supported and works great!
  • Marketplace Add-Ons: I love this! For example, I can install an add-on that natively opens raw images. I am a photographer as well, and being able to quickly view the CR2 Raw Files direct from the camera is fantastic! This was made possible by a marketplace add-in.
  • Embedded Media Players: Photos, Music, and Video files can be viewed and played right in the browser window.
  • Sync application to keep local files on a computer updated with the files on the server.
  • Access control and permissions -- shareable links!
Read full review
Cons
Dropbox
  • Change the name of the root folder, the "()" can cause problems sometimes with some tools trying to find paths inside of the root folder.
  • The upload queue becomes slow trying to upload files that have more than ~500mb of file size, even if I have 1 Gbit of speed, Dropbox gets stuck uploading single files with that rule.
  • Sometimes we can't move a shared folder from root location.
  • LAN sync seems not to be working in my experience.
Read full review
ownCloud
  • Inability to easily collaboratively edit the same document by several people. Some advances have been made with Collabora (Libreoffice online) but it is still very sub-par compared to Office365 and desktop/online Office editing Sharepoint or OneDrive documents.
  • Apps for Calendar and Contacts are not part of the basic core, and although now quite supported they cannot still be easily deployed in common email clients such as Outlook or Thunderbird, separate CalDAV and CardDAV plugins need to be installed. Embedding an email solution and plugins for major email clients so they can work just by entering username and password would be good.
  • Risk of moving important folders/files to another location just by random drag-and-drop on Windows. Sometimes this breaks public links that cannot be restored anymore. Reverting such mistake by any of the users is impossible automatically.
  • When some user deletes some data in a shared folder it is put into recycle bin of the owner of the folder. The user who deleted cannot himself/herself revert such action as he/she does not see the recycle bin (trash) of the owner. Also, there is no log in the recycle bin who deleted that file or folder.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
ownCloud
No answers on this topic
Usability
Dropbox
[Its] functionality and usability are very good, however[,] on every computer that I have ever installed the app on, Dropbox assumes I want it to update the files every time I start the system up. That's not always true, but the app assumes it is. I can switch that function off, but I would rather that function default to "Off" and then I can decide to turn it on as needed.
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ownCloud
OwnCloud is easy for me to use, and I believe it would be for others too. The barrier for most people will be the set up. For a technology professional like myself, ownCloud's setup is pretty straightforward, but it's not the sort of thing most casual users will be able to handle. Also, it's on the user to maintain the service. These can be taken care of by paying someone to do it for you.
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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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ownCloud
Compared with other cloud services, ownCloud has been the most efficient. It doesn't create a noticeable drain on resources and very quickly syncs across all my devices. I'm usually able to save a file on my laptop and by the time I walk over and sit down at my desktop machine, it's already there. I don't need to wait as often as I have with services like OneDrive.
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Support Rating
Dropbox
Our experience with support has been limited which is a good thing. We haven't experienced any major issues with the service and most of our service interactions have been useability questions which we were able to find answers for within their knowledge base. For the few times we have reached out to support, the responses were on point, quick, and our issue was resolved in one interaction. I appreciate not being routed to a chatbot or offshored support.
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ownCloud
Regarding the community edition, there is a reasonably good support on the IRC, forums and in the issue section on Github. Perhaps a much more individual approach would be available if the premium support was chosen and the instance of the server was provided by the Owncloud company that also offers some premium extensions, not available generally. However, we did not need this level of support yet.
Read full review
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
ownCloud
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Dropbox
Dropbox gives more visual control over the success of uploading. WeTransfer uploads and then sends a link to the recipient. If something goes wrong during the upload, there doesn't appear to be a way to begin again from the dropping point. With Dropbox, I can watch as it uploads. If I lose a connection, it will continue uploading where it left off when I get a new connection. This is vital in transferring large files. If WeTransfer offers that, I was never able to figure it out.
Read full review
ownCloud
The paid cloud services are expensive if you need a lot of data. You're giving your personal and business information to a data-hungry organization. Local NAS solutions are too slow. We run ownCloud on an older business PC and the performance is outstanding, even for remote access, due to local syncing.
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Return on Investment
Dropbox
  • Helped us to streamline boxes of papers into electronic folders.
  • Enables a more solid backup of necessary files, not dependent on one specific computer or one specific box of papers.
  • Enabled a quicker search to locate specific files than the previously used operations.
Read full review
ownCloud
  • Software is free so if you are going for a hosted solution anyway, it's hard to beat
  • One of the easiest way to make sure your data is secured without compromising on features
  • You need to manage the infrastructure and software
Read full review
ScreenShots

Dropbox Screenshots

Screenshot of the action bar, that sits across the browser page can be used to record the screen, edit PDFs, upload files, create folders, get signatures, or send and track documents.Screenshot of Dropbox Replay, that lets collaborators leave frame-accurate feedback and markups directly on project files.Screenshot of Dropbox Capture, which can be used to take screen recordings, screenshots, and GIFs with one click and share them with a link.Screenshot of the interface where Dropbox lets users upload, edit, send, and sign PDFs in one place.