Understanding the Differences Between Box and Dropbox
Cloud
storage solutions are rising in popularity. These days, there’s a wide
array of choices on the market. Even as the number of offerings on the
market has expanded, however, two solutions consistently rank among the
most popular and, by many, the best cloud storage offerings: Box and
Dropbox.
Who It’s For and Pricing for Each
When evaluating each solution, it’s important to keep in
mind how each solution has positioned themselves in the cloud storage
market. Box has vied to make their product an enterprise solution from
day one while Dropbox has focused more on making Cloud storage
accessible to everyone. The difference in the market positioning is
reflected in their pricing and storage offerings. Here’s a look at each.
Their position also has an impact on the features and
functionality of each solution. For instance, because Box is built for
the enterprise, they’ve baked in enterprise-class security into their
solution with features such as secure sockets layer (SSL), single
sign-on SSO and data-loss prevention. The system was also built to
integrate with other enterprise applications such as Salesforce and
Google apps. These enterprise-level features can be attractive benefits
for companies that have robust Cloud storage and security requirements.
How They Stack Up on Key Features
Beyond the differences in enterprise-class features, there
are some important ways that Box and Dropbox differ from one another.
I’ve provided a snapshot of our overall ratings of each feature below,
but here are a few key takeaways on the differences:
-
Document sharing – Box provides more robust user access privileges that can be useful for companies that want to enforce a strict file taxonomy (i.e., keep users from renaming files and folders) to manage their corporate documents and user permissions.
-
Collaboration – If your company needs robust features for document collaboration in addition to Cloud storage, Dropbox leaves something to be desired since you can’t create, edit or simultaneously collaborate on shared documents.
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Multimedia file sharing – As I’ve already noted above, Box leaves something to be desired when it comes to photo and video sharing. If you find that you often need to share either, then Box might not be the right solution for you.
A Closer Look at Security Features of Box and Dropbox
Of course, you can’t discuss Cloud storage options without taking a closer look at security, i.e. secure cloud storage.
For many businesses, document security is a particularly important
topic given that you’re working with confidential client information. On
the security front, Box performed much better than Dropbox for a number
of reasons.
As you can see, Box provides more security features baked
into their product. However, many companies may find that they don’t
need all of these security features and that they’re internal IT
security can manage their needs just fine with Dropbox. Deciding between
the two, at a security level, really comes down to how much sensitive
data you really need to put into the Cloud.
Categories:
CLOUD COMPUTING
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