Box vs Office 365 comparison

Box and Microsoft are both solutions in the Content Collaboration Platforms category. Box is ranked #5 with an average rating of 7.7, while Microsoft is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.6. Box holds a 8.4% mindshare in CCP, compared to Microsoft’s 6.3% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Box users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Box

Read 41 Box reviews

1,722 Views
1,198 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Office 365

Read 130 Office 365 reviews

1,819 Views
924 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Box

Office 365

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Box and Office 365 based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Content Collaboration Platforms solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Box vs. Office 365 Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Box vs. Office 365

April 2025

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Helped 851,604 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Box

Ranking in Content Collaboration Platforms

5th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Content Management (8th), Cloud Storage (13th), Digital Asset Management (3rd), Document Management Software (4th)

Office 365

Ranking in Content Collaboration Platforms

2nd

Average Rating

8.6

Number of Reviews

130

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Content Collaboration Platforms category, the mindshare of Box is 8.4%, up from 8.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Office 365 is 6.3%, down from 6.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Content Collaboration Platforms

Featured Reviews

Shrikant Pillay

Service Management Consultant at Tata Consultancy

Allows you to upload and download files quickly but lacks integration with Office 365

For enterprise users, the data is in a local repository. We use it for files for the end user process. This is a cloud solution. In my current organization, we have over 10,000 people using this solution. I use it very extensively. Users these days are working remotely You can upload your bin,…

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Gary Cook

Executive at Empowered Analytics

Access to advanced features boosts productivity despite pricing concerns in developing regions

I need to do maintenance for Office 365 very seldom, once a year. In the maintenance process for Office 365, we have about 12 people involved. For the maintenance side of Office 365, only one person is involved. Looking at Office 365's pricing, I would give it a 4 on a scale from 1 to 10. My overall rating for Office 365 is an 8 out of 10, but for the product itself, I would give it a 10. I would definitely recommend Office 365 to other businesses, probably a 9 out of 10 for recommendation. This is only because of its price and the fact that they do not take into account developing countries such as South Africa, where they should give us more favorable prices or local prices. We do not have a partnership with Microsoft, which is a sore point for us. We have reached out to Microsoft South Africa, and they are very hard to contact and largely uncooperative. We are a B-Level 2 and a B-Level 1, which are local affirmative action ratings that companies get. Level 1 is the highest, and Level 8 is the lowest. We hold amongst the highest BEE ratings, but we have not found Microsoft South Africa to be forthcoming or very open. We should have a partnership with them, and we run Power BI as we are a Power BI shop now. I strongly would want to see a box within Office 365 for our team to have ChatGPT through OpenAI as well. We use Excel as a data source for many tasks and find that it integrates really well with Python. We write a lot of Python code and use Excel as a data sheet many times, and we operate through SQL and other zero elements as well. From an Office 365 viewpoint, we find that with Copilot and Python and Excel's provision for Python, it is very useful.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Governance and ease of use are why I think a lot of people like Box, including ourselves. Basically, we're concerned about what information is being sent to Box, so we use a lot of the Box governance features to make sure that what is being sent to Box is appropriate. If it is not appropriate, it is not allowed to be sent. It is also pretty easy to use. It is the easiest to use for customers and for technologists."

"Simple file sharing and sync for internal and external customers."

"It is really easy to load files to and from this solution."

"File sharing with collaborators not on the same domain with offline access from multiple devices: I work on many projects that are multi-organizational, such as with customers, suppliers, or acquisitions."

"You can upload your bin, upload your files quickly, and download your files quickly. It provides a lot of other alternatives."

"The ability to collaborate around data anywhere, anytime is the most powerful features of Box."

"File sharing, authorization on the back, its ease of use and reliable uptime performance are valuable features of this solution."

"It is a very user-friendly product."

More Box pros

"It's very stable."

"Great impact on project management and team collaboration."

"The most innovative feature of Office 365 is the Power Apps, which allows us to automate literally everything that we want automated. For example, sending attachments to specific folders on SharePoint, adding people's SharePoint when certain apps are performed, or emailing certain people at certain instances, such as when you've done a follow-up with the CRM and you need a marketing email to be sent out at a particular point."

"I like Office 365's usability."

"I like all of the features."

"I love all of the applications being interlinked. I do not have to separately work on an independent system when it comes to file storage, email, and other tools."

"My primary use case is for preparing presentations to teach, often on PowerPoint."

"The most valuable feature of Office 365 is that it has many solutions bundled together."

More Office 365 pros

Cons

"They could integrate better with other platforms."

"The integration with other products should be improved."

"Maturity of the enterprise security around user management."

"Collaborative editing was challenging if multiple people were in a document at once."

"If there was a plugin that added some sort of toolbar in Office, that would be great."

"With OneDrive, you can continuously save your files over a Box folder. That is something I wish we could have."

"Working on documents in real-time is sometimes faulty and could be improved."

"Better integration with other solutions is needed."

More Box cons

"If two people update the same file, it causes issues."

"Their support is so terrible and unusable except during dire emergencies."

"Sometimes the configurations of the error troubleshooting are pretty problematic and there are a lot of issues that happen even if you follow the step-by-step guides. They can work on fixing this issue. If there are a lot of issues in your Windows or your Office or anything, you restart your PC and it works. They need to get rid of this need."

"Microsoft Word is a little bit left behind regarding the tools it has."

"There are some complexities to the initial setup if you use some of the more advanced features."

"Office 365 could be easier to use at first. Tutorials are needed to know how to use the solution."

"A need that a company like ours has is that we want to be able to have data flow into one tool, for example, for all the management of tasks through the company and workflow of who is doing what and so on. There are no real solutions for this at the moment in Office 365. It would be nice if they could implement this in the next release, so we can have one solution from one company giving us the whole data and flow of data into the company."

"Sometimes the synchronization between the desktop and online is a little bit slow."

More Office 365 cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I'm in Higher Ed, so we purchase through Internet2-Net+. I absolutely recommend going that route for Higher Ed customers."

"There's a free version that allows you to use it with almost full-feature access. Even in the free version, it gives you all you need."

"Better sign a full year's contract to get a discount."

"Box needs to improve with their pricing in terms of licensing costs."

"It is expensive per head, as you need the enterprise license to get full security and tools. So negotiate a discount!"

"Our pricing and licensing is excellent. I'd tell all Higher Ed customers to talk with Internet2 for excellent pricing and support."

"They are very price competitive when pushed. Initially, they come out with a standard list price, but they are willing to be very competitive. The Box price was pretty much equal to or lower than the Citrix price, and Box has more features."

"My organization pays for the license."

More Box pricing and cost advice

"Good reporting and good value subscriptions for international calls."

"The pricing is high and has actually caused us to limit the number of licenses we purchase due to budgeting."

"Licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis, or we prepay them."

"We have a license to use this solution. We have an E3 license which covers many different solutions."

"Most of the time, we purchase Microsoft Exchange licenses, which are less expensive and provide only an email platform and 50 gigabytes of email storage for free."

"The price of Office 365 is very expensive."

"I think that we pay $9.99 USD per user, monthly."

"The pricing is good for all the features that we receive, e.g., Skype for Business."

More Office 365 pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

49%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

75%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Box?

The solution is used for data storage and any kind of visualization.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Box?

I was not involved in discussions about paying for Box, so I cannot provide specifics about pricing.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Box?

Collaborative editing was challenging if multiple people were in a document at once. The installation procedure was tricky but manageable with provided guidance and steps.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Office 365?

I am not aware of the cost at work, but the cost for personal use has increased significantly and feels expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Office 365?

Moving from the original Outlook to Outlook 365 was problematic because I couldn't transfer a lot of my previous emails. This is an area where improvement is needed to make the transition smoother....

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Office 365?

I use Office 365 ( /products/office-365-reviews ) strictly for sales. As a small office, we utilize products like Outlook and Word.

See all answers

Comparisons

SharePoint vs Box

Compared 14% of the time

Microsoft OneDrive vs Box

Compared 11% of the time

ShareFile vs Box

Compared 11% of the time

Egnyte vs Box

Compared 9% of the time

Kiteworks vs Box

Compared 3% of the time

More Box Competitors

Google Workspace vs Office 365

Compared 36% of the time

Amazon WorkDocs vs Office 365

Compared 11% of the time

Atlassian Confluence vs Office 365

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft OneDrive vs Office 365

Compared 7% of the time

ShareFile vs Office 365

Compared 6% of the time

More Office 365 Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Box

May 2025

Download Box product report

Buyer's Guide

Office 365

May 2025

Download Office 365 product report

Also Known As

No data available

Microsoft Office 365, Office 365 Enterprise, Office 365 Enterprise E1, Office 365 Enterprise E3, Office 365 Enterprise E5, Office 365 ProPlus, Office 365 Business, Office 365 Business Essentials, Office 365 Business Premium, Office 365 F1

Overview

Box is a Modern Content Management Platform for companies of all sizes and industries. The difference that Box brings is that it offers the security and controls admins need with the sharing and collaboration capabilities end users want. Box has made it easier for people to securely share ideas, collaborate and get work done faster. Today, more than 62,000 businesses, including 59% of the Fortune 500, trust Box to manage content in the cloud.

The Box platform provides HIPAA, FINRA, FedRAMP, and many other compliances to go with granular access permissions and advanced security capabilities.

By using Box you can sync, share, and collaborate on all types of files, anywhere, on any device - but that's just the beginning. You can choose where to store your data, to manage your own encryption keys, and set workflows to automate content-based processes. You can also assign custom metadata tags to content, watermark sensitive content, and set file retention or legal hold policies.

Box has deep, native integrations with Microsoft Office and Outlook, Google Apps for Work, Salesforce, Netsuite, Docusign, Adobe, and many other best-of-breed solutions you may already be using.

Box

Office 365 is more than just Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. It provides powerful services like business-class email, online storage, and teamwork solutions that you can access from anywhere. Bring teams and resources together with solutions like Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business that make working together more productive and enjoyable regardless of where participants are located. Easily implement security and privacy controls to help protect business data and devices against malicious threats and help you meet your compliance obligations. Automatic updates ensure your employees will always have the latest features and security updates.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

GE, Toyota, P&G, Caterpillar, Flex, Schneider Electric, Sally Beauty, Eurostar, AstraZeneca, AirBnB, Whirlpool, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Nationwide, Aeropostale etc

Me & the Bees Lemonade

Buyer's Guide

Box vs. Office 365

April 2025

Free Report: Box vs. Office 365

Find out what your peers are saying about Box vs. Office 365 and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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