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Dropbox vs ownCloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Dropbox
Ranking in Content Collaboration Platforms
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Storage (3rd)
ownCloud
Ranking in Content Collaboration Platforms
20th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Content Collaboration Platforms category, the mindshare of Dropbox is 7.9%, down from 11.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ownCloud is 0.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Content Collaboration Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Edgar  Paez - PeerSpot reviewer
Work from anywhere and backup easily while being practical
I recommend Dropbox, yet not for all of the features it has. I am a basic user. In a personal mode, we have about 100 employees, and maybe 20 of them use Dropbox as a personal backup system. ShareFile is more secure than Dropbox. Five years ago, ShareFile was qualified as having better security control, access privilege management, and version control recovery, among many features that we were using for private documentation. Overall, I would rate Dropbox an eight out of ten.
SC
Self-hosted file sync tool used to deploy custom web UIs.
I think it’s probably the best self-hosted file sync tool on the market. It’s a full web application platform, an indispensable tool for a business of any size that needs to deploy any kind of custom web UI. If you build an ownCloud app, you’ve got authentication, storage, security, caching, and database layers already fully baked for you. You just need to build your UI and custom logic. Your app doesn’t even need to interact with files, sync, or interact with other ownCloud features. Any web UI can be included without ownCloud. It can even be a portal to web interfaces of other applications within a business using the external app to display external sites within ownCloud. This is the case as long as that site allows itself to be displayed within a frame.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Availability of dedicated Apps on any kind of OS."
"It is very practical and so easy to upload and download files and carry on without my computer."
"The solution is reliable and user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its convenience, I can retrieve files online from various places. It has backup options in case something was to go wrong with my computer I can restore my files."
"Setting up DropBox is straightforward, and one person can do it in less than five minutes."
"The solution is easy to use."
"The features that I find most valuable are the ability to sync across devices, easily access/share files and organize them among myself and my team."
"Irrespective of the geographical location that you are present in, and even if you don't have any storage devices, you can access your data and files with the help of Dropbox."
"I think it’s probably the best self-hosted file sync tool on the market."
 

Cons

"The product must be more user-friendly."
"I would like to be able to unarchive my files online."
"Dropbox could be improved by reducing the storage price."
"For us, storage is an issue. The free version is too small in terms of the amount of storage on offer."
"I think the product's interface is an area of concern since it has been changed for a long time and can be considered for improvement."
"It could be more secure."
"I would like to see an option to secure my files and set password protection to my folders."
"Dropbox could introduce some sort of a notification with respect to how much storage you have left out of what is purchased."
"Even with fast disks, it still takes a fair bit of time to write most schema changes to multi-GB tables."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You pay as you go, which is a good thing. There is a monthly fee, and you can also pay annually. This flexibility makes the subscription easier and affordable for some of us. I prefer yearly pricing, which is also slightly cheaper than monthly pricing."
"We use a yearly license. The pricing is not a bad price. I'd rate it about a five out of ten, with ten being expensive and one being cheap."
"I am using the free version of the solution."
"I don't pay any licensing costs."
"Dropbox could be less expensive, and I pay monthly."
"Users need to pay to increase the solution's capacity."
"The pricing for non-corporations is expensive. They have raised their prices and have low storage capacity."
"The solution allows one only a certain amount of free storage, but he must pay for a subscription, perhaps on a six-month basis, if he wishes to maintain this."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
50%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Computer Software Company
5%
Construction Company
4%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dropbox?
For me, the biggest thing is version history. I can easily go back and view older versions.
What needs improvement with Dropbox?
One area of improvement would be to allow multiple users to edit a file simultaneously and see edits in real time, similar to OneDrive. In Dropbox, once a file is opened on one system, it locks the...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Vita Coco, BCBGMAXAZRIA Group, Centric Project, Kayak, FourSquare, Asana, Huge Adversting , USA Gymnastics, Appen, Valliant, Radio Lab
CERN, Joy Global, Sciebo, Bauhaus, datto
Find out what your peers are saying about Dropbox, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in Content Collaboration Platforms. Updated: May 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.