Based on public information available as of 15/05/2020; Some features only available in higher plans have been marked as “No (Upgrade Plan)”. All product and company names are trademarks™ or registered® trademarks of their respective holders. Use of them does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by them.
Detailed Review – FileCloud, Dropbox, ShareFile, Egnyte, Box, OneDrive & Google Workspace
FileCloud Enterprise Online (Essentials)
FileCloud is the fastest growing cloud storage and file sharing solution. Hyper-security, compliance and data governance support, and a feature-loaded interface, FileCloud is the top choice when it comes to Content Collaboration Platforms (CCPs). Apart from the features mentioned above, FileCloud has been rated highest among Gartner EFSS content collaboration platforms, and FileCloud’s customer support is nothing short of amazing.
Important Features: FileCloud offers unlimited, free client accounts for easy collaboration with clients, partners and external vendors. Get endpoint backups for secure data, custom branding for using your own logo, custom background, domains and TOS. For security, gain access to data governance, advanced encryption, smart DLP, and ransomware protection. FileCloud admin portal also comes with a complete audit trail, device management features, workflows and powerful reports.
Pros: Why cobble together a DIY approach to manage your content, secure data, and share files, when you could have it all in one comprehensive, easy-to-use platform. FileCloud offers dozens of innovative features, such as granular file-sharing, smart notification, HIPPA, GDPR, and ITAR compliance, unlimited file versioning, and much more. Free yourself from the struggles of hosting your own data – FileCloud Enterprise Online hosts your data for you, in the region of your choice, within hyper-secure data centers, so you don’t have to worry about scaling or maintenance.
Cons: FileCloud offers third party integrations and is always working to expand the library of options in response to user/client requests. Another solution like Dropbox may offer more integrations (but this comes at the cost of customization within the platform and reliance on the service’s security settings — there is not much opportunity to configure security tools yourself).
Price (For 100 users/ year): FileCloud Enterprise Online (Essentials) costs $12.50/ user/ month; for 100 users/year it costs only $15,000.
FileCloud focuses on security, providing easy access, best-in-class support, and a user friendly interface. FileCloud is also highly rated by Gartner, Capterra, and other independent evaluators and is used by many enterprise businesses across the globe.
Dropbox (Business Advanced Plan)
Dropbox Business offers a cloud storage solution to store, sync and share all business files. Like other solutions, Dropbox also offers desktop and mobile apps to access files from anywhere. Even with immense competition in the market, Dropbox is still hugely popular, largely because the product is being used by tons of businesses, and at times in the news for security leaks. However, if you’re looking for a cloud storage solution for simple collaboration on shared documents, then Dropbox is still a great choice. Keep reading as we take a closer look at Dropbox pros and cons and compare with other big names in the cloud storage space.
Important Features: Dropbox business advanced plan offers unlimited storage space, anytime/ anywhere access, 180 days of version history and file recovery, password protected shares, remote wipe, granular permissions, file locking, smart sync, audit logs and much more.
Pros: Dropbox offers integrations with over thousands of third-party apps, making it easy to integrate with existing workflow apps being used. It has excellent collaboration features and offers seamless integration with MS Office and Google Docs. Smart sync makes it easy to store files smartly without eating up your hard drive space. Admins can monitor team activities and easily transfer files from one user account to another if needed.
Cons: With Dropbox, creating a required file system structure is difficult. Finding specific files and managing content is often difficult within Dropbox. Every year, Dropbox costs more, but offers a bit less that before. For large file sharing, there is a limit of 100 GB which may be problematic for businesses handling large files regularly. Many users have complained about Dropbox not being user friendly, disorganized, sometimes hard to login, complex and not appealing to the eye. With Dropbox, you can find un-informed price hikes every year, forced upgrades, a lot of spam for upgrading and many privacy issues. Finally, there is no training available for end users and admins within Dropbox business advanced plan.
Price (For 100 users/ year): Dropbox business advanced plan costs $24/user/month, so overall for 100 users/ year it costs around $28,800. If you need a cloud storage solution that focuses on privacy and ease of use, you’ll need to look at alternatives which offer the same set of features with a focus on an easy to use interface, hyper-security, and customization options!
Google Workspace (Enterprise Plan)
Close to a billion users, Google Workspace (formerly known as Google Drive for Business or G-Suite) is perhaps the most popular cloud storage solution. The free version of Google Drive is excellent, but how about the Google Workspace business suite? Let’s find out. Google Workspace is almost the same as the free Google Drive plan, but with unlimited storage. As you know, Google Drive works seamlessly with other massively used Google apps, such as Gmail, Calendar, Google Docs and Google Sheets.
Important Features: Google Workspace offers unlimited cloud storage, access across any device, offline access to files, compatibility with MS Office, and includes apps like Gmail, Google apps, Google Keep, Google Sites etc. Google Workspace also offers enterprise-grade access control, e-discovery for email, chat and files, as well as mobile device management.
Pros: With Google Workspace, you gain offline access to documents, which can be useful on the go when you don’t have internet access. Since you can edit MS office files directly, it’s a nice to have feature when collaborating with MS Office daily for business files. Basically, Google Workspace is as excellent as a tool can get for document collaboration and editing.
Cons: While Google Workspace is easy to use, it may not be as easy to set up and create a team structure. The storage interface in the Google Drive app is buggy and messy at times. Some users have complained online that they don’t have complete control over documents and folders that have been shared with them. Although, Google Workspace does follow industry guidelines in terms of security, there are many shortcomings. There is no mechanism for customer-managed encryption keys. In the privacy department, Google’s privacy policy states that it collects the content you upload, or receive from others when using Drive and other apps, including emails and even the comments you make on Google platforms like YouTube. All this data is collected to provide better services, as well as to provide you with personalized ads. If your organization is a privacy-conscious enterprise though, Google Workspace is not a suitable solution!
Price (For 100 users/ year): Google Drive Enterprise plan costs $25/ user/ month, so overall for 100 users/ year it costs around $30,000. This plan is essential in case you need specific features like LDAP, data loss prevention, end-point management and more.
Box (Business Plus)
Box is often ranked as one of the top file sharing platforms available. Box claims to have a high percentage of global Fortune 500 companies as clients as well as close to 100,000 business accounts overall. While Box business is indeed a great EFSS solution with many productivity tools and third part integrations, many important features are missing from the business plans and are only available in enterprise plans. Let’s take a detailed look at Box business plus plan to see how it compares to other giants in this list.
Important Features: Box business plus plan offers unlimited storage, but only 5 GB single file upload limit. Get access to Office 365 and Gsuite integrations. Other features include encryption at rest, custom branding, content management, user activity tracking and granular file permissions.
Pros: Users can access content from anywhere, anytime. Box offers enterprise apps integrations, workflow automations, tight security regulations, alerts for unusual activities, versatile document management, mobile and desktop sync, and custom branding capabilities to broadcast your own brand. The Box UI is intuitive and easy to use with access to some native in-built apps like notes, creating project plans and events management.
Cons: The first red flag is the 5 GB file transfer size limit even after paying more that what you would pay for any other EFSS solution in this list. Feature wise, you can only integrate with 3 apps in Box business plus plan, get a limit of 50 for version history, no HIPPA compliance available in the business plus plan, no e-discovery, no Box governance, no Box keysafe, no DLP. Most of these features are only available on Enterprise plans. With Box, you have all the features, but you have to pay a lot more if your organization requires specific features.
Price (For 100 users/ year): Box business plus plan costs $25/ user/ month, so for 100 users, you pay $30,000 for one year. That’s a lot without access to DLP, Data governance, e-discovery and more useful features.
Egnyte (Business Plan)
Egnyte’s business plan costs $24,000 for 100 users per year, which seems affordable at first glance. However, they offer only 10 TB of online storage in the Business plan, with a max file size limit of 10 GB. Any business looking for AD/ LDAP integration, SSO and role based administration like features has to opt for the higher enterprise plan as these features do not exist in the business plan. To gain access to more business-critical features, you must upgrade (the pricing for an enterprise plan is unlisted, so pricing comparisons were made against available information). Let’s check what other surprises Egnyte has in store.
Important Features: Egnyte business plan offers desktop sync, mobile access, MS Outlook integration, MS Office as well as other premium integrations. You also get access to advanced security modules like 256-bit AES encryption, multi-factor authentication, device management, remote wipe and audit reports. Version history and custom branding make Egnyte a popular choice among big brands, however, lack of certain important business features like role based administration, AD/ LDAP integration and limited online storage may be unfavorable for some businesses.
Pros: Egnyte is a popular EFSS solution which offers a hybrid cloud architecture setup to offer data redundancy and anytime anywhere access. You can edit documents in native application right from the browser to save time and efforts. Egnyte business plan also offers universal and folder level search for easy document management and support for many third party apps integration. With data governance and data compliance, Egnyte covers all compliance related requirements.
Cons: As mentioned before, their business plan only offers 10 TB of online storage and 10 GB max file share size. This can be problematic for architecture firms, design firms and even for any general enterprise dealing in large files daily. If you want role based administration, AD/ LDAP authentication for all users, you will have to opt for the higher end enterprise plan with Egnyte. As mentioned by actual users on G2crowd, the sync app can cause issues at times and they charge for every add-on which can be too much when you are already paying a lot up-to 100 users.
Price (For 100 users/ year): Egnyte business plan costs $20/user/month, so overall for 100 users/ year it costs around $24,000. Again, this is paying a lot for 100 users and get only 10 TB of storage and large file share limits.
Read more about how FileCloud storage compares to Egnyte storage and discover the best option for your needs.
Onedrive (Office 365 E3 Plan)
Microsoft OneDrive is one of the most widely used file sharing solution, primarily because of the native integration with Microsoft Office apps. The enterprise E3 plan offers powerful search capabilities, easy collaboration, security and compliance which you don’t get in cheaper plans. While OneDrive seems perfect on paper, are there any issues with the solution as shared by actual users? Let’s find out!
Important Features: With Office 365 E3 plan, you get access to office apps, sharepoint and Microsoft Teams. Core features include anytime access using OneDrive mobile apps (including offline access), files on demand from the cloud, differential sync to sync only part of changed files, secure file sharing, data encryption in transit and at rest, share expiry dates, intelligent search and discovery tools and much more.
Pros: Perhaps the most important benefit of using OneDrive is access to web versions of Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote for seamless collaboration. OneDrive for Business lets you set granular permissions and share files internally or externally. You can easily map OneDrive as a network drive on your system and Sync local copies of files for editing offline. For compliance, OneDrive provides advanced data-loss prevention to monitor, and protect sensitive information and preserves deleted and edited documents for eDiscovery.
Cons: The most basic functionality you need as an organization is ample storage and large file sharing. OneDrive only provides a maximum of 5TB storage per user, while they say more storage can be extended if needed. Although, it may be easy to use, OneDrive is not as intuitive, and is missing a few features to enhance your cloud sharing experience. Sync fails a lot as reported by users, broken downloads cannot be resumed and have to be restarted always, the UI across all apps is different and can be a challenge to use, especially on MAC, iOS and Linux. Security wise, DLP, Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection and Office 365 Cloud App Security is not available in this plan and is only available in E5 plan costing $35/ user/ month.
Price (For 100 users/ year): At $23/user/month, OneDrive costs approximately $27,600 for 100 users/ year. For some security and compliance features, some organizations may opt for E5 plan which will cost extra. OneDrive may be slow compared to other solutions on this list, but it still integrates well with Office apps which some enterprises use most of the time, so it’s a dilemma whether to go for OneDrive or not.
ShareFile (Premium Plan)
ShareFile is a secure, file sync and share service with flexible storage options. ShareFile provides seamless productivity using mobile and easy share options like other solutions in the list, workflows and allows users to securely share and sync files with anyone across any device. Let’s review ShareFile in detail for features, usability and price.
Important Features: In the ShareFile premium plan, get access to AD and SSO, unlimited client users, plugin for Outlook and Gmail, unlimited storage, max file size of 100 GB, custom branding, e-signatures, mobile and desktop apps, sync, full text search, file versioning, and much more.
Pros: ShareFile does very well with its user management features, and the overall user experience is very intuitive. Unlike OneDrive, Sync works without a hitch and file sharing is secure. Access for unlimited client users, like clients and vendors outside the company is a useful feature, especially as it saves a lot of money. The file sharing is fast, especially for large files and the folder structure is easy for structuring data.
Cons: The third-party integrations are not as good when compared to other competitors on the list. File locking while multiple users are working on the same file is missing. Data loss prevention is supported only using a third-party DLP security suite that supports ICAP.
Price (For 100 users/ year): ShareFile price starts at a flat $122/ month for 5 users and $24.30 for every additional user; for 100 users the price is approximately $29,166 per year. Overall, at this price, you get excellent security and a reliable solution for enterprise file-sharing.
