FileCloud vs Box – Better Alternatives to Box 2020 was a lot of things, but the unprecedented chaos of the year inarguably taught us some things: that the age of information is upon us, and that the digitization of data is inevitable. As companies scrambled to adjust to the sudden norm of remote work and […]
2020 was a lot of things, but the unprecedented chaos of the year inarguably taught us some things: that the age of information is upon us, and that the digitization of data is inevitable.
As companies scrambled to adjust to the sudden norm of remote work and all the employee needs that arose with it, it became apparent that having a strong foundation of digital infrastructure was vital. Companies with powerful Enterprise File Sharing and Sync (EFSS) solutions already in place were able to jump start their new ventures into remote work, without worrying about security, user training, data leaks and other administrative issues.
Now, a year later, even the most rigid of companies have eased into their file-management solutions; some have even discovered the convenience of remote work and may be adopting it permanently in the future.
However, choosing the wrong EFSS solution in long-term use cases can lead to huge losses in fines and reputation down the road. After all, investing in a solution that offers either too little or too much functionality can cost you valuable time, money and resources.
We aim to help administrators and business-owners make the right decision about the best EFSS solution for you, as well as avoid some common pitfall traps when it comes to choosing one. That’s why we’re here to offer a comparison of the top EFSS solutions on the market between our very own solution, FileCloud.
Today, we’re going to be going over a detailed comparison of Box vs. FileCloud. While perhaps less of a household name than Dropbox, Box is also an incredibly strong contender on the EFSS market. With tools that integrate with other services, like Google Docs, Box also goes above and beyond in offering custom branding capabilities and letting users create a professional appearance for their organization.
Plus, Box’s security is nothing to scoff about, being a uniquely zero-knowledge provider and offering tons of options for encryption and user management.
Unfortunately, with their heavy local encryption, Box transfers tend to get slow — something that could impede or even cripple the seamless remote workflows that have become the norm today. Box also does not offer any options for on-premise or self-hosting, nor local storage, and does not perform end-point backups. Plus, while it certainly provides tons of enterprise-level features, it’s also significantly pricier than almost any solution on the market.
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Naturally, we’ve aimed to optimize our solution to be one of the strongest and most feature-rich solutions on the market. We firmly believe that FileCloud is one of the most affordable and powerful enterprise file-sharing and sync solutions on the market.
FileCloud offers on-premise, public and a unique hybrid cloud deployment model. This deployment flexibility separates FileCloud from its competitors, and ensures that your team can enjoy the benefits of both on-premise and cloud storage systems — read more on our hybrid infrastructure here.
FileCloud offers larger storage plans, better enterprise-level features, and unlimited FREE external client accounts. Feature-wise, we consider seamless, remote access to your data as the bare minimum that a good file-solution should offer. Collaborative and content management tools, a comprehensive admin panel, plus infinite customization options are all features that ensure not just your team, but also your clients and sysadmins get in on the enhanced EFSS experience.
Last but certainly not least, FileCloud is compliant with most data security governance policies, meaning that you’ll never see your organization’s good name tainted in headlines labelled with “Security Breach” or “Data Leaks”. Plus. it’ll save you tons on the fines and fees that’ll rack up if you go with a less-secure option.
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Box offers incredibly solid security, with file-locking, two-factor authentication (2FA), SSO, encryption at rest and Active Directory support. These functionalities both help your team stay away from account compromisations, as well as prevent malicious activity. However, Box does not offer integration with existing home directories, NTFS support, network share or network versioning support.
FileCloud, on the other hand, provides all of those things! Plus, in addition to our newest DRM capabilities, we’re also committed to keeping your files safe with remote-data-wiping, strong encryption models, data loss prevention (DLP) and automatic alerts on unusual activities.
As mentioned above, FileCloud offers a unique hybrid hosting option. Why choose between the security of on-premise file-hosting, and the flexibility of public cloud storage, when you can have both? Enjoy low-latency, local-file access in the office, and seamless remote access with the cloud from the comfort of your own home or on the go.
Box does not offer on-premise or self-hosted options. In addition, it also doesn’t offer multi-tenancy support, nor can it run on docker or Linux, surprisingly! Of course, these are all available in FileCloud’s vast array of hosting options.
Box, while it offers extremely strong sync and storage features, has unfortunately put in place a ton of limitations for even premium plan users. While it commendably has no storage limit for total file size, it has a measly large file transfer limit of 5GB, which can easily be hit with even the smallest of log files and the like. The Storage Sync function is limited per plan, and Box does not support local storage.
FileCloud offers all of the features above, with a few notable differences: our plans do not restrict file size transfer limit at all, meaning you’ll be able to send as many massive files as you could possibly need. We also offer branch office synchronization for the needs of particularly large organizations. Naturally, we also provide endpoint backup for multiple folders.
Today, it’s unreasonable to limit work to a work computer — or even to a laptop. It has just about become a necessity to be able to work on-the-go and respond to emergencies or new situations with speed and flexibility. It’s for this reason that we’ve put special care into crafting our mobile applications. Access and share large files with your team or manage team permissions anywhere, anytime, and from any device with our iOS, MacOS, Android and Windows apps.
Unfortunately, Box, while it has a mobile application that supports iOS and Android, does not offer iOS or Android media backup, which is a pretty important feature to have in case of misplaced or compromised devices.
FileCloud, on the other hand, lets administrators automate all processes related to protecting sensitive files. For instance, administrators can create a retention policy that disables a user’s ability to delete or edit any of the files and folders named in the policy. To resolve the issue of conflicting policies. FileCloud gives your system administrators the ability to control how files are retained and deleted, as well as policies such as legal hold, archival and retention for an unlimited amount of time.
Box offers a similar retention policy system, which is an impressive feature to have in any sort of Cloud Enterprise File Sharing and Sync solution! We were certainly very impressed to see another solution match us in terms of data governance, as data security is one of our very top priorities.
FileCloud offers a comprehensive set of options that let you whitelabel your solution for your team, vendors, partners and clients. After all, we believe your file sharing system should promote your brand, not ours. You can customize FileCloud with your company logo, login page image, email templates, ToS and user interface elements. Plus, you can also run FileCloud under your own business domain.
Box does offer some solid custom branding capabilities, but only for Enterprise Plan Users, ensuring that you’ll need to fork out some extra costs in order to obtain what we believe is a fairly basic and necessary function.
Box provides a very impressive array of auditing features for system administrators to keep track of. With an access-monitoring control panel, detailed audit reports, geo IP access reports, pattern search and role-based administration, Box definitely shines in terms of logging user actions. However, mobile device management (which is vital in today’s age of working on-the-go) is only offered to Enterprise Plan users. Box also lacks file analytics, which typically report a summary of client applications according to OS and type, user shares, active file-management, and file type distribution.
FileCloud offers a much more detailed audit log, with all of the above and the following additions: new account creations, logged-in users, common searches and the quantity of uploaded/downloaded files. Because just about every operation is optionally logged, we also offer the following log-management tools to avoid overly large audit database entries: removal of log entries with the administrative dashboard, configurable limits for which operations are logged and exportable .CSV archive log files.
FileCloud integrates with many external apps, but also promotes efficiency by simplifying time-consuming tasks via workflow automation. FileCloud’s workflow automation helps design and manage processes with simple logical statements. Users can use conditional combinations to automate many file related tasks from developing business processes to enforcing policies.
Box offers all of these features, making it a truly impressive solution in terms of workflow automation!
There is no such thing as a one-size fit all solution for EFSS solutions. Each enterprise may value different features and focuses over others.
At FileCloud, however, we aim to meet all sorts of enterprises, organizations and companies where they stand, in terms of their file sharing, sync and management needs. We firmly believe that with our vast range of plans, features and experience, FileCloud has something for everyone.
We hope that this article has helped you in finding the perfect box alternative for your organization!
