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Best of The Big

Three: Dropbox vs
Google Drive vs
Onedrive
By Joseph Gildred
— Last Updated: 07 Aug'18
Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive are the most popular Table of Contents
cloud storage providers today. Picking between them to
1. The Battle
determine which one is the best cloud storage provider is no
2. Pricing and Storage
easy task. Each has strengths and weaknesses that don’t
3. File Synchronization
always overlap.
4. File Sharing
Though we side with OneDrive, with multiple caveats, new 5. Cloud Apps
readers of Cloudwards.net might be surprised to learn that 6. Security and Privacy
none of the three finish atop our cloud storage comparison 7. The Verdict
rankings. The main reason for that is a flaw they all share:
security.
We much prefer cloud providers that offer private, end-to-end encryption, such as those in
our review of the best zero-knowledge cloud services.
That said, we don’t deny that there are benefits to using Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive
over the bulk of cloud storage providers, with most relating to productivity. As much as we
laud Sync.com as a provider for its impregnable security, that security means image previews,
media streaming and document editing are out of play.
The question of which of the three kings of cloud storage reigns supreme is an important
one. It’s PC or Mac, Beatles or Rolling Stones and boxers or briefs important. When in doubt
about whether one software-as-a-service provider is better than another, here at
Cloudwards.net, we prefer a tried-and-true method of picking a winner: trial by combat.
Send the children to bed, because this three-way gladiatorial match is your front-row seat to
a display of virtual carnage that will put the war for net neutrality to shame, and will help you
decide whether Dropbox, Google Drive or OneDrive is best for your file-hosting needs.
Starts from $ 4.08 per month for 500 GB

Visit Sync.com
Review Free plan available All Plans

Vi it O Di
Visit OneDrive
1 $ 8.25
www.dropbox.com
Save 17 %
Sync Folder
File Link Sharing
Folder Sharing
Visit Dropbox
Review
2 $ 1.67
www.google.com
Save 16 %
Sync Folder
File Link Sharing
Folder Sharing
Visit Google Drive
Review
3
www.onedrive.com $ 1.99
Sync Folder
File Link Sharing
Folder Sharing
Visit OneDrive
Review
The Battle: Dropbox versus Google Drive

versus OneDrive
By the numbers, Google Drive has the advantage. In early 2017, the company announced it
had passed 800 million monthly active users. By now, it’s probably the first cloud storage
service to have passed the one billion mark.
Dropbox, once the leader in active users, last reported 500 million registered users. Of those,
11 million are paying users, including 300,000 business subscription customers (read our
Dropbox Business review).
OneDrive, meanwhile serves a measly 115 million users worldwide. Then again, it’s reported
that over 85 percent of Fortune 500 companies use OneDrive, which isn’t surprising given the
popularity of Office 365.
Numbers aren’t everything, though. Each of the three tech giants has taken a different
approach to marketing and developing their storage service, helping to define the cloud
storage market along the way. Which one works best for you will depend on which approach
aligns most with your needs.
We’ve broken our battle into five rounds to help you figure that out. After each round, we’ll
rank each service and give two points to the winner, one point to the runner-up and a fat zero
for last place. At the end of our article, we’ll tally the points and present our pick for the best
of the three.
If you prefer an isolated look at our contestants, we have separate reviews for each:
→ Dropbox Review
→ Google Drive Review
→ OneDrive Review
Now, on to the bloodshed.

Visit OneDrive
Round One: Pricing and Storage
We’ll begin where most consumers start, and some finish, by considering cost. In addition to
detailing the subscription prices, we’ll look at how much storage you get. The range of plans
offered will be considered, too, since there’s little value in paying for a 1TB storage plan when
you only need half that.
All three cloud storage services have consumer and business plans. While much of our article
is directed at personal use, we’ll look at both in round one to give our office-dwelling
consumers something to think about.
We’ll also consider free cloud storage plans. Check out our article on the best free cloud
storage offers to see whether any of the three made it and nab some no-strings storage at
the same time.
Dropbox Pricing
One of the things that sticks out about Dropbox is its inflexibility. For individual users, both
subscription options give you 1TB of storage. Dropbox Basic gives you 2GB of free storage,
which is one of the least generous free cloud storage plans.
Plans: Dropbox Basic Dropbox Plus Dropbox Professional
Month-to-Month Cost: Free $9.99 $19.99
Annual Cost (by Month): Free $8.25 $16.58
Cloud Storage: 2GB 1TB 1TB
We’d love to see Dropbox put out a 500GB plan, but we’re not going to hold our breath for
that evolution. When it comes to subscription changes, Dropbox usually only increases prices.
By paying twice as much for Dropbox Professional over Dropbox Plus, you don’t get more
storage, you get more features. It’s debatable whether they’re worth it, at least, for home use.
Smart sync, shared link settings and 120-day versioning are the highlights. We’ll talk about
each in more detail later in this article.
Dropbox Business plans are more versatile, with both a 2TB and unlimited cloud storage plan,
but require a minimum of three users. You can go month-to-month, or pay for a year in
advance to receive a discount.
Plans: Standard Advanced
Cost per User: $15 $25
Annual Cost (by Month): $12.50 $20
Storage: 2TB (Shared) ???
Minimum Users: 3 3
The unlimited cloud storage landscape is sparse and mostly limited to business plans.
Dropbox ranks as one of the best options, but we have others listed in our best unlimited
cloud storage article.
Google Drive Pricing

If you own an Android phone or have a Gmail account, you already have 15GB of free Google
Drive storage. That’s one of the most generous cloud storage plans available, even if storage
is shared between Google Drive, Google Photos, Google Calendar and Gmail.
You can get 1TB of Google Drive storage for $9.99, the same price as Dropbox Plus. Google
extends its price plan flexibility with more subscription options, ranging from 100GB for $1.99
per month to 30TB for $299. Annual subscriptions with discounts are available, too.
15GB FREE
Free plan
15 GB Storage
1-month plan
100GB
100 GB Storage $ 1.99 / month
1-year plan
$ 1.67 / month
$19.99 billed every year
Save 16 %
1-month plan
200GB
$ 2.99 / month
1-year plan
$ 2.50 / month
Save 16 %
1-month plan
2TB
1-year plan
$ 8.33 / month
Save 17 %
10TB $ 99.99 / month

10000 GB Storage
20TB $ 199.99 / month

20000 GB Storage
The number of options isn’t something you’ll get with most cloud storage providers. The rates
aren’t impressive, but that’s about to change.
At the time this article is being written, Google Drive is on the cusp of being rebranded as
Google One. With the name change, Google will be doubling the storage capacity of its 1TB
plan, giving users 2TB. There will also be a new 200GB plan for $2.99 per month.
On top of those changes, Google One plans can be shared with up to five family members,
making it one of the best cloud storage options for families. You’ll be able to give each family
member their own private storage space.
Google One subscribers will also receive faster support access, credits for Google Play, hotel
deals and other perks. Even without those extras, the doubling of storage and the option to
share space with others represent a seismic shift in the cloud storage market that should
force other providers to rethink their subscription offers.
Google has storage plans for business users packaged under the G Suite brand. As far as we
know, these plans won’t be overhauled when Google One launches.
Plans: Basic Business
Cost per User: $5 $10
Storage: 30GB Unlimited
Notes: N/A If under 5 users, storage is 1TB per user.
There are no minimum user requirements for G Suite, though if you license fewer than five
users for the G Suite Business plan, you’ll get 1TB of storage per user instead of unlimited
storage.
OneDrive Pricing
OneDrive plans include a free 5GB offer on the low end and Office 365 subscriptions on the
high end. Sandwiched in between, there’s a 50GB cloud storage plan. Both month-to-month
and annual subscriptions are available.
Free FREE
5 GB Storage
1-month plan
50GB
1-year plan
$ 1.99 / month
1-month plan
Office 365 Personal
Comes with Office 365 Personal $ 6.99 / month
1000 GB Storage
1-year plan
$ 5.83 / month
Save 17 %
1-month plan
Office 365 Home
Comes with Office 365 Home $ 9.99 / month
5000 GB Storage
1-year plan
$ 8.33 / month
Save 17 %
Getting 50GB for $1.99 is a reasonable deal and one that Dropbox doesn’t match, though
Google Drive gives you 100GB for the same price. The better bargains are the two Office 365
plans: Personal and Home.
Office 365 Personal is $6.99 per month for 1TB of storage. That alone is enticing, but what
really drives the value up is that a subscription gives you access to desktop versions of
Microsoft Office products, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote (read our
OneNote review).
Office 365 Home offers more value. For $9.99 per month, you get 5TB of storage for five
family members, in addition to Microsoft Office.
We’ve written a separate OneDrive for Business review if you’re looking for cloud storage for
your colleagues. The pricing is affordable, but note that the two low-end subscriptions come
with cloud storage only, meaning no Office 365.
1-year plan
OneDrive for Business
OneDrive Storage per User: 1TB $ 5.00 / month
1-year plan
OneDrive for Business Advanced
OneDrive Storage per User: Unlimited $ 10.00 / month
Office 365 Business $ 8.25 / month
OneDrive Storage per User: 1TB
1-year plan
Office 365 Business Premium
OneDrive Storage per User: 1TB $ 12.50 / month
The Business Premium plan comes with all the apps, unlimited cloud storage and 50GB
mailboxes with custom domains. Other perks are included, as well.
Round One Thoughts:

Dropbox is one of the worst deals in cloud storage, at least, if you’re only looking at cost and
gigabytes. It’s out for round one.
Google Drive and OneDrive provide good value, but for different reasons. Google Drive has
plans at multiple price points, including that 100GB plan for $1.99, while Microsoft’s Office
365 plans are among the best deals in cloud storage, thanks to the inclusion of Microsoft
Office.
Normally, we’d tilt this round toward OneDrive by a hair. However, the announcement of
Google One is as much a game changer as Godzilla breathing fire. It isn’t here yet, but we’re
granting round one to Google Drive based on future prospects.
If you sign up for a 1TB Google Drive plan now, you’ll automatically be upgraded to 2TB after
the rebrand.
1. Round One Winner: Google Drive

2. Runner-Up: OneDrive

Visit OneDrive
Round Two: File Synchronization
Cloud storage isn’t just about clearing space on your hard drive. One of the key features to
look for is file synchronization, a productivity feature that distributes edits in near-real-time
across all devices connected to your storage account.
Round two will look at the sync capabilities and sync speed of Dropbox, Google Drive and
OneDrive.
Dropbox Sync
Dropbox founder Drew Houston invented the sync model commonly used by cloud storage
services today in 2007. Like most great ideas, the concept is simple, hinging on a special
folder placed in the file system of your computer. Files kept in this folder are stored on your
hard drive and in the cloud.
Using the cloud as a middleman, files get transferred to other computers with connected sync
folders installed, as well as smartphones with Dropbox mobile apps.
Desktop sync clients are available for Windows, Mac and Linux (read the best cloud storage
for Linux). Smartphone apps are available for Android, iOS and Windows Phone.
The sync folder model is simple and most storage providers mimic it, but Dropbox remains
ahead of the game with block-level file transfer. The only time full files are transmitted is
when they’re first added to the sync folder. When edits are made to those files, only those
edits get copied by breaking up files into 4MB blocks.
In theory, the result of block-level transfers is faster syncs and that bears out in testing, with
file edits uploading and downloading at speeds that far surpass most storage providers.
Dropbox sync is not just fast, but more reliable. File names don’t get mixed up and files don’t
go missing. Dropbox performs file deduplication at the block level, calculating a SHA256 hash
for each block and comparing that to hashes already stored in the cloud.
Sync works well for small and large files and there’s no cap on file sizes as long as they’re
uploaded through your desktop client or mobile app. Files uploaded through the website are
capped at 20GB.
Sync is immensely useful, but the fact that it requires local file storage means you won’t be
saving hard drive space. To address that, Dropbox’s “selective sync” feature lets you turn sync
off for folders and files to make them available only while online.
Spring for a Dropbox Professional or Dropbox Business subscription and you’ll get the benefit
of a newer feature called “smart sync.” Normally, when you use selective sync to turn off file
synchronization, you’re no longer able to see those files on your computer.
Dropbox users can throttle upload and download speeds in case synchronization is affecting
system resources, but, unless you’re using a 10-year-old laptop, that probably won’t be
necessary.
Google Drive Sync

Google Drive sync makes use of the model Dropbox invented, creating a cloud-connected
folder in your file system. Desktop clients are available for Windows and macOS, but not
Linux.
Remote Google Drive access is possible using one of the best cloud storage apps for Android.
There’s a Google Drive iPhone app, too, despite the competition between Google and Apple
in the mobile market.
Google Drive is backed by a global server network, so it’s no surprise full-file transfers move
fast. We uploaded a 1GB folder in just over 10 minutes using a 22 megabits per second
internet upload connection. On the other hand, file edits sync slower than necessary because
Google Drive isn’t capable of block-level file copies.
Google Drive sync can stick. New files added to the sync folder upload quickly, but, on
occasion, we’ve had to wait several minutes for files — small files — to show up on the web
application. Customer complaints about the issue indicate it’s not isolated, with many
suggesting the problem gets worse as more files are stored.
Google Drive doesn’t have a feature comparable to Dropbox’s smart sync, but it does have
selective sync to help you clear hard drive space. You can manage it using the Google Drive
Backup and Sync preferences tool.
If Google Drive is sapping your system resources, you can slow down your upload and
download bandwidth from the preferences tool. Click “settings” and “network settings” to
limit speeds.
Google Drive has an advantage over Dropbox and OneDrive that’s not exactly sync, but
related: file backup. With file backup, you can establish one-direction uploads from desktop
folders to the cloud. The usefulness of this feature is marginal, though, compared to the
dedicated backup services mentioned in our best online backup guide.
OneDrive Sync
The OneDrive sync folder is in your file system if you’re a Windows 10 user, though you’re
welcome to remove it. It works like any other sync folder: drop content into it to send it to the
cloud and synced devices.
Linux isn’t supported but macOS is. Smartphone apps are available for Android, iOS and
Windows Phone.
In our OneDrive speed tests, a 1GB folder took nearly 30 minutes to upload. That seems slow,
but our test computer had a 5 Mbps upload connection. At that speed, 30 minutes is what
you should expect.
For file edits, OneDrive has block-level sync for Microsoft file types. Other file types are
copied in full when changes are made. Though we’d like it for all file types, most cloud
storage services don’t use block-level copying at all.
Selective sync is an option, configurable using the desktop client settings tool.
As with Google Drive and Dropbox Plus, turning sync off for content means you can no
longer see it in your OneDrive sync folder. That’s an annoyance, but, at least, you can save
space on your hard drive and access it online.
Finally, OneDrive lets you throttle sync speeds.
Round Two Thoughts:

Google Drive and OneDrive sync files quickly. Google Drive doesn’t use block-level encryption
and sync occasionally stutters on it. OneDrive runs sync more smoothly, especially for Word,
Excel and PowerPoint files. Between the two, we’ll take OneDrive, but Dropbox trumps both at
file copying.
While we have our issues with Dropbox, we give credit where it’s due. Drew Houston invented
the file sync model used by most cloud storage providers and his company continues to set
the bar with block-level file copying and smart sync. We only wish that last feature didn’t
require an expensive Dropbox Professional subscription.
If you like the idea of seeing files in your computer file system, but don’t want them stored on
your hard drive, an alternative method is to set up a network drive in your file system. Read
our network drive guide for more information.
1. Round Two Winner: Dropbox

Visit OneDrive
Round Three: File Sharing
Granting file access to others through your cloud storage service lets you share photos and
movies with friends and family. File sharing facilitates collaboration, too.
The basic mechanics of file sharing are the same from one provider to another, relying on
internet links that point to files and folders, but links can be dangerous if they fall into the
wrong hands. To assist with content control, additional file linking features, such as passwords
and expiry dates, can be used, though most providers fail to do so.
We have an article dedicated to the top cloud storage services for file sharing. Let’s see how
Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive perform.
Dropbox File Sharing

Objects stored in Dropbox can be shared using the web interface. Each folder and file has a
share button attached to it. Click it to generate a shareable link that you can copy and paste
into email bodies, chat, documents or anywhere else. Alternatively, enter email addresses
belonging to whomever you want to allow access.
If you’re sharing a folder, you can choose to allow view-only or edit access.
Dropbox has a few file-sharing features to control access. They include passwords and expiry
dates for links and the option to disable downloads. The features are only available with
Dropbox Professional, though.
To keep from losing track of shared files, use the Dropbox “sharing” page. A link view lets you
quickly disable shares, while folder and file tabs show content shared with you.
A “file request” page lets you request content from coworkers, customers and others. You can
leave a description of your request, allow folder access and set a deadline.
Overall, Dropbox has nice sharing features, though we’d prefer to see them included with the
Dropbox Plus subscription.
Google Drive File Sharing

For a cloud storage service of its pedigree, Google Drive has surprisingly weak file sharing
features. You can generate links for folders and files and grant edit, comment or view
permissions to both.
You can permit access based on email address, rather than create a link. Options for disabling
downloads and preventing editors from adding new people are available in “advanced
sharing settings.” Links can be posted directly to Gmail, Google+, Facebook and Twitter.
Granting access to Google Docs files allows others to collaborate by leaving comments and
making and suggesting edits. We’ll talk more about Google Docs later, but sharing access is
central to Google Drive’s reputation as a productivity tool.
When we call sharing Google Drive “flimsy,” our main complaint is that there’s no option for
links passwords, expiry dates or download limits. Google Drive doesn’t have an easy way to
audit links you’ve created, either. There’s a “sharing” page to see objects shared with you, but
nothing to see what you’ve shared.
The net result is that it’s easy to lose sight of what files you’ve shared, which adds a degree of
risk to using Google Drive that may outweigh its capabilities as a productivity tool.
OneDrive File Sharing

OneDrive has the secure file-sharing features that Google Drive doesn’t and, unlike Dropbox,
it doesn’t require a $20-per-month subscription to access them.
You can permit access using email addresses or by generating a shareable link. Passwords and
expiry dates can be added when you create links to limit access. There’s a permissions option
to allow edits. Access links can be automatically posted to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and
Sina Weibo if you want to share with a broader audience.
To keep everything in order, you can review files shared by you and with you using the
OneDrive “shared” view online.
It’s good news for the most part when it comes to OneDrive file sharing. The big miss is that
there’s no route for file requests like there is with Dropbox, pCloud, Sync.com and a few other
cloud providers. An option to limit downloads would be nice, too.
Round Three Thoughts:

The absence of password and expiry date features for file sharing is one of Google Drive’s
biggest weaknesses. You could call those misses a security issue, which adds to other privacy
concerns we have with Google Drive that we’ll pick up on in round five.
Either way, Google Drive is the easy loser in round three. Both Dropbox and OneDrive have
issues, but they’re not quite as crippling.
We hate that you have to purchase a Dropbox Professional subscription to get access to
advanced link controls. There’s no good reason not to include what should be fundamental
sharing features with Dropbox Plus, if not Dropbox Basic.
Our bone to pick with OneDrive is that it doesn’t have a file request feature. The inclusion of
link passwords and expiry dates for all OneDrive subscribers is a convincing reason to choose
it over Dropbox, though, so we’re ruling round three in favor of Microsoft.
1. Round Three Winner: OneDrive

2. Runner-Up: Dropbox

Visit OneDrive
Round Four: Cloud Apps
Storage, sync and share are the essential elements of any cloud storage service, but you don’t
become best in show by sticking to basic tricks. What separates Dropbox, Google Drive and
OneDrive from the rest of the field is application integrations. They enhance work productivity
and facilitate collaborations. Apps are in the spotlight for round four.
Dropbox Apps
Much of the Dropbox desktop experience requires an online user interface. The UI has a
homepage where you’ll find content you’ve tagged as important and a list of recently
accessed documents.
Navigation links run vertically down the left side. One of those links leads to your “files” page,
which is where you can access content directly from the web.
You can view photos and PowerPoint presentations using the Dropbox website. Certain
document types can be previewed in the Dropbox UI, including .csv, .docx, .pdf and .xls
extensions.
Videos can be streamed, but only up to 60 minutes for shared files. Music files are playable,
but, without a playlist feature, you are limited to playing one at a time.
See our best cloud storage for music article for more capable solutions or find a cloud media
player that works with Dropbox. Audiobox.fm is a good one that also works with Google Drive
and OneDrive.
Dropbox has one native app called Dropbox Paper. It does the job for meeting notes, but isn’t
good enough to make our best note-taking app guide.
Dropbox doesn’t have an office suite of its own, but it does come pre-integrated with Office
Online that lets you edit Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. By sharing content with
others, you can use Office Online to co-author documents and gather comments.
There are many third-party apps that connect to the Dropbox API to provide additional
functionality. For example, you can connect the chat tool Slack to Dropbox or a project
management tool such as those in our best project management software guide.
There are even more integrations available for Dropbox using trigger-response automation
tools Zapier and IFTTT.
Dropbox could make it easier to find integrations by providing a searchable library. That’s
something Google Drive does well, in addition to attracting third-party app developers.
Google Drive Apps

The Google Drive web UI has a more complex layout than Dropbox. That’s because it’s a more
complex service. If you need help finding your way, we have a guide to getting started.
Left-side links let you access your cloud drive, recent files, starred files, files shared with you
and files that you’ve backed up. The “new” button in the top left corner lets you create a new
file using Google Docs or another integrated application.
Google Docs is the best reason to use Google Drive. Docs refers to a standalone word
processor and the entire Google office suite, which includes Google Sheets for spreadsheets
and Google Slides for presentations.
Google Docs has all the tools and features of a top office suite, rivaling Microsoft Office. You
can co-create documents with peers, leave suggestions for edits and add comments, making
Google Drive one of the best cloud storage tools for collaboration.
Though browser-based, Google Docs files can be edited without internet access as long as
“offline” is turned on in the settings.
If you prefer Microsoft Office to Docs, there’s a Google Drive plugin that can be used with
both Office Online and Office 365.
Google Drive has two more integrated office apps called Google Forms and Google Drawings.
Google makes Google Keep, a note-taking app, too, but it isn’t officially a part of Google
Drive (read our Google Keep review).
As it does with Android, Google courts developers for Google Drive with an open API that
allows anyone to develop apps. You can access and integrate those apps using Google Drive’s
app library with a couple of clicks.
The library is searchable and broken into categories. Editors for images and video, electronic
signature collectors, file converters and process planners are a few software examples. Some
of our favorites include:
→ Lucidchart: for flowcharts, mockups and UML diagrams

→ Smartsheet: for project management
→ DocuSign: for e-signature collection
→ DocHub: for editing and annotating PDFs
→ Pixlr Editor: for photo editing
Zapier and IFTTT expand the options with Google Drive automations for tools such as Trello,
Facebook and Wrike.
OneDrive Apps
The OneDrive interface is one of the nicest looking among cloud storage providers, with
sharp lines, clean font and a pleasant color scheme. Links down the left margin can be used to
view stored files, recently accessed files, photos, shares, trashed files and connected
computers.
A chat icon at the top of the interface launches Skype sessions with your friends, family,
coworkers and other contacts. Click on the tiles icon in the top left corner to access other
programs, including Outlook, a calendar and Office Online apps.
Office Online is the free, browser-based version of Microsoft Office, a collection of the most
popular productivity tools in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. If you prefer desktop versions of
the software, you’ll want the Office 365 subscription.
Another integrated app of interest is OneNote. While it’s debatable which of OneNote or
Evernote is the top cloud notebook, they’re the clear front-runners. Neither Google Keep nor
Dropbox Paper comes close.
Microsoft doesn’t have a third-party app library to make finding integrations easier. The
company should take notes from Google Drive in that regard. While there are third-party
apps out there, they’re too hard to find.
Integrations using Zapier and IFTTT are easier to discover by using the websites of either
automation service.
Round Four Thoughts:

All three cloud providers offer well-designed web interfaces with enough tools baked in to
drive productivity and facilitate collaboration. For Dropbox and OneDrive, the highlight is
clearly Office Online, while Google Drive has Google Docs.
Though the integrations for Word, Excel and PowerPoint for Dropbox are done well, there are
misses, including OneNote. Dropbox Paper just isn’t cut out for serious research. OneDrive
has a handful of other integrations, too, including Skype and Outlook, that make it better
suited to getting work done than Dropbox.
Choosing between OneDrive and Google Drive for productivity depends, in part, on whether
you prefer Office Online or Google Docs. Both are excellent services with many collaboration
features, so we’ll call that aspect a draw.
OneDrive has two primary advantages over Google Drive: OneNote and Office 365. However,
Google Drive has an integrated app library with hundreds of third-party options to enhance
your experience. We’re giving round four to Google Drive, but it’s a thin margin of victory.
If you have no interest in third-party apps, OneDrive is the better choice. Microsoft Office file
formats are more popular than Google Docs formats, though you can convert Google Docs
files to Office files directly through Google Drive.
1. Round Four Winner: Google Drive

Starts from $ 4.99 per month

Visit Dashlane
Round Five: Security and Privacy
Review
Free plan available All Plans
Our final round examines security. File safety has been a central concern of cloud storage
since its beginnings. Until news of the National Security Agency’s mass-surveillance program
PRISM broke in 2013, it was an aspect that many cloud providers didn’t take seriously
enough.
On top of the public relations disaster of PRISM, an increase in high-profile cybercrime threats
such as man-in-the-middle attacks, ransomware and password theft, have increased
awareness.
Despite those concerns and the need for a better public image, security is one area that these
three cloud storage offerings don’t exactly nail. Let’s take a closer look.
Dropbox Security
Dropbox takes two steps that should be expected of cloud storage providers, even though
there are still some, like OneDrive, that whiff on the second. Those steps are in-transit and at-
rest encryption.
In-transit encryption protects data being transferred over the internet. Dropbox files that are
in transit are protected with TLS using at least AES 128-bit. TLS means “transport layer
security” and AES means “advanced encryption standard.” We explain both in our cloud
security primer.
Files stored in the Dropbox cloud are encrypted at rest using AES 256-bit encryption. That’s a
different encryption protocol than the one used in file transfer, which indicates a serious
problem with Dropbox. The company decrypts files upon arrival at its data centers, then
encrypts them again.
The reason Dropbox does this is to extract metadata. That metadata is put to good use by
serving as indices that speed up file retrieval, but it’s stored in plain text, which is a security
concern.
The bigger issue, though, is that Dropbox holds onto your encryption key in the first place. To
be fair, it is essential for providing file previews and allowing file edits through browser-based
tools such as Office Online.
That said, Dropbox could do what pCloud does and offer a separate zero-knowledge
encryption add-on (read our pCloud review). Doing so would let you privately encrypt files
that you don’t want anyone, not even Dropbox technicians, to be able to decrypt. At the same
time, you could let Dropbox manage the keys for any files you’re working on.
There’s a workaround solution for that problem, which is to use Boxcryptor. It’s a private
encryption service that’s compatible with Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and other cloud
storage providers. Read our Boxcryptor review for more details.
The good news is that an AES encryption key, whether 128 or 256 bits, would take a
supercomputer billions of years to crack. That’s why most cloud incursions result from
password theft. To protect against that possibility, it’s not enough to create a strong password
or use a password manager such as Dashlane. Two-factor authentication is just as vital.
The purpose of 2FA is to prevent logins on unfamiliar machines without first supplying an
additional credential. For Dropbox, that credential is a six-digit security code sent by text
message. You can also use an approved mobile authenticator app such as Google
Authenticator or Duo Mobile (read best 2FA apps).
Ransomware is a trickier attack and most often targets files on your hard drive. Dropbox
doesn’t perform active scans for ransomware, but there are tools out there that do, such as
Acronis Active Protection. Should files in your Dropbox sync folder get corrupted by
ransomware, those corruptions will be passed to the cloud.
You can recover your files after you’ve removed the malicious program by taking advantage
of Dropbox’s file versioning feature.
Dropbox retains previous file states for 30 days on a Dropbox Plus account and 120 days on
Dropbox Professional. Dropbox Business users get indefinite versioning.
There are better storage providers for versioning, but 30 days should be enough for
ransomware if you’re diligent about fixing the issue.
Google Drive Security

Google Drive encrypts files while in-transit using the TLS cryptographic protocol to prevent
online eavesdropping. Rather than AES 256-bit like Dropbox, Google Drive files are encrypted
with AES 128-bit while in motion.
On the other hand, while Dropbox encrypts files at rest using AES 128-bit, Google Drive uses
256-bit. It doesn’t really matter which is used, though, since both are uncrackable in any
practical sense. Like Dropbox, Google Drive pulls metadata for indexing files.
It’s perplexing and concerning that Google didn’t start encrypting consumer files until 2013,
after the NSA’s PRISM project blew up in its face, but being late to the party is better than not
showing up at all.
Google supports optional two-factor verification for its products, which can be turned on in
your Google account settings.
Once enabled, you’ll need to enter a security code for new machine logins. The code can be
received via text or mobile app. As with Dropbox, we recommend this precaution.
While most cloud storage data centers offer ample security, Google goes above and beyond
with the measures it has in place, including laser grids and biometric scanners. Granted, those
measures are there to protect Google’s own vast and valuable data stores, but your cloud
data still gets to go along for the ride.
Google Drive handles file versioning separately for native and non-native files. Google Docs
files can be rolled back using the “revision history” view in the document.
This view lets you see all every change ever been made to a file and roll back to any previous
state. With limitless versioning, ransomware should never pose a serious threat to Google
Docs files.
Non-native files are kept for up to 100 versions, but only for 30 days. That will provide some
ransomware protection, but may not be enough. You can choose to retain file versions
indefinitely, but it’ll take time since each file has to be set separately.
Maybe the most troubling aspect of Google Drive are the privacy issues we cover in our
Google Drive review. Among them is that the Google terms and conditions allow the
company to scan your cloud files, as well as your Gmail inbox.
These scans might be used to find and remove illegal content, including files that are
copyrighted such as movies and music. They’re also used to gather information about you,
which Google uses for targeted marketing.
You can get around that by encrypting your files privately. As with Dropbox, we recommend
using Boxcryptor, which will prevent Google from analyzing your files. Privately encrypting
files means that you can’t view or edit them in the browser, though, leaving you to choose
between convenience and security.
OneDrive Security
Unless you’re a business subscriber, files stored in the OneDrive cloud are not encrypted at
rest. This is a big issue and one that Microsoft doesn’t advertise. We had to bug customer
care repeatedly to get a straight answer about it. The problem is that Microsoft is a big
company, which has always made it an attractive target for hackers.
That files aren’t encrypted at rest is a good reason to stick with Dropbox or Google Drive, no
matter the benefits of using OneDrive. The service is compatible with Boxcryptor, but that will
limit your ability to use Office Online.
Files are encrypted in transit using TLS encryption with AES 256-bit. OneDrive supports 2FA,
as well, to protect against password theft. You can receive the security code by text, email or
the OneDrive mobile app.
In the past, OneDrive only supported file versioning for native file types, but Microsoft fixed
that mistake in 2017, extending the capability to all files. Previous versions are only kept for
30 days, though, and there’s no option to extend that, not even for OneDrive Business users.
Round Five Thoughts:

Choosing between Dropbox, OneDrive and Google Drive for the best security is like deciding
between having your foot stomped on, being punched in the stomach or sticking your hand
in scalding water.
Dropbox was involved in one of the biggest data breaches in cloud history, with 68 million
passwords stolen in 2012. Since then, Dropbox has taken steps to ensure the incident isn’t
repeated, including constantly switching its password hashing algorithms.
Google Drive and OneDrive have the two bigger strikes, with Google taking a suspect attitude
toward privacy and OneDrive not encrypting files at rest unless you’re a business user. Of the
two, we’ll take OneDrive’s ineptitude over Google snooping through our files.
That’s not to say that Dropbox and OneDrive don’t scan your files. We know that both, at
least, check for copyrighted content when sharing, which is smart to do to avoid becoming
the next Mega. The difference is that both companies are respectful of your privacy and don’t
turn your data into a bombardment of ads.
Whether you opt for Dropbox, Google Drive or OneDrive, we suggest taking one of two steps:
use Boxcryptor to create a private lockbox in the cloud, or use a second, more secure cloud
storage service for files you’re not working on. We recommend Sync.com since it provides
zero-knowledge encryption for free and it’s cheap, providing 2TB of storage for $8 a month.
1. Round Five Winner: Dropbox

The Verdict
Visit pCloud
Free plan available Save 20 % All Plans
Review
Dropbox and Google Drive managed two first place finishes, while OneDrive only had one.
OneDrive had four second place and no third place finishes, though. Dropbox finished last
twice and Google Drive three times.
The table below tallies our votes. Remember, a first place finish receives two points, second
place one point and third place no points.
Categories: Dropbox: Google Drive: OneDrive:
Pricing and Storage Third First Second
File Sync First Third Second
File Sharing Second Third First
Cloud Apps Third First Second
Security First Third Second
Total Points: 5 points 4 points 6 points
The race is close, with OneDrive nosing out the others for a victory with six points, Dropbox
finishing with five points and Google Drive coming in last with four.
Picking between Dropbox, OneDrive and Google Drive ultimately depends on what you need
from a cloud storage provider and what you’re willing to put up with to get it.
OneDrive’s greatest weakness is by far the absence of at-rest encryption for home consumers.
If you can overlook that, it’s the best of the bunch. If you can’t, Dropbox is a better choice,
though it comes at a cost that many will find unpalatable and doesn’t have as many apps as
Google Drive or OneDrive.
For collaboration, Google Drive is the best of the three. Its rebranding as Google One and
increased storage capacities should boost its already-considerable active user figures. For the
record, we use Google Drive here at Cloudwards.net for producing content, in part, because
it’s so convenient. The downside is privacy, which is why we also use pCloud.
In a nutshell, we’re declaring OneDrive the winner, but with the disclaimer that it isn’t the best
choice for everyone. Feel free to share your thoughts on the subject below, and thanks for
reading.
1. Final Winner: OneDrive (Six Points)

2. Runner-Up: Dropbox (Five Points)
3. Third Place: Google Drive (Four points)
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110 thoughts on “Best of The Big Three: Dropbox vs Google

Drive vs Onedrive”
Brad says:
2017/05/25 at 10:12 Reply
In the world we leave in today, more and more people store more and more data, there
is a great need for larger online cloud storage. With the automatic backup capability of
google drive on all device that a user typically owns (iphone, macbook, wintel laptop,
including other family members’ devices, etc.), storage can grow quickly. 1 tb is no
longer enough. With the amount of photos and videos from mobile phones and cameras
being taken year round, google is the only one providing reasonable storage at a
reasonable price.
Matthew says:
2018/03/29 at 07:01 Reply
Yes, this is the problem with DropBox. I am an individual contractor, so I don’t need
a multi-user business plan. For individual users including their individual
professional plan, Dropbox limits to 1TB. That’s not enough. That leaves me with two
options: (a) buy a 5-person Dropbox business plan for one person; or (b) switch to
Google Drive. Dropbox needs to allow the purchase of additional storage space for
individual professional plans.
Billy says:
2017/05/31 at 06:51 Reply
I’ve worked with all three, and I agree with the analysis and comparisons made.
There’s one major flaw of OneDrive the writer didn’t pick up on though: it’s incredibly
unreliable when it comes to syncing large and complex data, e.g. folders containing
hundreds or thousands of subfolders with hundreds or thousands of files. The desktop
client might stop syncing altogether, leaving you no option but to manually reset it, and
it frequently misplaces files with the same filename, i.e. it will swap a file named
“01.docx” with a different file named “01.docx” that’s contained in a different folder.
Google Drive occasionally has some issues with syncing too, but the worse that can
happen here is you end up with a few duplicate files that you can easily remove later.
Dropbox is the best by far in this area. It syncs everything just fine, and simply works.
Mitch says:
2017/09/20 at 04:17 Reply
Agree, that’s the major reason I still pay for drop box, in spite of holding office 365
membership…
Philipp says:
2018/03/12 at 16:27 Reply
Same for me.
jim irwin says:

2017/10/12 at 10:22 Reply
That OneDrive flaw makes it worse than useless for serious storage of data. I just
stumbled on a mess of empty folders after noticing that OneDrive had hung when
uploading a folder with just 4 GB of data. Spread the word: OneDrive is a hazard!
Fabrice says:
2017/10/14 at 06:32 Reply
Totally agree. I had the same experience and have pulled my hairs more than once
for services which are sold to bring peace of mind…
Michelle says:
2017/10/17 at 01:01 Reply
I have to disagree. I used Dropbox to back up my files while my laptop was being
fixed. I borrowed a friend’s laptop, only to find that I couldn’t access all of my saved
files. Checking online, I wasn’t the only person to have the same syncing issues. I
could only access all of the data on the original laptop. I’ve no idea why. I’m hoping
Google Drive will sync better and be easier to use.
Will says:
2017/11/03 at 07:48 Reply
If your laptop broke before it could finish uploading the newly added files to
the Dropbox server, surely you won’t be able to access these files from a
different PC
Paul says:
2018/05/17 at 13:46 Reply
That hardly sounds like the case.
SergioG says:
2018/07/09 at 10:46 Reply
Probably your files were higher than 2Gb using a free account
Alan says:
2019/05/06 at 04:52 Reply
I had the same problem with two computers. On one computer, Dropbox was
not syncing files and I didn’t find that out until my hard drive failed. Just like
you, I looked online for those files only to find they were not there. They were
on my hard drive but only until it failed and was replaced. Once that happened,
no more files. On the other computer, I wiped the hard drive clean at the
suggestion of Apple support only to find that Dropbox never functioned
properly after that. I always had the blue “about to be synced” icon instead of
the green check mark. I just left it because I hardly use that computer and
thought I could download whatever I needed. I just didn’t count on new files
not syncing.
Cathy says:
2018/05/30 at 11:40 Reply
Thank you for pointing this out – much appreciated!

You’ve helped me to make a decision.
Hugh says:
2017/06/02 at 00:55 Reply
What a through comprehensive and very helpful assessment. Well done. I use Dropbox
(1TB) and Google Docs (15GB), and I have a OneDrive account but don’t need it) and was
weighing up whether it was worth settling on just one of them. Answer is to probably
stick with what I have! 🙂
Andrew says:
2017/06/14 at 09:23 Reply
One problem I encountered with Google Drive is the requirement to use only the default
C:\GoogleDrive folder: a while ago I added a 125GB SSD to host only the (Windows 7)
OS. This meant that all my data and non-system applications had to be moved to D:\ –
including the G-drive folder. Since then, I have experienced continuous synching
problems. The response from G-Drive support was “read the policy fine print”: we don’t
guarantee it will work using other folder paths. The best kludge was to have a Google
Drive folder link on C, to the actual destination. But now I’m too scared to store stuff
there…
Rollo says:
2018/09/07 at 08:57 Reply
I disagree. You CAN point the Google drive in any drive and folder name.
Dan Levy says:

2017/06/16 at 11:49 Reply
Dropbox can have terrible UX though & the company doesn’t care.
After manually uploading large files into my Dropbox & having the app ignore the active
WiFi connection in favor of the LTE connection (& burning through my monthly data
plan in the process) and then being told by their support team that this was not a
problem & was done on purpose I stopped paying for Dropbox Pro in favor of Google
Drive.
Jay McKellar says:

2017/06/17 at 09:44 Reply
Your Excellent Assessment is Deeply appreciated. Looking at buying a Microsoft Surface

specifically to leverage the power of Onenote and get an Office 365 Home Subscription.
If it were not for your assessment One Drive’s lack of data-at-rest encryption for
consumers would have got by me. For now my storage stays with Google. Again –
Thanks-A-Million!!! Jay
James Carlyle-Clarke says:

2017/06/17 at 18:44 Reply
Some issues with Google Drive:
Not being able to download folders for offline work or using in other apps on
android/iOS. Also no way to give ownership of a file in Google Drive personal means that
you can use up your storage on business files. Not sure if those apply to the others.
And what about the AWS offering?
MThompson802 says:
2017/07/07 at 16:03 Reply
??? “Not being able to download folders for offline work or using in other apps on
android/iOS.”
That is basically one of the main reasons I use Google Drive. You can work on
anything while offline and sync the next time your online.
Dan says:
2017/06/19 at 09:14 Reply
Thanks for doing this exhaustive work! We use all 3 in our company, but will likely move
mostly to OneDrive (for Business). It does offer encryption at rest for business. Not sure
how important it is for most consumer level storage, but everyone has their own opinion.
Interestingly, we would never have consolidated Dropbox usage into Onedrive until
Microsoft fixed the idiotic lack of co habitation of OneDrive and OneDrive for Business
Microsoft fixed the idiotic lack of co habitation of OneDrive and OneDrive for Business.
Now, its seemless, and its free (included in 365) compared to the ever rising costs of
Dropbox.
Thanks again for the work you did on this
Judith Schjorring says:

2018/07/21 at 04:43 Reply
Interesting. We are also using all three, and want to move away from DropBox. We
had a major hickup after testing DB Business, then switching three accounts back to
DB Plus. After deleting a team of DB Business (which unexpectedly deleted a team
folder), a whole 120GB of files were suddenly deleted too! After one week of talking
to support until we finally could explain our problem, we could recover our data.
Since then, for the last 3 months, we have major syncing issues, some lost date,
duplicated files and folders. A serious drama and hundreds of working hours lost on
fixing issues with DROPBOX. I felt I needed to become a DB specialist to figure out
how to fix our issues. Nightmare. Now I am testing Google Drive (too slow sync of
large files!) and OneDrive.
Leif B. says:
2017/06/21 at 18:59 Reply
Nice and thorough review, but one thing to add is that as a new user some services are
more intuitive than others. I admit that I have not used Google Drive, but between
Dropbox and OneDrive I found Dropbox to be the easiest to adopt. Plus, with the
Premium 1TB annual subscription you have live support.
I recently switched to OneDrive due to the 5TB included with a 5-user Office 365 Home
subscription. OneDrive has, so far, been extremely frustrating to set up and sync with
multiple devices. Plus, OneDrive offers no live support either by phone or chat. The
Virtual Assistant is worthless and I found that a Google search bar is more efficient in
finding answers. I have not bothered with sending an email, so I cannot comment on
Microsoft’s response time. In my opinion, when it comes to support, OneDrive takes a
distant second to Dropbox.
Kyle V says:
2017/07/12 at 18:23 Reply
I have been using one drive on about 5 machines so far and it’s flawless. Setting it
up is simple. Install the app, log in and away you go. I haven’t encountered any of
the problems you have described.
David says:
2017/09/25 at 00:50 Reply
that 5 TB storage is actually only 1 TB storage per user and so where they say 5 TB
storage is the total storage for all 5 user – well that is how I interpret it – hoping I
am wrong on that
Pam L. says:
2017/07/17 at 11:59 Reply
Great comparison, thanks. Here’s my remaining question. When looking at Dropbox, the
comparisons don’t address the cost of Word via Office 365, which is the only seamless
and “free” partnership with Dropbox. I have standalone Word 2011, and it keeps
crashing. Ok, its time to update. Normally I’d buy the standalone Word. Dropbox doesn’t
integrate with Google Docs and it works best with Office 365, not the standalone. I
looked at cloud managers for a workaround, but then there’s yet another fee! I’m going
to have a hard time using Google docs with my one gov’t client. If I buy Office 365, in
effect, it doubles the price I pay to use Dropbox! Are there options I’m not seeing?
Joseph Gildred says:

2017/07/18 at 07:50 Reply
Hi, Pam! Yeah, buying Office 365 makes it hard to justify spending on Dropbox.
Dropbox does integrate with Office Online, though, which is Microsoft’s free version
of Office 365. The main difference is that you have to work from a browser-based
word processor (like Google Docs) and that takes some getting used to. Once you
do, though, you won’t even notice. Hope that helps. Best of luck with your business
🙂
marcus says:
2017/07/19 at 04:40 Reply
One of the better well written reviews of any types of offerings I have seen in some time.
Thank you for taking what must have been a large amount of time to do this!
Henrique says:
2017/07/19 at 08:23 Reply
Incremental sync and sharing management (and, more recently, file requests) puts
dropbox a long way ahead in usability and ease of collaboration. Incremental sync has
been along for such a long time that it’s hard do understand why the competition hasn’t
picked it so far.
Carol McEvoy says:

2017/07/22 at 10:12 Reply
I’ve been using Dropbox for our staff to access our shared files/docs. The problem we’ve
had is that when two or more people are editing at the same time – or just have the
same document open – we get conflicted copies, which take our staff a lot of time to
resolve.
Great evaluation of all three cloud options, but this issue wasn’t mentioned. Do the other
two options avoid this issue?
Cloudwards.net - Chief Editor
Fergus O'Sullivan says:

2017/07/23 at 01:36 Reply
2017/07/23 at 01:36 Reply
That’s because Dropbox is constantly changing this function, sometimes it works,

sometimes it doesn’t…Right now if you want more than two people working
simultaneously on a doc, you probably want to use Google Drive.
Sheldon says:
2017/08/08 at 10:30 Reply
It also depends on the version of Dropbox you are paying for. If you are using
Dropbox Plus with 1TB of space and sharing the same login info, then you will
always have conflicted files because Dropbox would only see that, in essence, there
is only on person logged in.
If you were to upgrade to Dropbox Business or Have multiple Plus accounts, you
wouldn’t have this issue any longer. The reason being that Dropbox offers a feature
called Dropbox Badge with Office files. This feature allows you to see anyone else
viewing or editing a file. You can leave realtime comments on the file as it is edited,
and if someone makes changes and saves them all other parties viewing the file are
updated on the changes and prompted to update the file to the new version.
This feature alone makes Dropbox leaps and bounds better than the competition
when working with word documents and files.
You can also directly open Adobe files within Dropbox online as well sign PDF’s
within the web client.

2018/07/21 at 04:55 Reply
i know – just another nightmare!. I have been using Dropbox for 10 years. .
Keith says:
2017/07/23 at 00:01 Reply
Dropbox support absolutely non existent.

We are long term business users of dropbox. We have subscribed to a 30 user business
plan for many years. it has gone through a lot of changes of name over that time. Each
year renewal was a simple process. Thsi year however has bene quite different. For
reasons unknown we have bene unable to review. We raised a ticket with support who
were unable to help much but in the middle of troubleshooting our count was
downgraded to a free one. needless to say this meant that effectively dropbox stopped
working for us. It also meant we lost access tot the admin panel and hence the support.
Since then we have tried and tried to get this problem sorted. There is zero response
form sport and finding a human to talk to is impossible.
The pre-sales team open a chat quickly and have repeatedly promised to “escalate to
management” but no response at all
We have been dead in the water for almost a week.
Shopping for alternatives now
John Polcari says:

John Polcari says:
2017/07/23 at 06:58 Reply
Use OneDrive for sharing with China !
If you need to share files from US to China (we manufacture there) you better be using
OneDrive. anything else will have you pulling out your hair. I can’t say that this applies to
OneDrive personal, only for OneDrive Business.
Brian says:
2017/07/29 at 16:27 Reply
I would agree that One Drive would place last in this fight, but even with the thorough
analysis, it seems a stretch to call Dropbox a winner here. As other users have mentioned,
customer support is terrible and 2GB free vs Google’s 15GB is crazy in 2017. I have single
photos and audio docs larger than 2GB, making a free dropbox account essentially
worthless, so for the average user, I’m not sure what the draw to Dropbox would be. You
mentioned that the 15GB is also linked to photos and Gmail, but do note that if your
settings are correct, uploaded photos can be (unnoticably) compressed so they don’t
count against your quota. Same goes for Google Docs/Spreadsheets/Slides – they don’t
count against your limit. I’m not sure I agree with your assesment on sharing options –
though you can’t create “timed” access with an expiration, you certainly can have the
equivalent of password protected files and folders just by adding or removing people (or
groups) from a shared file/folder, since access depends on a login to a Google account
already. A password protected link seems a bit redundant, since anyone who shares the
link can just as easily share the login information.

2018/07/21 at 04:46 Reply
Agreed: Dropbox customer support TERRIBLE. I had to become an expert reading

hundreds of DROPBOX manuals to be able to ask the right question and finally tell
them what needed to be done to fix my problem! Nightmare!
Kevin Dobo says:

2017/08/09 at 18:35 Reply
Well… rats. As a recent subscriber to Office 365 Personal, I was looking for comparisons
like this in the hopes that I could justify dropping the cost of Dropbox and switch to the
included 1TB of OneDrive. Based on the information in this thorough review, and some
of the comments that followed, it looks like I’m better off sticking with Dropbox, even if it
costs me an extra $15 a month.
Not great news financially, but at least I feel more educated and have justified my
decision. Thanks!
Naql says:
2017/08/10 at 17:13 Reply
You should add a comparison category for which plays the nicest with other applications.
DropBox insists on glomming onto 10 of the 15 shell extension icon overlays available in
windows, disabling the icon overlays for other software (think source control). Which is
why I am here looking for an alternative…

2017/08/10 at 23:38 Reply
That’s….a very good idea. Keep an eye out, we’ll see if we can get something
together over the next few weeks.
Thanks,
Fergus (chief editor)
Aimee Harrington says:

2017/09/12 at 08:56 Reply
Not familiar with that terminology. Can you explain what you mean and the negative
impact that has?
Matt says:
2017/08/22 at 19:12 Reply
If your dropbox files are downloaded too much, they lock your account for longer and
longer amounts of time. They won’t/can’t tell you how long you will be locked, and there
is NO way to know how close you are to the limit. Once you go over, they lock you, and
then you just have to wait. Which is really frustrating if you use this to share with
business customers
Freeman says:
2017/08/29 at 21:42 Reply
I spend $100cdn a year for 5 terabytes (1 terabyte per family member) of storage and
Office 365 for the entire family. I save hundreds of dollars a year compared to Dropbox
or iCloud. With 2 of my kids in University, the included Office 365 is a big bonus.
iau says:
2017/09/11 at 05:50 Reply
I would like to know which one of these services are best for cloud storage, meaning that
I don’t have to download/store everything on my laptop. Can any of these act as purely a
cloud storage?

2017/09/12 at 06:11 Reply
Yes, all of them will fit that bill.
Duane says:
2017/09/11 at 08:26 Reply
Can I use all 3 for their free space? Personal in one (photos, emails), Current business in
another, and misc/old business in 3rd?
Aimee Harrington says:
2017/09/12 at 09:07 Reply
Great article, but it doesn’t address the main issue we have with Google Drive – When
changes are made online to Word/Excel files it creates a new document in google doc
format. So for Mac users, unless you sync an entire folder (which takes up too much
space), you can’t edit a Microsoft Office file within that folder. Also, if we currently use G-
Suite for business email, but want to use Dropbox for storage/collaboration are there any
alternatives besides purchasing business plans for both???
Megan says:
2017/11/14 at 09:59 Reply
Having the same issues with new documents being created. I just purchased Drive
for my team and like that’s integrated with G-Suite business email but am reluctant
to pull the plug on Droxbox bc of the synch issues. What did you decide?
Virgile says:
2017/09/15 at 06:35 Reply
Dropbox allows you to download files to the SD card of your smartphone ( even with
android 4.4)
None of the others allow that.
Valerie O'Brien says:

2017/09/16 at 09:05 Reply
Which site is best for downloading multiple full-resolution photos? I know each site will
store uncompressed images, but am not sure which allows me to download large
numbers of photos at once without losing any image quality.
Many thanks.
Ken Fitzgerald says:

2017/10/26 at 03:48 Reply
I have used Dropbox for several years with my team all located in 4 different states. We
do pay for the 1T service and have never been disappointed. I used Google drive for a
period of time, great syncing but poor integration with MS Office products at that time.
Sourav Mitra says:

2017/11/12 at 11:45 Reply
as per price i think one drive is pretty ok. but in order to get strict security for normal
customers one should get Mega nz cloud for keeping very important files.200 gb mega
storage would be way enough for storing only important files.
Keith says:
2017/11/30 t 13 00 R l
2017/11/30 at 13:00 Reply
I’ve been wondering whether having various cloud based apps syncing is causing my
devices to slow down more than just using one, and whether this means I lose track of
duplicate files that would be easier to sort out with one cloud application.
I was tempted to pay for more space on Google Drive but downloading multiple files
from Google Drive zips them up incredibly slowly even for small file sizes. I like Dropbox
for it’s speed and convenience but the extra space subscription is too pricy.
Tony Maynard-Smith says:

2017/12/02 at 02:33 Reply
I had one very unfortunate incident recently sharing files with Google Drive.
A user uploaded a couple of new files into folders owned by a central account which
everyone was sharing. Fine so far.
A little while later the original user deleted his GoogleDrive account because he had
ended up with two, and was cleaning up. As a result the shared copies of the documents,
which he still ‘owned’ as far as GoogleDrive was concerned disappeared from the shared
folder. Worse no one noticed for more than 30 days so they were unrecoverable.
After testing, Dropbox handles ownership differently, and this does not happen.
Tony Roach says:

2017/12/02 at 06:22 Reply
Have enjoyed Dropbox until the iOS app seems unable to release the cache – and is
using up valuable storage. This makes me shop around – hence reading this article. Was
thinking about OneDrive until I learned the personal version doesn’t encrypt at rest.

2017/12/02 at 09:05 Reply
Hi Tony,
Yes, there’s that, and the fact that OneDrive is U.S.-based, which may not be the
smartest play at this very moment with all the goings on. Not sure what your current
situation is, but if you’re looking for a SMB solution I’d suggest checking out our
best EFSS article or, if it’s just you and maybe one or two others, our general storage
article. I’ll link both below, but I have a feeling you’d like Sync.com for its excellent
security.
https://www.cloudwards.net/best-enterprise-file-sync/
https://www.cloudwards.net/comparison/
Izhar says:
2017/12/09 at 08:44 Reply
Thanks a lot for the review. I use all three services, and it’s very true: OneDrive is far
behind the other two services re sync speed and reliability. I would really like to hear
from MS themselves, what’s their vision for winning the strong competition from
Dropbox and the ever evolving inter-connect-ability of Google Drive.
Cheers from Israel.
Sacke says:
2017/12/09 at 21:02 Reply
Google Drive’s “Backup and Sync” has been giving me problems, every time I shut down
the computer it blocks the shutdown process, and if you don’t kill the application during
the shutdown process the computer returns to the desktop.
This issue has been around for a very long time, and affects millions of users, but Google
seems to do nothing about this bug.
Johan Degraeve says:

2017/12/13 at 05:03 Reply
I used all three of them. There is nothing to debate: the analysis is correct.
Just check if you have had problems.
Dropbox: never had problems, even when a big “accident” happened, and 1000’s of files
where deleted, recovery was a blink of an eye. While the same thing with Gdrive takes
days. I didn’t dare to try with OneDrive.
Conclusion (random order) : Gdrive: I’ve had my part of troubles

OneDrive: the same, not very reliable
Dropbox: NEVER, had a problem, their service is also very quick and resolvable.
if you are a home user and user Office and some photos, stick to your free OneDrive.
To all professionals, even the small ones: Dropbox is the only totally reliable cloud sync
space.
Needless to say: ALWAYS keep backups (I use ViceVersa, with a schedule to keep all files,
and never lose one)
Filipe Figueiredo says:

2018/01/07 at 06:59 Reply
Hi, I would like to hear something on two issues. Does anyone has something to say?
Thanks in advance
1. which one of these three work better with time machine backup sync;
2. what about speed rate on the different cloud services (i tried One drive and I found it
scary; it take a lot of time even to browse jpeg images…)
Thanks
Laurie says:
2018/01/09 at 16:58 Reply
I am a mortgage broker in Canada looking for a solution to my biggest problem. I am

g g g y gg p
not that tech savvy so don’t laugh if I don’t know all the correct terms. Currently my
100+ annual mortgage clients email or text me their paystubs as photos (jpegs) and I
need to upload them to the bank’s mortgage broker portal in .pdf format. I often have to
print them first and then re-scan in my computer as pdfs. It is time consuming and they
often become hard to read. Here is what I want to be able to do:
buy cloud storage where I can create an individual file for each client, send them a link
that is password protected so they can upload their documents (paystub, letter of
employment, Bank statements proving they have the down payment, etc). I need to be
able to convert the documents into .pdfs so I can upload them without having to print
them off and re-scan into my computer. For clients living far away, I would then like to
be able to send the clients the mortgage approvals and have the ability for them to sign
electronically if they prefer. I’d also like to be able to organize the mortgages I
completed in a given year and create a list of the mortgage customers for future CRM.
Any suggestions which provider would be best for me? Thanks for your help.
Cloudwards.net

2018/01/10 at 00:20 Reply
Hi, Laurie. Thanks for commenting! For converting files, I like to use a tool called
CloudCovert, a free add-on for Google Drive.
However, I think you’re going to want to use Dropbox since Google Drive doesn’t have a
file request feature and Dropbox does. You can create shared folders with Google Drive
and invite your clients to add files to them, but that would require them setting up a
Google account which is probably more work than you want to ask of them.
Dropbox also has a built-in PDF converter that you can use so you don’t have to spend
all that time printing and scanning 😉 … Dropbox integrates with DocuSign, too, though
its a “bit” trickier to use than DocuSign with Google Drive (imho).
Dropbox also integrates with Office Online (free), so you can use Excel to track your
mortgage customers. As far as organizing your mortgages, you can create folders and
subfolders in Dropbox to do that.
On a final note, if you did want to use Google Drive, you could just set up a WeTransfer
account and have customers send you files that way. Its a good file transfer service with
some customization options that let you easily build your own personalized webpage for
customers to send you files. Then, use CloudCovert and DocuSign on Google Drive, and
Google Sheets to track your clients.
RT says:
2018/02/02 at 06:35 Reply
I want to upgrade my Dropbox account, but now I see that you need a “Professional”
account to be able to use “Password-protected and expiring shared links”.
You also need a Pro account to get “Live chat support”
Plus: $ 9.99 / month
Professional :$19.99 / month (too much I think)
ExDropboxer says:
2018/02/09 at 17:25 Reply
Thanks for this comparison. Since Dropbox Support has ruined 2 restore operations
causing us countless headaches, we have to find another option. Google’s Team Drive
doesn’t allow sharing of a subfolder, so that is out. Which leaves OneDrive (for Business),
which is looking pretty good right now. Hopefully it will be more reliable than Dropbox.
Volodymyr says:
2018/02/19 at 11:57 Reply
Dropbox is terribly inconvenient. It is impossible to see the size of your file, directory.
There is no normal directory tree. Unable to download the archive of the directory or
several files. After trying to work after google drive I just did not pull my hair out – so it’s
all hard on the dropbox. Now I’m considering the options between ondraiv and google.
Mohan says:
2018/03/18 at 20:59 Reply
I had paid use of dropbox for few years but recently changed to onedrive because it was
free with my office 365. Terribly disappointed… My needs are small :what I save in my
home computer must be automatically available from my work computer as well as my
mobile, and vice versa, assuming all are connected to internet (I have about 40Mbps
connection, not an issue).
But it is not syncing in time.
Very frustrating.
I need to go back to Dropbox, I guess! They said they will not delete my account and
storage till my paid subscription is over in August. Good.
Kate says:
2018/03/27 at 14:28 Reply
Dropbox is COMPLETE trash. DO NOT EVER USE DROPBOX!!!!!! It has deleted a bunch of
files that are for my classes, and I can’t recover them- my lab final is in 2 days and I am
missing a huge chunk of my study material because of Dropbox!!! Never again!!!!
Yu says:
2018/05/11 at 01:55 Reply
@Spideroak: Good and well-priced for backups, but cannot recommend for
synchronization of large filesets.
For me the spideroak client frequently stalls, leaving devices unsynchronized without
warning. And once it detects a synchronization conflict (i.e. file changed on both devices
without sync in between) it simply chooses the newer version, meaning that the earlier
work is lost.
As a side-effect, this also means that it is safe (but not recommended) to synchronize .git
directories over Dropbox, but they frequently break when synchronized by Spideroak.
Rahul says:
2018/05/14 at 02:23 Reply
As personal user only thing which adds every day on my phone is pics and videos. What
best way to view them and have google run all kinds of AI n facial recognition. So
Google Photos makes it tilt my decision
RoiDesRois says:
2018/05/16 at 06:22 Reply
How about adding two factor authentication support and usage on mobile devices.
I’ve found dropbox to work better with regards to this.
Afzaal says:
2018/05/22 at 22:59 Reply
I have very bad experience with Dropbox. I am using it for my company data but
dropbox is supporting Windows Server 2012 though it was running flawlessly for certain
time. Two months before, it stopped and crash and till now not able to start again.
Dropbox says more than 300K files syncing will degrade the performance. Due to
Windows Server 2012 and more than 300K file, dropbox support team raised their hands
to solve this issue. Now looking for alternate as G-drive or OneDrive.
SG says:
2018/05/27 at 22:58 Reply
Or use all 3 and to have more free storage.
Trust Chuma says:

2018/06/15 at 19:17 Reply
For me it all comes down what you need the cloud storage for and how you intend to
use it.
Google Drive Dose it for me, cause am more consider with storage and I can access my
files from my Machine PC or Mac.
Marnie says:
2018/07/10 at 17:46 Reply
Thank you, very helpful. I was considering switching over to OneDrive from Dropbox, but
with the security concern, I’ll stick with Dropbox.
Matthew says:
2018/07/14 at 21:49 Reply
Great article, many thanks.

One update is that One Drive on their business plans now offers encryption at rest. I
personally will stay with Dropbox because it just works without any issue, but thought
the update would be useful.
Cloudwards.net

2018/07/18 at 01:06 Reply
Thanks for the comment, Matthew. We did mention in the article that OneDrive
Business encrypts at rest. For home consumers, it’s definitely worth encrypting files
privately using Boxcryptor or another service.

2018/07/21 at 05:22 Reply
I have used DropBox for probably 10 years or more. In 2012 or so it came as a suggested
cloudstorage with a new SAMSUNG Note device, giving me 70GB of storage for free for
a year. I loved that! All my photos were almost instantly available on my PC, laptop, etc
when came back to my office after taking pictures at a business meeting.
When my free subscription run out I upgraded to PLUS. As my business grew and I
needed access for my team to my huge storage I now bought a second PLUS ACCOUNT
in 2016. That worked quite well too, except the syncing issues when working on same
EXCEL files, resluting in Sync Conflicts, We resolved this by only ever having one person
working on one file at the time.
DROPBOX pestered me in 2017 to try DropBox BUSINESS one month for free. I needed a
third account anyway, so I decided to give it a try,
I should NEVER have done that!
Dropbox BUSINESS disables the Photo syncing of mobile phones – for GOD’S SAKE?
Hello?
That’s why I got into DropBox in the first place. Great marketing over years to lure me in,
and then the DESTROY the work of their marketing team in a click of a button!
It took me and my team TWO weeks to figure that out that the syncing had stopped
because of DROPBOX BUSINESS. We changed settings, waited, etc. only after a support
call did we figure out the mistake with them.
Ok. So I changed back to have 3 PLUS accounts for me and my team. OH GOD, now we
had PLUS accounts and new 3 personal accounts!!!
Then I started cleaning up my files and deleted a TEAM left over by DropBox Business.
What I did not realize, that deleting a team, the TEAM FOLDER was deleted too! And with
125GB of FILES: My God, I took 1 week of talking to support for ME to figure out how to
get my 125GB of deleted files back.
I will be leaving DROPBOX. Maybe I will keep one account, for the phone syncing option.
Testing Google DRIVE. Not usable for large files! For small files it is ok. But every time I
make a change in my 125GB folder it takes a week to sync and using my PC juices,
slowing it down and heating up the harddrive.
Microsoft ONE DRIVE is the next candidate to test. We really liked that the DropBox
syncing issue in Google Drive and Microsoft is resolved. And Google PHOTOS uploads
the photos from my phone into a free cloud storage.
But the speed of the syncing is of course is an important issue for my team and me. And
DropBox compared to Google is by far the faster option when it comes to syncing.
But DropBox Support is lacking. They always send you to read a manual and follow the
instructions there. Honestly, I can find the manuals myself. What I need is human help.
And only after insisting, chats and dozens of emails, is the problem finally escalated to a
person who actually understands DropBox better than me after I had rad a ton of
manuals. We had huge problems for the last 8 months!
Wes says:
2018/09/22 at 11:53 Reply
I started the switch over to Google Drive. The price was right and I trusted the system. I
was wrong. Google Drive can’t seem to handle large amounts of files. I used it to backup
my Lightroom files. I had 100,000+ thousand files, not including photos. Not only did it
drop all of my Lightroom files, it killed them on my computer via the sync. The files were
not in the trash. I lost all of my edits for 60,000+ photos. I’m going back to dropbox. The
new features are great and the reliability is significantly better.
Joe Diver says:

2018/09/22 at 12:24 Reply
great analysis, but it should have accounted for one more issue: tech support. I have only
used dropbox and I have no point of reference on the other two. DB customer service,
although it seems to try its best, sucks. It is obviously outsourced to third world
countries, which to a degree is a security issue, and the reps are most of the time low IQ
and English challenged. DB is saving a few bucks at the expense of service quality and
possibly security, not to mention the fact that it is sending jobs overseas.
Chojrak says:
2018/09/24 at 00:21 Reply
You forgot to add in this article that Dropbox takes your space even if somebody shares
files with you. I haven’t had any single file uploaded by me and yet had my quota
“exceeded” because somebody shared many files with me, then bombed with
emails/notifications to buy more storage. This is just plain stupid and this “feature” alone
is sufficient for me to not use nor recommend Dropbox to anyone.
Marie Arouet says:

2018/09/28 at 17:01 Reply
For me, the best answer seems to be all of them! Professionally I tend to use Google
Drive more, while OneDrive and Dropbox are more for personal files, the former for
text/PDFs and the latter for video/audio. I’d rather have a larger quota in one application
than sharing storage across three of them, but I’ll take my storage any way I can get it.
Rose says:
2018/09/29 at 10:09 Reply
I purchased Dropbox Business Advanced so I could share folders with my assistant (did
not like having to pay for a third subscription which I did not need). While we were
preparing for a major presentation both my assistant and I were working on different
documents and saving them to a shared dropbox folder – or at least we thought we
were. It turned out we were both working on/saving documents to the folder which the
other person could not see. We ended up having to email large documents to one
another during our final push to get the presentation completed. It was crazy and hard
to keep up with latest versions of documents. Dropbox could not help me fix the
problem while it was happening, but suggested I unshare the folder and then reshare to
see if that worked – it did not. There are still documents in the shared folder that only
one of us can see. Dropbox explanation was “that just happens sometimes” when a lot of
documents are shared to a folder over a relatively short period of time. No fix in the
works. For what I pay $$$$$ I expect better. Now I am looking for other solutions
because I need all documents in a shared folder to be visible to all the individuals sharing
the folder.
I see others describe sharing/syncing problems with onedrive, which would be my #2

choice, so I’m hesitant to make a move to that. I have never used google docs for file
management and don’t use gmail for business emails, so I am hesitant to move to
google business. Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Tracey Capen says:

2018/10/05 at 11:44 Reply
I’ve used Dropbox for years, possibly since it’s start. It mostly worked well on PCs, but
currently it seems to be a significant resource hog on MacOS. I have the Pro Plus version
with virtual files/folders because I do most if my image editing on a older MacBook Pro
and hard drive space is limited. But Dropbox syncing seems to bring the notebook to its
knees — especially on startup.
Selma says:
2019/10/03 at 06:47 Reply
I agree with your comment regarding eating up storage on a MacOS. I have been a
Dropbox subscriber for 5-6 years with no problems. I now have a MacBook Air and
unable to use my Dropbox account as I did in the past due to storage issues.
Shauna says:
2018/10/11 at 04:04 Reply
I’ve used all three and still try the two I don’t use routinely – Google Drive and Dropbox –
just to see if they’ve improved on the things I don’t like about them. As a freelancer I
have to do my own IT work, so I’m always looking for the most intuitive, easiest to use
service that’s also packed with value and easy for clients to use. That’s why I use
OneDrive over the other two for my business. I’ve had zero issues through the years, and
li t th t’ d it k h h i t it i th th th
every client that’s ever used it remarks on how much easier to use it is than the other
two. The fact it integrates so seamlessly with online app versions of Word, PPT, Excel, etc.
and sync beautifully if you’re working off a desktop version and syncing to the cloud – to
the point you can often see revisions in real time – is a bonus. Hands down, it’s OneDrive
over either of the other two for my purposes.
Larry says:
2018/10/16 at 10:35 Reply
I have used all 3. I still have my Google account and Office 365 account.
The price and arrogance of DropBox is what really moved me away. The web UI is
confusing at best. Creating a shared folder for people to drop stuff in uses a file request,
as in you are requesting files from them. So much easier with both Google Drive and way
better with OneDrive now that the person does not need a OneDrive account (Google
requires a gmail account). Also DropBox just has no real value add like both Google and
especially Office 365.
At times all of them have had bad sync speeds. All of them basically have the same sync
speed to me now. Google does get hung up more but not often.
OneDrive sync was so messed up 2-3 years ago it was not usable to be honest.
However I do know they had a massive internal merger so to speak. The consumer stuff
from the hotmail/live/outlook/skydrive stuff was running on legacy acquisition
infrastructure. The business side was all Microsoft running on Exchange/Sharepoint. All
of it now runs on the latest versions Exchange/Sharepoint running on Azure. The One
Drive Sync client in its current form (October of 2018) has the most options with sync on
demand etc. I have it setup on 3 Windows computers, a Mac, a iPad and my iPhone. Each
is set to sync different parts local with my home desktop syncing everything local so I
can back it up to a local drive and backblaze.
The fact that you get full Office with either the personal or Home is the thing that
pushed me to OneDrive. I like Google Docs, but 85% of world uses MS Office still.
Everardo Keeme says:

2018/10/21 at 21:37 Reply
I’m a commercial and event photographer using the Dropbox Business plan but now I’m
running into an issue with Dropbox limiting the monthly API calls to my Synology box.
Because of the number of photos, I can take during the busy season months, and the use
of Adobe Lightroom, Dropbox stops working for me. I’ve been in contact with Dropbox
Business support many times and there are two issues they cannot solve.
1. Dropbox will not let you exclude certain file types – It they would all you to filter
certain file types from syncing that would solve part of the issue
2. Dropbox sync (smart sync and selective sync) will sometimes crash with large folders
(as others have mentioned with OneDrive – this forces Dropbox to try to sync the entire
folder AGAIN and thus creating more API calls
So now I’m left trying to find another solution

Jack Soren says:
2018/11/14 at 08:55 Reply
I’m a writer (novels and technical) and I’ve used Dropbox for years and I’ve never lost a
single thing. Which is why, despite have MS Office 365 Home and a terabyte of storage I
never use, I’m still thinking about paying for Dropbox. I am going to try that google drive
plug-in mentioned upstream, but in all likelihood I’m going to stick with Dropbox. I’m
hoping it’s a sensible decision based on logic and not just a familiarity thing since I’ve
used DB for so long. Great article and comments. Just wanted to add my data point.
Cheers.
Alex says:
2018/11/15 at 16:00 Reply
Thanks for the great review – I use all three, and working on multiple projects was paying
for G & DB. Another strength of DBox and weakness for the others is if you have to travel
to developing countries, or interact with weak internet infrastructure. DBox never lost a
file in five years, whereas Google did, and OneDrive (and MS generally) assumes the ‘first
world’ is the only world.
Sam says:
2018/11/27 at 15:46 Reply
Really impressive, thorough review – great work. We’ve used paid DropBox accounts for
a number of years now, and you totally nail both its beauty and its limitations. For me,
the decider has been the decay of DropBox’s support service – for the premium price
they charge, I expect better than the incompetent indifference I’ve encountered recently.
Having seen OneDrive sort out its biggest issues over the same period, we’re going to
give that a try (the bonus being that it’s free, since we already have Office365 Premium
Business subscriptions). Thanks again for a great article.
SEAN R LAKE says:

2018/12/13 at 11:50 Reply
For me, I’ve used dropbox for years, and upped to the sub plan of $99/yr for 1TB.
However, I realized while I was paying for the MS Office that I also received 5 1TB online
drives through OneDrive and that’s another $99/yr, so I figured as long as the syncing
goes well and I don’t have issues, that perhaps OneDrive would be my solution. Even
though Google One has 2TB for the same price, I’m trying to reduce costs currently, so
since I need Word, Excel, etc. for my household, I might as well take advantage of already
paying for it and just use the 1TB OneDrive for now.
Steve says:
2019/01/17 at 11:58 Reply
This comparison seems to assume the whole world is using Windows. Surely a significant
aspect of any online file storage/sharing service is how good their support is for non-
Windows OSs. The Dropbox native client is first class on Windows, Linux and Mac. Good
luck with OneDrive…
I also strongly disagree with the results of Round Two. I’ve used OneDrive, Dropbox and
Google Drive extensively and OneDrive’s syncing is _awful_. Every day it gets into a state
where the document I _just_ saved becomes read-only and I can no longer edit it unless I
save it under a new name. Useless junk.

2019/01/17 at 22:11 Reply
Hi Steve,
Cloudwards’ chief editor here. Well, to your first point, from a practical standpoint
the whole world is, in fact, using Windows (I say that as a Linux user), unless you feel
that a market share of over 90 percent is insignificant. Mac and Linux users are,
however, well catered for on this site, with several articles dedicated to online
software that plays nice with these OSes.
As for your OneDrive issue, that doesn’t sound like a problem with syncing as such,
but rather something else. I googled your issue and this thread popped up as the
first result, maybe it will help you? https://answers.microsoft.com/en-
us/onedrive/forum/sdfiles-sdopen/why-are-my-onedrive-documents-opening-in-
read-only/beff9672-72c4-4afe-a199-b029d400a45b?page=2
Kind regards,
Fergus O’Sullivan
Ronald Jackson says:

2019/04/30 at 09:49 Reply
In the PC world, sure – it’s Windows 90% of the time. In the phone/tablet world,
not even close. iOS is the major in the U.S. – so iCloud should have been
included in the comparisons.

2019/05/01 at 02:54 Reply
We don’t like iCloud very much, as you can read in our review:
https://www.cloudwards.net/review/icloud-drive/. That’s the reason why
we’ve not included it in this very specific comparison article.
javier meca says:

2019/02/08 at 12:06 Reply
All these tools are really designed to stop working with our data in local servers, to move
it on the WEB without limits in number of folders, files, easy sharing with users out of
office, etc.
So moving all the company data to the cloud is good to optimize the sharing, mobility …
but working with engineering documents, plans, spreadsheets every day is another song.
We are not there yet, the Internet access lines are not as fast, reliable, or secure, neither
are web applications good enough compared to the desktop ones
are web applications good enough compared to the desktop ones.
It is directly a contradiction: Let’s see … we have the fastest computers, with a lot of RAM,
core i5-i7, SSD disks, local gigabit networks and now we need 10 seconds to open a
simple file or Outlook to be able to work 5 minutes while it finishes to synchronize ……
because we have saved it in Dublin?.
I work in some clients with Gdrive and OneDrive, with millions of files and thousand of
folders…. it is simply, neither of them works properly, they are not reliable, they hang and
data is lost if you work with Windows explorer (and users want to use Windows explorer).
Finally we have adopted a hybrid solution because it is impossible to work depending
exclusively on the cloud.
Without saying that in any case we need a backup solution; retention is not the same
and is not reliable.
Thanks a lot for your opinions
Albert Thompson says:

2019/02/08 at 20:15 Reply
I am a student who uses a Mac for most purposes, iPad to take notes in class, and
Ubuntu for all my programming assignments. I need a cloud service that will sync all my
devices. I have tried iCloud and OneDrive but found them to be unsatisfactory. Would
Google Drive or Dropbox sync better with all my devices?

2019/02/11 at 00:33 Reply
The difficulty is that you’re using Linux, which few storage services support. I’d
probably go for Dropox or pCloud in your case, but check out our full list here:
https://www.cloudwards.net/cloud-storage-for-linux/
Susan L Perry says:

2019/02/16 at 17:30 Reply
Thank you for this comparison of the 3 cloud options. It was clear and easy for a non-
tech person to understand. I am starting a blog and I am looking for cloud storage to
back-up everything associated with the blog – the blog itself, images, posts alone, etc. I
thought I would go with google drive until I read that it uses only the google office apps.
I already have an Office 365 subscription (a personal one). I’d like to continue using
those apps. I’m wondering if you have looked at google one (mentioned in the article)
since it has now come out. Do you have a recommendation for me? I would greatly
appreciate it! Thanks

2019/02/18 at 01:39 Reply
Hi Susan, you can’t use storage solutions to backup, unless you want to keep track
manually. I recommend you check out our article on this very subject instead,
assuming you’re using WordPress. https://www.cloudwards.net/how-to-backup-
wordpress-blog-website/
Albert Han says:
2019/03/09 at 19:23 Reply
One vital point missing here, if you need to conduct business in China or access your
google drive in China, that is impossible unless you add a reliable VPN to your cost

2019/03/11 at 02:21 Reply
Well, we have a whole article dedicated to China, so we didn’t mention it here.

https://www.cloudwards.net/censorship-in-china/
Nick Knight says:

2019/03/16 at 14:44 Reply
There is another significant difference between OneDrive and Google Drive and that is
how they handle uploaded photos. You can set your smartphone to automatically upload
photos to either service (and never lose another photo to a damaged or lost phone), but
Google Drive has a subset called Google Photos that treats them a bit differently. With
Google Photos, you have unlimited storage but any photos over 16MP are compressed
unless you choose High Quality. With the HQ setting, your stored photos then go against
your free or paid storage limit. With OneDrive photos are not compressed.
Nick Knight says:

2019/03/16 at 14:50 Reply
Great article and a lot of valuable information. In the area of cloud storage security, there
is a very effective and free solution that at least works with both OneDrive and Google
Drive. VeraCrypt, a fork of the now defunct TrueCrypt, can be used to create a very secure
encrypted folder within your local OneDrive or Google Drive folder (theoretical should
work equally well on any other service). Once you have set up your VeraCrypt container,
you just need to change the setting In Veracrypt to put the “Preserve modification
timestamp of file containers” option turned off. The timestamp on the Truecrypt volume
file is then updated when you unmount it. I used this solution with a financial advisor
client and it works perfectly with OneDrive and properly syncs all changes to the
encrypted container.

2019/03/18 at 04:31 Reply
Yeah, VeraCrypt is pretty good, we did a small writeup of it here:

https://www.cloudwards.net/best-truecrypt-alternative-services/.
Scott Dwyer says:

2019/04/19 at 19:15 Reply
VeraCrypt works best with Dropbox, because of the block level file transfer. I know
with Google Drive if you make a change to a VeraCrypt container, it has to sync the
whole large file, instead of just needed chunks like Dropbox does (I tested awhile
back). I would assume that Onedrive would be the same as Google Drive for this.
Also, both VeraCrypt and Dropbox work on Linux if needed (which I need). Winner
for me is Dropbox because of this.
Justin Coffman says:

2019/06/19 at 18:19 Reply
“That’s a different encryption protocol than the one used in file transfer, which indicates
a serious problem with Dropbox. The company decrypts files upon arrival at its data
centers, then encrypts them again.” This doesn’t indicate a problem at all; it’s simply how
things WORK. TLS is, as the name suggests, transport layer security. TLS protects the
connection itself, agnostic of the data flowing over it. The “file” as we understand it is not
itself encrypted, but the “tunnel” that it flows through is. When it reaches the other end,
it’s no longer in that tunnel. It doesn’t magically retain the encrypted status of the tunnel,
so it needs to be encrypted before being written to disk. This is a consequence of how
networks work, not an issue inherent in Dropbox’s design. There are solutions that
encrypt the file itself before sending it, but those are targeted for much higher security
uses than you’re discussing here.
Noel Reese says:

2019/06/30 at 08:56 Reply
Nice comparison review. Was the recently imposed 3-device limit with the free version of
Dropbox mentioned? Is so I didn’t see it. That’s the reason I’m jumping ship and reading
this article. Eithe folder sync or cloud app on: 2 laptops, phone and work + personal
tablets is what I need for personal documents.
Frank Thomas says:

2019/07/31 at 05:03 Reply
I tested all 3 of these and iCoud as well. Dropbox was the clear winner because it was the
only one of the 4 that maintained total fidelity and the integrity of my my filing system
which is critical to finding what you need when you need it. It also was the only cloud
service to allow me to open my saved url’s from any other PC or Apple device. Google,
Microsoft and Apple all have an axe to grind and their cloud services clearly show their
biases as they try to force your files into their world.
Dropbox is is agnostic and only has the users preferences in mind. If it stays that way it
will become the User preferred app as users learn that they don’t have to put up with
Apple, Google or Microsoft “unapproved and unsolicited improvements” to their own
data and preferences.
Evan Manttari says:

2019/09/01 at 14:35 Reply
Dropbox is useless.
Google Drive and OneDrive are the obvious winners, each with their own unique
advantages, depending on their intended use.
Where to start with Dropbox-
O i d t ibl UI d i d b C tl d i ti ti f f l d
Overpriced, a terrible UI design, dumb name. Currently under investigation for false and
misleading SEC filings, a plummeting stock price- the list goes on. Get rid of Dropbox
now and your life will dramatically improve.
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Cloud Storage

Best of The Big

Starts from $ 4.08 per month for 500 GB

Starts from $ 1.99 per month for 50 GB

The Battle: Dropbox versus Google Drive

Now, on to the bloodshed.

Starts from $ 1.99 per month for 50 GB

Plans: Dropbox Basic Dropbox Plus Dropbox Professional

Month-to-Month Cost: Free $9.99 $19.99

Annual Cost (by Month): Free $8.25 $16.58

Cloud Storage: 2GB 1TB 1TB

Plans: Standard Advanced

Cost per User: $15 $25

Annual Cost (by Month): $12.50 $20

Storage: 2TB (Shared) ???

Google Drive Pricing

10TB $ 99.99 / month

20TB $ 199.99 / month

Plans: Basic Business

Cost per User: $5 $10

Storage: 30GB Unlimited

Notes: N/A If under 5 users, storage is 1TB per user.

Round One Thoughts:

1. Round One Winner: Google Drive

Starts from $ 1.99 per month for 50 GB

Google Drive Sync

Finally, OneDrive lets you throttle sync speeds.

Round Two Thoughts:

1. Round Two Winner: Dropbox

Dropbox File Sharing

Google Drive File Sharing

OneDrive File Sharing

Round Three Thoughts:

1. Round Three Winner: OneDrive

Starts from $ 1.99 per month for 50 GB

Google Drive Apps

→ Lucidchart: for flowcharts, mockups and UML diagrams

Round Four Thoughts:

1. Round Four Winner: Google Drive

Starts from $ 4.99 per month

Google Drive Security

Round Five Thoughts:

1. Round Five Winner: Dropbox

Starts from $ 3.99 per month for 500 GB

Categories: Dropbox: Google Drive: OneDrive:

Pricing and Storage Third First Second

File Sync First Third Second

File Sharing Second Third First

Cloud Apps Third First Second

Security First Third Second

Total Points: 5 points 4 points 6 points

1. Final Winner: OneDrive (Six Points)

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110 thoughts on “Best of The Big Three: Dropbox vs Google

Same for me.

jim irwin says:

That hardly sounds like the case.

Thank you for pointing this out – much appreciated!

Dan Levy says:

Jay McKellar says:

Your Excellent Assessment is Deeply appreciated. Looking at buying a Microsoft Surface

James Carlyle-Clarke says:

Some issues with Google Drive:

And what about the AWS offering?