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Azure NetApp Files vs Dropbox comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 17, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Azure NetApp Files
Ranking in Cloud Storage
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (2nd), Public Cloud Storage Services (8th)
Dropbox
Ranking in Cloud Storage
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
Content Collaboration Platforms (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Cloud Storage category, the mindshare of Azure NetApp Files is 8.8%, down from 10.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dropbox is 4.9%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Storage
 

Featured Reviews

AjayKumar13 - PeerSpot reviewer
Fast, reliable, and helps meet our SLAs
The most valuable feature is that the sixty-terabyte database snapshot can be done in less than two to three minutes. It is faster. It is quicker. It is reliable. You don't need to take the snapshot. Snapshots are compressed. It doesn't take storage from the back end. It takes three minutes to do sixty terabytes of the database. You don't have to go to the tape and store it outside, which takes hours and hours. It also uses a lot less of the storage. It's very easy to restore or copy the snapshots to other locations for disaster recovery. There are a lot of benefits. In terms of the snapshot's rapid restore capability, we were testing the load of performance testing, and we needed to rebuild the DR site. If I need to rebuild the DR for a standby database, it takes sixty terabytes to copy onto the another site, which will take at least a day. Now, the snapshot is easy. We just copy the snapshots, and then we do the cross-region application. The snapshots came along with that, and that's where we were able to build the DR site within a few hours rather than days. All together, instead of a four-day process, instead of a day.
Edgar  Paez - PeerSpot reviewer
Work from anywhere and backup easily while being practical
I recommend Dropbox, yet not for all of the features it has. I am a basic user. In a personal mode, we have about 100 employees, and maybe 20 of them use Dropbox as a personal backup system. ShareFile is more secure than Dropbox. Five years ago, ShareFile was qualified as having better security control, access privilege management, and version control recovery, among many features that we were using for private documentation. Overall, I would rate Dropbox an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its security and ease of use are most valuable."
"It's elastic, so it scales with our demands. We can start small, then with the addition of customer loads, we can expand on-the-fly without the need to reprovision something."
"Azure NetApp Files has been stable."
"It is faster. It is quicker. It is reliable."
"We use Azure NetApp Files mainly for backup."
"You can change it non-disruptively. You can increase the size and decrease the size online, which is a huge benefit compared to Azure disks. It just works seamlessly. You don't need to stop the instances."
"Since we have NetApp's internally, we use the SnapMirror predominantly for this process in the cloud which is beneficial."
"I think the easiest part is, when you do a comparison, it is the throughput versus the cost. And it's much easier to set up."
"Dropbox is easy to use."
"Dropbox is an easy-to-use solution that has good stability."
"Dropbox has a simple interface, and it's pretty straightforward."
"I had a good experiment with the technical support from Dropbox."
"Dropbox is a very easy-to-use site that allows me to save files to the cloud for retrieval from almost any device (laptop, iPhone, iPad, etc...)."
"Simple to share files with others."
"It offers convenience. It can connect with all devices that you own."
"The initial setup is extremely easy."
 

Cons

"The main hurdle in promoting this solution is the price. Its price definitely requires an improvement. It is more expensive than other options, so customers go for a cheaper option."
"We would like to see more paired regions for the replication."
"The solution needs to improve it's ABS environment."
"Reserved Instances for Azure NetApp Files would improve more use cases, making them more valuable in Azure as the cost would be reduced."
"I don’t like the solution’s configuration and support."
"We were looking for a clustered solution that has over-complicated things because we had it in AWS, which is Amazon. There was a solution for clustered NetApp. That meant there would be two NetApps that were not clustered because there was no solution for a cluster. We would like there to be an HA cluster solution."
"We would like to have backup functionality built-in so that we don't run into the issue where the replication process makes a copy of the corrupted data."
"The initial setup was not straightforward. We had help from the NetApp team."
"They can provide more storage. Data is something that everybody is after. Any organization that has the requirement of data for any type of analysis will definitely need increased storage."
"Dropbox could be improved by reducing the storage price."
"I cannot edit a document at the same time as another user."
"The product improvement could include better integration with other tools and more advanced file versioning features."
"The pricing could be better and so could the amount of storage space. I feel like for the price, they don't offer very much storage space, especially when compared to competitors like Google."
"There could be better integration with other solutions, such as Microsoft Office 365 for more collaboration. At the present time, it is more focused on its own internal systems."
"They can do the scanning of viruses, and they can also do malware detection when they do the synchronization."
"Dropbox could introduce some sort of a notification with respect to how much storage you have left out of what is purchased."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing depends on your scaling and consumption."
"The performance has improved by about 30 percent."
"Our pricing has not been determined because we are still waiting on additional features."
"This solution is very expensive compared to the alternatives."
"It is expensive, especially with NetApp Ultra Storage."
"Its price is double the price of the premium disks, which is the main reason why customers don't go for this solution in the end."
"The price of Azure NetApp Files could be better."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"A bigger discount for existing users would be appreciated."
"The solution is expensive."
"Dropbox is one of the cheapest tools in the market."
"It has some free features, but for some of the features, you need to pay. If you need more storage, then you need to pay. Its licensing probably is on a monthly basis."
"Dropbox could be less expensive, and I pay monthly."
"We are using the unlicensed free version of Dropbox."
"I was using the free version of the product."
"Given the price and limitations, there are more competitive options available."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
28%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Educational Organization
66%
Computer Software Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
3%
University
3%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Azure NetApp Files compare to NetApp ONTAP?
Azure NetApp Files is a Microsoft Azure file storage service built on NetApp technology. The platform combines the file capabilities of Azure and NetApp to move critical file-based applications to ...
What do you like most about Azure NetApp Files?
The availability is good, meaning downtime or network issues rarely occur. The system also offers flexibility, allowing for increases in data volume, IOPS, and other capabilities without requiring ...
What do you like most about Dropbox?
For me, the biggest thing is version history. I can easily go back and view older versions.
What needs improvement with Dropbox?
I would like to have a document flow. Sharing documents with other people in the same division or department and being able to work without downloading the file would be ideal. Working online would...
 

Also Known As

NetApp ANF, ANF
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Restaurant Magic
Vita Coco, BCBGMAXAZRIA Group, Centric Project, Kayak, FourSquare, Asana, Huge Adversting , USA Gymnastics, Appen, Valliant, Radio Lab
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure NetApp Files vs. Dropbox and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.