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Box vs Office 365 comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Box
Ranking in Content Collaboration Platforms
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (6th), Cloud Storage (12th), Digital Asset Management (3rd), Document Management Software (3rd)
Office 365
Ranking in Content Collaboration Platforms
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
87
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Content Collaboration Platforms category, the mindshare of Box is 8.4%, up from 8.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Office 365 is 6.3%, down from 6.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Content Collaboration Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Shrikant Pillay - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows you to upload and download files quickly but lacks integration with Office 365
For enterprise users, the data is in a local repository. We use it for files for the end user process. This is a cloud solution. In my current organization, we have over 10,000 people using this solution. I use it very extensively. Users these days are working remotely You can upload your bin,…
Minos Pitsillides - PeerSpot reviewer
Excellent technical support, easy to install, but the price, while affordable, could be improved
Office 365 is scalable, but it is dependent on the situation. We don't have a problem with it from an organizational standpoint. They started with 100 employees and then added another 500 after six months, for a total of 600 employees. The setup of new users, new emails, and new applications to be assigned to the new users is straightforward. They also provide the PowerShell command, which they provided more, development type, like, for example, you can create users, not manually, but through a script that can create users, for example, 100 users in two, three minutes, and you don't do it manually. They're fantastic. My portfolio contains approximately 50 companies. Office 365 is our primary platform for the 50 companies. I only have one on G Suite, and the majority of them will be migrating from G Suite to 365 in the coming month.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Box is security."
"The ability to collaborate around data anywhere, anytime is the most powerful features of Box."
"It is really easy to load files to and from this solution."
"Sharing and collaborating across files and folders has been a massive game changer."
"Governance and ease of use are why I think a lot of people like Box, including ourselves. Basically, we're concerned about what information is being sent to Box, so we use a lot of the Box governance features to make sure that what is being sent to Box is appropriate. If it is not appropriate, it is not allowed to be sent. It is also pretty easy to use. It is the easiest to use for customers and for technologists."
"I like that Box makes it easy to deploy virtual machines."
"File sharing with collaborators not on the same domain with offline access from multiple devices: I work on many projects that are multi-organizational, such as with customers, suppliers, or acquisitions."
"The collaboration of the solution is good."
"Many of the features in Office 365 are good, but I think Excel is a very good tool."
"The most valuable feature is the integration between net and mobile devices."
"There are no more server and hardware operational costs and downtime, updates, etc. for all the workloads available. Newer features and updates are available immediately. Can be managed from a single web interface. Cloud-based, so same experience for all users, regardless of location."
"The most valuable feature of Office 365 is that it has many solutions bundled together."
"There's a lot there in terms of apps and features."
"Reliable without any glitches."
"The functionality that is most valuable is the solution's ability to detect patient data in email attachments. Whenever a user sends out an email with patient data embedded in an attachment, it triggers an alert. The tool can detect a social security number and various other forms of patient identity. Emails are then automatically generated and sent."
"The most valuable features of Office 365 are Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Teams. Teams helped us to collaborate more through its call and document sharing features."
 

Cons

"The room for improvement is in the area of integrations. They need to establish more integrations, especially with Office 365 and Outlook."
"Tasks and comments could be easier to see, report, search, and manage."
"The search features and role permissions are not very user friendly. It only searches the first few pages of a document, which is quite a problem."
"The upload speed needs improvement."
"Data privacy, regarding where to store your data: Offering several transparent(!) options (where to store my data and whether to sync back or not and where to sync) regarding the local law situations (USA, EU, Switzerland!) would increase the credibility of a US based company (after NSA ‘snooping’)."
"Like all cloud platforms, there are always areas of improvement around sync to local devices."
"Better integration with other solutions is needed."
"I don't like the low level of role-based security it provides – it's very cumbersome, and the support is ordinary at times."
"Data protection and email security are almost the same for all the organizations, irrespective of their segment (SMB or enterprises), with standard subscription at least basic Data loss prevention and Advance threat protection can be enabled for SMB segments, it is available in enterprise version / Premium versions."
"Using Office 365 is not that flexible on some mobile devices, like Android."
"Improvements can be made to the products generic offering. It's not customized for health care. It doesn't understand the meaning of health care related concepts. Providing a greater degree of industry specificity would make the tool much more unique and valuable."
"I'm not sure if there are areas of improvement. For us, it's working quite well."
"I would like to see the macro functionality in Excel made simpler."
"Their support is so terrible and unusable except during dire emergencies."
"I rate the support of Office 365 a four out of five."
"We have found that, with Teams, if you are including one more person who is not in the company ecosystem, supposedly I'm inviting them as a guest in the chat. However, when I do that, I can't share files."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I'm in Higher Ed, so we purchase through Internet2-Net+. I absolutely recommend going that route for Higher Ed customers."
"They are very price competitive when pushed. Initially, they come out with a standard list price, but they are willing to be very competitive. The Box price was pretty much equal to or lower than the Citrix price, and Box has more features."
"A business account has a minimum of three users. If you are more than three people in-house, go for the Enterprise version. All the external users are free of charge."
"My organization pays for the license."
"The pricing may seem steep at first, but delve into the features and you'll soon realize it is incredible value for what you get."
"There's a free version that allows you to use it with almost full-feature access. Even in the free version, it gives you all you need."
"We are using the free version of the solution. There is a free version and monthly and yearly subscriptions available."
"Better sign a full year's contract to get a discount."
"Licensing, billing, and accounting are available from the management interface."
"The pricing is high and has actually caused us to limit the number of licenses we purchase due to budgeting."
"I would rate the solution 3 out of 5 for the price. I think Microsoft presents a good solution concerning the price."
"The price of Office 365 is very expensive."
"The pricing is good for all the features that we receive, e.g., Skype for Business."
"​The pricing/licensing is easy to manage."
"We have a license to use this solution. We have an E3 license which covers many different solutions."
"For the moment, we are paying on a monthly basis because we are still adapting the support and how we want to proceed. I think we will move to paying for the annual license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
54%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
5%
Government
4%
Educational Organization
78%
Computer Software Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
2%
Government
2%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Box?
The solution is used for data storage and any kind of visualization.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Box?
The solution is expensive when it comes to API calls.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Office 365?
I am not aware of the cost at work, but the cost for personal use has increased significantly and feels expensive.
What needs improvement with Office 365?
Moving from the original Outlook to Outlook 365 was problematic because I couldn't transfer a lot of my previous emails. This is an area where improvement is needed to make the transition smoother....
What is your primary use case for Office 365?
I use Office 365 ( /products/office-365-reviews ) strictly for sales. As a small office, we utilize products like Outlook and Word.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Office 365, Office 365 Enterprise, Office 365 Enterprise E1, Office 365 Enterprise E3, Office 365 Enterprise E5, Office 365 ProPlus, Office 365 Business, Office 365 Business Essentials, Office 365 Business Premium, Office 365 F1
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

GE, Toyota, P&G, Caterpillar, Flex, Schneider Electric, Sally Beauty, Eurostar, AstraZeneca, AirBnB, Whirlpool, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Nationwide, Aeropostale etc
Me & the Bees Lemonade
Find out what your peers are saying about Box vs. Office 365 and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,963 professionals have used our research since 2012.