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Box vs ownCloud 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
7.3
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (8th), Cloud Storage (13th), Digital Asset Management (3rd), Document Management Software (4th)
ownCloud
Ranking in Content Collaboration Platforms
20th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Content Collaboration Platforms category, the mindshare of Box is 9.3%, up from 8.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ownCloud is 0.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Content Collaboration Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Parthasarathy Chellapillai - PeerSpot reviewer
Used for data storage and data collaboration, but its data security could be improved
If I have restricted access within an organization by keeping the data in Box, there are other applications through which I can barge into the data. If anyone wants to keep a file restricted to four people, I can access it because it's available in the cloud. I can directly access the file and pull in the data by entering the file's name. Someone from outside the organization can't access it. However, someone from within the organization who is not supposed to access the data can access it, provided it is in Box. Box is almost like a folder structure outside your system. The solution uses the cloud, and you don't need any separate storage in your system. Even if your system crashes down, the data will be saved. Overall, I rate the solution a six out of ten.
SC
Self-hosted file sync tool used to deploy custom web UIs.
I think it’s probably the best self-hosted file sync tool on the market. It’s a full web application platform, an indispensable tool for a business of any size that needs to deploy any kind of custom web UI. If you build an ownCloud app, you’ve got authentication, storage, security, caching, and database layers already fully baked for you. You just need to build your UI and custom logic. Your app doesn’t even need to interact with files, sync, or interact with other ownCloud features. Any web UI can be included without ownCloud. It can even be a portal to web interfaces of other applications within a business using the external app to display external sites within ownCloud. This is the case as long as that site allows itself to be displayed within a frame.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Box had a very easy-to-use search feature and a good user interface on its website, which was faster and better than SharePoint."
"The application is very light in terms of uploading and downloading files."
"Box is very user-friendly; more so than SharePoint."
"We can provide controlled access to documents using the product."
"The most valuable feature of Box is security."
"The ability to collaborate around data anywhere, anytime is the most powerful features of Box."
"The system's performance is impressive, and file sharing is notably straightforward."
"I like that Box makes it easy to deploy virtual machines."
"I think it’s probably the best self-hosted file sync tool on the market."
 

Cons

"Like all cloud platforms, there are always areas of improvement around sync to local devices."
"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."
"It could be cheaper."
"If you want to delete something in Box, you have to do it manually, one by one. That was my recent experience. They might have a bulk delete, but I could not find that option. If you want to delete something, you have to go to each and every file and delete it."
"I recommend doing the trial first, because it's not cheap ware. It's not overly expensive, but it's not cheap ware, and enterprise has a minimum number of users."
"I don't like the low level of role-based security it provides – it's very cumbersome, and the support is ordinary at times."
"The room for improvement is in the area of integrations. They need to establish more integrations, especially with Office 365 and Outlook."
"Maturity of the enterprise security around user management."
"Even with fast disks, it still takes a fair bit of time to write most schema changes to multi-GB tables."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I believe Box is cheaper than SharePoint."
"I have to pay for Box. It could be a little cheaper. On a scale from one to ten, I would give the pricing a five."
"Box's pricing is excellent."
"Better sign a full year's contract to get a discount."
"I'm in Higher Ed, so we purchase through Internet2-Net+. I absolutely recommend going that route for Higher Ed customers."
"The more you dig, the deeper the level of tools, and the more expensive it becomes."
"It is expensive per head, as you need the enterprise license to get full security and tools. So negotiate a discount!"
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
22%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Healthcare Company
5%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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?
I was not involved in discussions about paying for Box, so I cannot provide specifics about pricing.
What needs improvement with Box?
Collaborative editing was challenging if multiple people were in a document at once. The installation procedure was tricky but manageable with provided guidance and steps.
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Comparisons

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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
CERN, Joy Global, Sciebo, Bauhaus, datto
Find out what your peers are saying about Dropbox, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in Content Collaboration Platforms. Updated: July 2025.
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