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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
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (10th), Cloud Storage (11th), Digital Asset Management (5th), Document Management Software (6th)
ownCloud
Ranking in Content Collaboration Platforms
22nd
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 June 2026, in the Content Collaboration Platforms category, the mindshare of Box is 7.4%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ownCloud is 1.5%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Content Collaboration Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Box7.4%
ownCloud1.5%
Other91.1%
Content Collaboration Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Chirag Morajkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Ai Tech And Tech Automation Engineer at a individual & family service with 11-50 employees
Structured cloud storage has streamlined document collaboration and automated workflows
The biggest friction point I have encountered with Box is mainly the pricing part; I think five dollars for this platform is not necessarily justified. While I have used it for integrating and using it as a cloud platform, I have not encountered any significant negative aspects. A few times, I might have faced performance issues, but I am uncertain whether that was due to the automation platform or Box itself. Overall, the only thing I could mention is that it can take a little time to understand how the integration works with Box; setup and figuring out what can and cannot be done might take some time, but other than that, I do not think anything else bothered me. One thing I would want Box to introduce to improve the platform and make it stand out even more would be incorporating AI. For example, the only way to identify documents shared in Box currently is by their names, and if those names are not precise, I can get confused. If Box had an AI feature to summarize and identify documents based on their contents, it would significantly enhance usability. AI is essential for making work easier, so that would be an excellent addition to the platform.
SC
Solutions Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
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

"Using Box for cloud storage allows us to focus on the service and maintaining infrastructure."
"Customer Service: Great! Technical Support: Technical support people really know their stuff, Great service."
"Box has allowed us to access, share and edit content seamlessly as an organization."
"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 beauty of Box is that you don't need to download the document on your computer to edit it and then upload it again, because you can edit the content while the document is in the cloud."
"They're the most compliant company we've ever encountered."
"Most of the time, they are running a free 50GB for life promotion, which is a pretty good deal."
"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

"The UI should be faster. Sometimes it lags when switching between documents."
"Integrations, the more integrations the better. Office + Outlook are great but we need more like it."
"The room for improvement is in the area of integrations. They need to establish more integrations, especially with Office 365 and Outlook."
"Sometimes, their website doesn't work properly."
"It could be cheaper."
"Collaborative editing was challenging if multiple people were in a document at once."
"My biggest problem with Box.net is the lack of a free desktop syncing feature."
"Better integration with other solutions is needed."
"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

"Box needs to improve with their pricing in terms of licensing costs."
"I believe Box is cheaper than SharePoint."
"Box's pricing is excellent."
"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."
"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."
"The more you dig, the deeper the level of tools, and the more expensive it becomes."
"My organization pays for the license."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise30
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Box?
I found the pricing reasonable because when I was working for an IBM partner, Box was free for us. We did not go to payment and other matters like this.
What needs improvement with Box?
The biggest friction point I have encountered with Box is mainly the pricing part; I think five dollars for this platform is not necessarily justified. While I have used it for integrating and usin...
What is your primary use case for Box?
My main use case for Box is storing cloud content on its cloud and managing it as a collaborating platform so that I can store secure files and share through Box. I use it for document management a...
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Comparisons

 

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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
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