Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform vs Dropbox Business - Enterprise comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.2
CTERA Enterprise File Services reduced costs and time, minimized manual storage, and eliminated SSD and alternative storage needs.
Sentiment score
6.3
Dropbox Business - Enterprise users experienced mixed ROI outcomes, valuing features and accessibility, but had cost-benefit uncertainties.
Adding SSD storage to Windows file servers is expensive, and we no longer need to back up those devices.
I am positive that CTERA has helped reduce the total cost of ownership by eliminating the need for manual storage management and reducing storage service processes.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.3
CTERA's platform provides responsive support, rated highly for proactive assistance and efficient issue resolution by knowledgeable agents.
Sentiment score
2.7
Dropbox Business offers responsive 24-hour support, an intuitive interface, but some users report slow responses or difficulty reaching assistance.
They swiftly address concerns and take ownership of the call, providing a very satisfactory support experience.
High-priority issues are handled promptly.
I would rate their support a ten out of ten.
Dropbox offers 24-hour support, both through chat and limited hour calls.
We provide the support ourselves and do not have any support straight from Dropbox.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
CTERA's platform is scalable and easy to expand globally, though CPU and memory licensing constraints may pose challenges.
Sentiment score
7.2
Dropbox Business - Enterprise is scalable, accommodating larger companies' needs with flexible storage plans and adaptable subscription levels.
If we need to upgrade CPU and memory, we should be able to do that without a license upgrade.
CTERA is a very scalable product, allowing us to grow.
It offers good scalability options, including vertical and outward scalability.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
CTERA's platform faced initial bugs but improved over time, earning high stability ratings with reliable data access.
Sentiment score
8.1
Dropbox Business - Enterprise is highly stable, with occasional syncing issues and internet-dependent performance causing minor user concerns.
It has been pretty stable since then.
We had things deployed for years, and we were suddenly getting cloud sync issues that were crashing our sites.
It is very stable and reliable.
 

Room For Improvement

The CTERA platform needs improvements in monitoring, updates, UI, logging, and performance, while users value current features and support.
Dropbox Business Enterprise requires enhanced file sharing, security, integration, collaboration, usability, and pricing features for improved user experience.
AI and automation features could enhance the platform, such as AI-powered search, predictive storage analytics, and intelligent alerts for proactive monitoring.
It would help to have a global single-pane-of-glass view of all my CTERA devices.
One suggested improvement for the CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is the ability to distribute data across multiple active backend storage nodes rather than the current limitation of a single active node.
Sharing documents with other people in the same division or department and being able to work without downloading the file would be ideal.
One area of improvement would be to allow multiple users to edit a file simultaneously and see edits in real time, similar to OneDrive.
 

Setup Cost

CTERA offers cost-effective enterprise file services with flexible licensing, providing significant savings over EMC and Nasuni, especially in Israel.
Dropbox Business - Enterprise offers flexible subscriptions, appreciated for affordability, though some find it slightly expensive compared to alternatives.
Unlike other solutions that require hardware purchases, CTERA offers software licensing with flexibility across multiple infrastructure providers.
CTERA's pricing seems to be on par with some of the other players, such as Nasuni and Azure.
I find the pricing reasonable.
 

Valuable Features

CTERA excels in scalability, flexibility, data management, and protection, making it ideal for hybrid cloud and remote work environments.
Dropbox Business - Enterprise excels in usability, security, scalability, and integration, supporting enterprise collaboration across devices and platforms.
As soon as something is written to the device, CTERA copies it to the cloud, where it's versioned with snapshots so we can recover it.
A vital advantage of this platform is its instantaneous recovery capability, allowing seamless access to a secondary gateway if the primary one fails.
It is a three-in-one solution for us. It is a file-sharing platform, an archiving solution, and also a backup solution.
It also features an admin console where we can easily manage users, see which user has access to which content, and how much space they are consuming.
 

Categories and Ranking

CTERA Enterprise File Servi...
Ranking in Cloud Storage
11th
Ranking in Content Collaboration Platforms
11th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
File System Software (3rd), NAS (9th), Cloud Migration (7th), Cloud Backup (11th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (8th), Cloud Storage Gateways (2nd)
Dropbox Business - Enterprise
Ranking in Cloud Storage
3rd
Ranking in Content Collaboration Platforms
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Cloud Storage category, the mindshare of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is 3.4%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dropbox Business - Enterprise is 5.6%, up from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Igal Muginstein - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers flexibility, fast performance, and ransomware protection
The platform is releasing new features at a fast pace, which sometimes leads to version updates every three to six months. Although updates are generally not complex, it is challenging to stop the production environment during these updates, even if the downtime is just a few minutes. This is a common challenge across all NAS providers. From my perspective, the most important area for improvement is developing a method to perform updates without affecting customer production environments. Additionally, there are some cache size limitations that might become problematic for future use cases, though they don’t impact current applications. Collaboration for NFS and SMB protocols could also be enhanced. Although this issue isn't specific to CTERA, it is something we are working on together to improve. The quality of the versions has improved, but occasional issues still arise. All solutions face this challenge, but we hope to see a continued reduction in the number of bugs. That said, we haven't had any major production problems in the last four years, and we appreciate how responsive CTERA is to our issues. We engage in brainstorming sessions together, and we value this relationship.
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.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Storage solutions are best for your needs.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
67%
Educational Organization
4%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Retailer
3%
Construction Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Performing Arts
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
I am not directly involved in the pricing aspects, but I understand that CTERA's pricing is competitive and within industry standards.
What needs improvement with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
One area for improvement is the migration tool, which at times does not work as designed, necessitating the use of alternative solutions like Robocopy. AI and automation features could enhance the ...
What is your primary use case for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
We use it as a hosted cloud solution. We had initially tried Azure File Sync, but that did not work. Due to certain security concerns, I was tasked with researching alternatives. I evaluated severa...
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?
One area of improvement would be to allow multiple users to edit a file simultaneously and see edits in real time, similar to OneDrive. In Dropbox, once a file is opened on one system, it locks the...
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

McDonald's, WPP, US Navy, Gore, Festo, Stryker, Bezeq, PERI
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 CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform vs. Dropbox Business - Enterprise and other solutions. Updated: August 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.