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Dropbox vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP 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

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)
NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP
Ranking in Cloud Storage
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (1st), Cloud Backup (9th), Public Cloud Storage Services (5th), Cloud Software Defined Storage (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Cloud Storage category, the mindshare of Dropbox is 4.9%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is 12.8%, down from 13.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Storage
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Madhusudan Srinivasmurthy - PeerSpot reviewer
Saves us a lot of time, and the administration is simpler
NetApp's Integration with AWS has helped us because we had a tough time transferring data when we used an ONTAP competitor as our storage partner. They don't have integration with AWS tools, so we had to figure it out on our own. ONTAP has built-in integration and allows us to replicate a copy to our second data center. Everything is in one channel. It's possible without the technology, but it's more time-consuming. NetApp saves us a lot of time, and the administration is simpler.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Simple to share files with others."
"It ensures all our staff are using the current version of our documents."
"Availability of dedicated Apps on any kind of OS."
"The solution is very fast and simple. If I want to share a file I can put it on the cloud or on-premise. It's user-friendly."
"The solution is very clear and easy to use."
"The solution is easy to use."
"The performance is good."
"One of the advantages of Dropbox is that you can share files with people who are external to your organization without any additional costs. It is also easy to use, stable, and trustworthy."
"SnapMirror helps mirror metadata and data volumes between endpoints in a data fabric."
"The ability to see things going back and forth has been quite useful."
"The tool's most valuable features are the SnapLock and SnapMirror features. If something goes wrong with the data, we can restore it. This isn't a mirror; we store data in different locations. If there's an issue on the primary site, we can retrieve data from the secondary site."
"The ease of use in terms of how the product works is valuable. We are able to work with it and deploy the storage that we need."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it makes our data readily available and we don't have to go through a lot of trouble to access it."
"The storage tiering is definitely the most valuable feature... With respect to tiering, the inactive data is pushed to a lower tier where the storage cost is cheap, but the access cost is high."
"Its features help us to have a backup of our volumes using the native technology of NetApp ONTAP. That way, we don't have to invest in other solutions for our backup requirement. Also, it helps us to replicate the data to another geographic location so that helps us to save on the costs of backup products."
"If you have a larger amount of data than normal in cloud, it is easy to provision and maintain. Waiting for the delivery of the controller, the configuration of enclosures, etc., all this stuff is eliminated compared to using on-premise."
 

Cons

"A room for improvement in Dropbox is document editing. It would be nice to have the functionality of editing the document with other people at the same time. This is something that can be done on Office 365, and it's a feature I'd like to see in the next release of Dropbox."
"The solution could be a bit less expensive."
"I find it a little hard to organize my Dropbox folders on my mobile device."
"Dropbox could improve by increasing its storage."
"The solution could improve by being more secure and having more storage."
"I would like to have a document flow. S"
"The mobile aspect of the solution needs improvement. For instance, if I want to use a file from Dropbox on my phone, I sometimes struggle to download images off of Dropbox. The solution lacks accessibility on different devices."
"While generally user-friendly, there is room for improvement in the user interface, especially with the introduction of new integrations and features."
"We've just been dealing with general pre-requisite infrastructure configuration challenges. Once those are out of the way, it is easy."
"I would like this solution to be brought to all the three major players. Right now it's supported only on AWS and Azure. They should bring it to Google as well, because we would like to have flexibility in choosing the underlying cloud storage provider."
"NetApp's support could improve"
"When it comes to support provided by NetApp, they have room for improvement. Every time we go through their support, we end up answering the same routine questions."
"The encryption and deduplication features still have a lot of room for improvement."
"The automated deployment was a bit complex using the public APIs. When we had to deploy Cloud Volumes ONTAP on a regular basis using automation, It could be a bit of a challenge."
"I would like some more performance matrices to know what it is doing. It has some matrices inherent to the Cloud Volumes ONTAP. But inside Cloud Manager, it would also be nice to see. You can have a little Snapshot, then drill down if you go a little deeper."
"We are getting a warning alert about not being able to connect to Cloud Manager when we log into it. The support has provided links, but this particular issue is not fixed yet."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution allows one only a certain amount of free storage, but he must pay for a subscription, perhaps on a six-month basis, if he wishes to maintain this."
"The solution is expensive."
"The pricing varies depending on the version, and the one we currently utilize is the business version."
"The product is free up to a certain limit."
"While the pricing is comparable, especially for users of Microsoft Office 365, the value proposition might not be as competitive for those seeking primarily storage options."
"The amount of free space they provide is sufficient for me. However, if you want more space I don't believe is very expensive."
"A basic version of Dropbox is available for free with a paid subscription from Microsoft."
"The solution is paid for annually."
"If we wanted to use the AWS solution, we would have to manage two or three different platforms and pay more money than what we should have to pay, as some of the features don't even exist. If we wanted to, we could use AWS cloning, but it is useless because it uses more space, is more expensive, and takes more time."
"They give us a good price for CVO licenses. It is one of the reasons that we went with the product."
"Overall, the pricing of NetApp is aggressive and the pricing becomes more aggressive as the amount of data increases. The cost for a given volume of data that you are storing becomes lower. The greater the volume of data, the cheaper the license."
"It is expensive. There are no costs in addition to their standard licensing fees."
"The pricing of this solution is definitely higher than what the typical Azure Files and AWS solutions charge, but given the features and the stability NetApp has provided, we are okay with it. We are not complaining about the pricing."
"They allow a special price if you are working closely with them. Since we have a lot of NetApp systems, we got some kind of discount. That's something they do for other customers, not just for us. The price was fair. In addition to the licensing fees, you're paying Amazon for your usage..."
"The solution's pricing is reasonable."
"Cloud is cloud. It's still expensive. Any good solution comes with a price tag. That's where we are looking to see how well we can manage our data in the cloud by trying to optimize the costs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
66%
Computer Software Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
3%
University
3%
Educational Organization
48%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?
So a lot of these licenses are at the rate that is required for capacity. So they're they're able to reduce the license consumption and also the consumption of the underlying cloud storage.
 

Also Known As

No data available
ONTAP Cloud, CVO, NetApp CVO
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Vita Coco, BCBGMAXAZRIA Group, Centric Project, Kayak, FourSquare, Asana, Huge Adversting , USA Gymnastics, Appen, Valliant, Radio Lab
1. Accenture 2. Acer 3. Adidas 4. Aetna 5. AIG 6. Apple 7. Bank of America 8. Barclays 9. Bayer 10. Berkshire Hathaway 11. BNP Paribas 12. Cisco 13. Coca-Cola 14. Comcast 15.ConocoPhillips 16. CVS Health 17. Dell 18. Deutsche Bank 19. eBay 20. Eli Lilly 21. FedEx 22. Ford 23. Freescale Semiconductor 24. General Electric 25. Google 26. Honeywell 27. IBM 28. Intel 29. Intuit 30. JPMorgan Chase 31. Kellogg's 32. KeyCorp 33. Liberty Mutual 34. L'Oréal 35. Mastercard
Find out what your peers are saying about Dropbox vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.