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Dropbox 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

Dropbox
Ranking in Content Collaboration Platforms
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Storage (3rd)
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 Dropbox is 7.9%, down from 11.6% 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

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.
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

"I like the synchronization, and the integration with Microsoft Office is good."
"The way the tool is designed and using the tool itself is quite transparent."
"The initial setup is extremely easy."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is user-friendly."
"As the solution is cloud-based, installation is easy."
"I like how user-friendly the solution is."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten."
"Simple to share files with others."
"I think it’s probably the best self-hosted file sync tool on the market."
 

Cons

"There could be better integration with other solutions, such as Microsoft Office 365 for more collaboration. At the present time, it is more focused on its own internal systems."
"There is room for improvement in Dropbox's security measures."
"The solution could be a bit less expensive."
"The pricing could be better and/or more clear. Right now, they have a strange way of splitting pricing. It's a bit complicated and not clear for users."
"The price for storage space is a little expensive."
"I would like to see more storage included and more lessons on how to optimize it."
"For us, storage is an issue. The free version is too small in terms of the amount of storage on offer."
"I think the product's interface is an area of concern since it has been changed for a long time and can be considered for improvement."
"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

"It has some free features, but for some of the features, you need to pay. If you need more storage, then you need to pay. Its licensing probably is on a monthly basis."
"We are using the unlicensed free version of Dropbox."
"A bigger discount for existing users would be appreciated."
"One area that has been a big issue for me is when I tried to close my accounts, it is difficult. We had small personal accounts, and we then wanted to consolidate everything to the business account, but then to cancel and close those smaller accounts, it's a big issue. I still haven't done it and it's quite a long process."
"The solution is paid for annually."
"Given the price and limitations, there are more competitive options available."
"The product is free up to a certain limit."
"The amount of free space they provide is sufficient for me. However, if you want more space I don't believe is very expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
46%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Computer Software Company
5%
Construction Company
4%
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 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...
Ask a question
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Comparisons

No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Vita Coco, BCBGMAXAZRIA Group, Centric Project, Kayak, FourSquare, Asana, Huge Adversting , USA Gymnastics, Appen, Valliant, Radio Lab
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.
860,711 professionals have used our research since 2012.