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DropBox Vs Box.Net – Two Online Collaboration and File Sharing Giants Compared

Well I wrote a post on Dropbox Giveaway and Features, and via the comments on that post I came to know about Box, a similar kind of service, wanted to try out Box, but unfortunately even the trial for the Box needs a credit card, and I don’t have one, so I could not try it out personally but based on the introduction and information on the homepage of Box, I tried to compare it with Dropbox, so here is the comparison in tabular form.

Features
Restrictions on file type Upload/Share No-restriction No-restriction
Access from anywhere Yes Yes
Collaborate with anyone Yes Yes
Edit documents and photos online No (Editing requires download and upload after editing) Yes
Keep a safe copy / Backup Backup is not available but, a restore facility is there, even if u delete the file by mistake you can restore it back Available
Uploading Normal uploading feature, by browsing the file from storage media. Uploading via E-mail is also available, simply e-mail the file.
Publishing Not available You can host your photos and other files on Box
Multiple file upload Supported, simply drag n drop. Supported, simply drag n drop.
Embeddable code No such facility Provided, can be used for hosting files.
Sharing Limit Right now in Beta, according to proposed plan, after release Beta user will continue to enjoy it for Free, whereas only 1GB of space will be available for Free users, and there will be tiered paid options. 3 Tiered options (Lite, Individual and Business) available, Lite version is free and 14 days trial can be taken, for other versions if you can provide the credit card details
File Size limit As such no file size limit is imposed, but uploading large files is obviously cumbersome, however 2 uploaders are available which make handling of large files a bit smooth.. 10Mb for Lite and 1GB each for Individual and Business.
Custom Branding (Ability to add your logo on pages seen by your sub-users) Not available Available for Business version.

From the above table its quite clear that superiority of one over other depends more upon the kind of user you are, its like basic and general sharing is pretty convenient with Dropbox, whereas very professional kind of requirements can be fulfilled by Box.

The need of credit card details even for trial version of paid options of Box, is heart breaking, I think the Box team should give it a thought. So which one of these meets your needs, which one do you like, feel free to Share your thoughts

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Posted on 10th June 2008 by Manav Mishra , here to write articles about things which are somehow related to computers, internet (and at times, may be, to blogging as well). He wants to make an Identity for himself, he loves, testing new softwares and services which can really help to improve the productivity of individual. All posts by Manav Mishra | Connect with me @ Twitter | Stumble

7 Comments »

  • jaysee said:

    I’m using getdropbox and it’s actually faster and as of this time, they are giving away 2 G of memory for free. An extra 1 G if you could let your friends sign up. Haha.

  • Chaim K said:

    One major thing to mention is the huge diffrece in price.
    If you want 30GB Storage, at box net it will cost $45 and at dropbox, even for 50GB it will cost you only $9.99 per month.
    The pricing info on Box.net’s website is very misleading, this is what it says, Business – $15 / user per month. when you want to sign up you see they will charge you $45.00 for a minimum of 3 users which is $45.

  • Ivan de la Jara said:

    my hardrive havent got file size limt so, whats the fuck…

  • Manav (author) said:

    @ Ivan de la Jara, Well if you aren’t planning to share some huge data and only stuff like small documents and photos, i don’t think less storage capability on your HDD is an issue.

  • Sean Lindo said:

    Hello all, this is Sean from Box.net. Either solution works great depending on what you want to do with it, so I appreciate that this point was made in the post. Box really focuses more around sharing content and giving people a collaborative online workspace.

    I also wanted to add some info to the comparison chart. In terms of publishing, you can share web links to files and folders, set up widgets to display content on your blog and even set up public webpages with vanity URLs to share content.

    As for file uploads, our free Lite account lets people upload files up to 25 MB each, while our paid plans let you upload files up to 1 GB each.

    In terms of value, if you place more of a premium on having lots of different options around sharing files with others, using a service as a collaborative workspace and using files with third-party services from Google, Zoho, Scribd, Twitter, eFax and others, Box provides a lot of value on that front. But again, it really just depends on what you’re looking for – Dropbox is a great solution that we have a lot of sincere respect for.

    If you need more info, I encourage you to check out our latest set of features at https://www.box.net/features/complete-list and our latest pricing plans at https://www.box.net/pricing.

    Feel free to reach out to us anytime. We’re on Twitter @boxdotnet or get in touch with us on our blog at http://blog.box.net.

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