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DropBox vs One Drive

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chefwong

macrumors 6502
Original poster
I've been using DropBox for like forever......but was curious for those who use One Drive.

I've read sync or *consistency-stability* of sync can be hit or miss with the One Drive app.


I can't recall ever getting sent a public link to a shared file via OneDrive (I'm sure it exists)....from any of my peers, contacts.
I do get emails with shared public links from others via DB.....not that I'm using that as a weight on what is more common😛opular:standard.

Might give One Drive a shot since it's baked into my SUB with them.
Looking to hear feedback as such
 
I've never had an issue over the many years of using Dropbox. I've had issues with OneDrive.

My work uses a shared folder on OneDrive and it sometimes fails to synchronize. So if my work partner updates a file, it can happen that I will never see that update. I haven't figured out a way to trigger it to synchronize. I go to the OneDrive website to grab the updated file.

Over the many years of using OneDrive, failure to sync has caused us headaches maybe 5 times. I suspect the sync failure has happened much more often and we lucked out not stepping on each other's work.

My work partner uses Windows and I use Mac. I would say that he has just as many problems with it as I do.
 
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Just did my 1st ever -share file- within One Drive. The link is ---branded--- tied to the org domain as part of the URL branded link.
Compared to DropBox, which is pretty -generic URL link non branded - which I like if I'm sending a link to download or just a public link to share a large image, folder... to the public.
 
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Neither, in all honesty

Its been a few years, but I read some reddit thread (could be several years now) where DropBox banned their customers for violating the TOS. Some of the had created a shared dropbox for certain files - nothing like piracy I believe but it was marked as a violation. They were unable to get their files back or have access to them

Once I read that, I was very careful of what cloud provider I entrusted with my data. I get this could happen with any cloud provider, but I think dropbox at that time was overly aggressive and that action caught a lot of innocent customers in the cross hairs. I'm more apt to ensure I have my data locally - at least data that I cannot afford to lose.
 
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maflynn said:
Neither, in all honesty

Its been a few years, but I read some reddit thread (could be several years now) where DropBox banned their customers for violating the TOS. Some of the had created a shared dropbox for certain files - nothing like piracy I believe but it was marked as a violation. They were unable to get their files back or have access to them

Once I read that, I was very careful of what cloud provider I entrusted with my data. I get this could happen with any cloud provider, but I think dropbox at that time was overly aggressive and that action caught a lot of innocent customers in the cross hairs. I'm more apt to ensure I have my data locally - at least data that I cannot afford to lose.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I hope it wasn't based on content. I do understand that they have access to the content since it's not client-side encryption.

Proton has full client-side encryption in its drive implementation.
 
When I say, URL....for example, as in this forum. If I wanted to share a pic, etc, I may do a share (view public) but the URL is just some generic dropbox one.

In Onedrive....it's slightly branded...tied to the org.
The URL looks like : http: ORG name.sharepoint.com/b#@/MYNAME/23434/random characters
 
I use both. I have the Dropbox premium version for more storage, more control and customized branding. My OneDrive is via my employer, so it's whatever is included with the enterprise version.

OneDrive works great... when it works. Syncing is more often than not slow. Control over what gets synced to your drive is convoluted at best (it works as expected, as long as you understand what an IT/Developer expects... for the average person, it just doesn't make any sense at all.)

Dropbox works, well, flawlessly (for me). Syncing is extremely fast, customizing what gets synced to your computer and what stays only in the cloud is straight-forward.

The biggest difference for me is that Dropbox works with darn near every other piece of software I use. It integrates into other file management systems, unlike OneDrive which doesn't have an API available for developers to add simple things like the ability to right click on a file and get a shareable link.

If I were only going to pay for one to use on my Macs, I would pay for Dropbox (which I do). If I ran a Windows machine, I think I would probably still opt for Dropbox, but it would require more comparison, since OneDrive is so fully-baked into the Windows ecosystem.
 
chefwong said:
I've been using DropBox for like forever......but was curious for those who use One Drive.

I've read sync or *consistency-stability* of sync can be hit or miss with the One Drive app.


I can't recall ever getting sent a public link to a shared file via OneDrive (I'm sure it exists)....from any of my peers, contacts.
I do get emails with shared public links from others via DB.....not that I'm using that as a weight on what is more common😛opular:standard.

Might give One Drive a shot since it's baked into my SUB with them.
Looking to hear feedback as such
Click to expand...

Never have been forced to use OneDrive. I have it but heard enough about syncing to not use it. Plus it's Microsoft.

Used to use DropBox a lot for work, and sometimes still do, but I had a falling out with DropBox over the way they yanked around AVP users. I know. I will get a lot of flack about being one of the 9 people that own an AVP. But still. They have an app for the iPad, they could have let it be released on the AVP but actively chose not to. Then they started up a forum discussion on what features AVP would like to see, kept asking the same question for months promising 'coming soon' and after a year just closed the thread saying 'sorry nope. not doing it.' Why? Again, they have it on an iPad. I get it, larger market, but the thing is the AVP can use iPad Apps no problem. If there was a technical reason to not let AVP users use the iPad App, Dropbox never gave one. Anyway, I know, who cares, but I just don't like how non transparent they were. What else are they being non transparent with? Lost all trust in them.

You didn't ask, but iCloud now meets 99% of my needs. And yes, its on the AVP 🙂
 
It is not hard to see why Dropbox is in worse position as business as its' competitors - having least storage tier options available, least storage space for free tier, limitation of amount of devices with Dropbox client connected to (free tier) account and now other arbitrary artificial limitations in addition like this AVP story.

Only advantage I see that they are only one offering native client for Linux.

What comes to OneDrive then yes there were many teething problems in first years when client for Mac was out, but now I tend to see that OneDrive client having sync issues even more on Windows platorm then on Mac - and I have been offering support for end-users on both Windows and Mac environment for many years (no I am not employed by any of these companies mentioned here).

If I haven't got additional free space by beta-testing many years ago I have probably ditched Dropbox long time ago.

What comes to domain name tied to organisation on OneDrive - there is always an option to use a free personal account for that and it is possible to sync both personal and work accounts via OneDrive at the same time.

P. S. I have Dropbox, Google Drive (2 accounts) and OneDrive (one personal and one work account) all syncing in addition to iCloud and have not had any serious problem with any of them in last few years.
 
I haven't used Dropbox in a while since it applied restrictions. OneDrive works fine except it seems to lag a lot sometimes when synchronising some data with my Android phone. It's fine on every other device and I have no idea why certain documents show up in older versions on my phone.
 
I have never benchmarked, but Dropbox seems much faster at synching files, which for me is vital. I like some of the other features too such as the ability to send a file as a link or to request a file, but maybe OneDrive has caught up with those.
 
G5isAlive said:
Never have been forced to use OneDrive. I have it but heard enough about syncing to not use it. Plus it's Microsoft.
Click to expand...
Ive had issues with that both on the PCs and my Mac - more so on the Mac. I found OneDrive largely unusable on my Mac. So much so, I've transitioned over to OnlyOffice
 
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I pay for a Microsoft office subscription that comes with 1TB of storage so I am using that along with iCloud. I am not really synching to One Drive. I am basically using it as an extension of the file system where I keep documents that are MS related (e.g. Excel) or I just don't need to access frequently and take up space.
 
I tried to transition to OneDrive. Sync seems fine....I even ran the tool that basically migrated:copied all my DB into OneDrive.

However, I think I'm going to stick with DB even though it will be another paid SUB for me. I just can't get past the whole branded org URLs when sharing vs. DB being somewhat generic.

Post #10, I read your point but that defeats the purpose utilizing the storage I am getting on the MS side. Not planning to add another personal sub of OD to get around that
 
Yes having or not having personal MS subscription is up to ones preference... and wallet as well. However if 5 GB of storage is enough then it is free.
 
I've been using Dropbox for personal use for many many years, it just works, perfect, never had a problem. It's super expensive and the plans don't make sense but it works.

OTOH I also have a OneDrive corporate account... oh my... what a DISASTER! Sync problems all the time, unaccesible files, I've even suffered data corruption because of bad syncs... my humble advice: stay away from it if you value your time and data.
 
netnewswireuser said:
I've been using Dropbox for personal use for many many years, it just works, perfect, never had a problem. It's super expensive and the plans don't make sense but it works.

OTOH I also have a OneDrive corporate account... oh my... what a DISASTER! Sync problems all the time, unaccesible files, I've even suffered data corruption because of bad syncs... my humble advice: stay away from it if you value your time and data.
Click to expand...
I could have written this. My experience exactly.
 
Can't imagine using any Microslop products on a Mac other than Excel for business. Maybe Powerpoint and Word but those are easily replaced.

I had OneDrive on my company-issued Dell a few years ago and it was a nightmare.
 
OneDrive has been ok for me but I don't use if for syncing, I use it for archiving files via web browsers (aka. sign-in, upload/drag-drop).

Otherwise, Dropbox is my go-to for syncing a very small subset of files that I need/want to use on the go (basically reference items) and to send to my Mac from the phone (notably, snapshot copies of changed notes from Notes). Has been rock solid, can recall only once when not available, hence have a mirror copy of the most of the same files in iCloud.
 
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