Welcome to our updated 2023 guide to the best cloud storage services. Cloudwards.net has been conducting cloud storage reviews for several years now, and in that time much has changed.
Competition between big corporate players like Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive, and the emergence of privacy-oriented providers like Sync.com, pCloud and MEGA, has been a boon for consumers. To save you some time we have a list of what we think are the top players for your money.
Key Takeaways:
- Sync.com is the best cloud storage service with excellent file sharing, versioning, security and more perks.
- pCloud and Icedrive take the number two and three spots, and both offer excellent lifetime plans.
- MEGA offers the most free cloud storage (20GB) and is also super secure.
- The eight other cloud file storage services that make this list all have their own benefits, but also some aspects that leaves them out of the top four spots.
If you’re particularly interested in cloud storage speeds we have custom data that shows a performance comparison of the top providers below .
Our analysis of 12 top cloud services showed that around half of them only take 25 percent longer to upload and 27 percent longer to download than expected. You can also read our cloud storage CPU comparison to see which services use the most computer resources.
Note: Our work is entirely reader supported, so we may earn a commission if you buy a storage plan based on our reviews. We’re not sponsored by any provider and our opinions are our own.
1TB – Unlimited GB$6 / month(All Plans)
500GB – Unlimited GB$4.17 / month(All Plans)
150GB – 10TB$1.67 / month(All Plans)
2TB – Unlimited GB$9.06 / month(All Plans)
100GB – 30TB$1.67 / month(All Plans)
100GB – Unlimited GB$1.67 / month(All Plans)
2TB – 5TB$9.99 / month(All Plans)
10GB – 20TB$0.62 / month(All Plans)
100GB – 2TB$0.83 / month(All Plans)
1TB – 2TB$8.25 / month(All Plans)
Unlimited GB$4.17 / month(All Plans)
100GB – 30TB$1.67 / month(All Plans)
1GB – 100GB$1.50 / month(All Plans)
50GB – 2TB$0.99 / month(All Plans)
1TB – 2TB$8.33 / month(All Plans)
500GB – 2TB$7.08 / month(All Plans)
20GB – 20TB$0.89 / month(All Plans)
500GB – 2TB$2.99 / month(All Plans)
10GB – 1TB$1.67 / month(All Plans)
100GB – 5TB$9.17 / month(All Plans)
1TB – 10TB$8.25 / month(All Plans)
10GB – 500GB$5.83 / month(All Plans)
100GB – 3TB$1.30 / month(All Plans)
15GB – 500GB$3.49 / month(All Plans)
1TB – 4TB$8.33 / month(All Plans)
100GB – 5TB$1.67 / month(All Plans)
50GB – 1TB$3 / month(All Plans)
100GB – 1TB$6.25 / month(All Plans)
1TB – 100TB$3.75 / month(All Plans)
1TB – 10TB$8.25 / month(All Plans)
500GB – 2TB$5 / month(All Plans)
100GB – 10TB$0.93 / month(All Plans)
100GB – 2TB$4.17 / month(All Plans)
75GB – 1TB$7.61 / month(All Plans)
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05/23/2023
Updated to remove IDrive’s discontinued free plan and add its new 30-day free trial.
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08/13/2022
Updated to reflect news about MEGA’s encryption.
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07/25/2022
Updated to reflect an increase in IDrive’s free plan to 10GB of storage.
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07/02/2021
Cloudwards.net updated the top 10 cloud storage services rankings, including IDrive in the list, removing iCloud and adjusting other providers.
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07/10/2023 Facts checkedPrices verified and Company information verified.
We added new information about Sync.com’s integration with Microsoft Office.
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Sync.com is our favorite cloud storage for personal use, with good pricing plans, strong encryption and innovative features. Other good options are available, though, such as pCloud, Tresorit, MEGA and Google Drive, to name but a few.
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For businesses, you can’t go wrong with a Sync.com, pCloud or Tresorit subscription, as our best business cloud storage list shows. If you’re unsure, key features to look out for are zero-knowledge encryption, server locations and document collaboration features.
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pCloud is our top choice for free storage, although MEGA and Google Drive both offer a little more space. The beauty of free cloud storage providers is that you can try out a number of providers to find the perfect fit, with a provider like Koofr allowing you to combine multiple free storage providers together.
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Our top choice for the best free online storage for photos is pCloud. It offers secure and cheap storage, will automatically upload photos from your phone and computer, and supports photo editing and social media backup.
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A number of the best cloud storage providers offer packages with unlimited storage, but the best unlimited cloud storage provider is Sync.com for Teams. Be aware that most providers offering unlimited storage usually have a set limit, and if you go above the cap, you’ll need to request additional storage.
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Google Drive tops our list as the best cloud storage service for Android, but our number-one choice for iPhone users is Sync.com. However, most providers offer pretty good smartphone apps.
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The Best Cloud Storage Services Comparison
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The Best Cloud Storage for 2023
We’ll start off our guide with a quick explanation of the basic difference between cloud storage and online backup services.
Then, we’ll present our top cloud storage picks by category, with entries like file sync, file sharing and cloud security. This approach is designed to help you hone in on the service that makes that makes the most sense for you needs.
- Sync.com — Top cloud storage pick for sharing, versioning, large files, iPhone and more
- pCloud — Best online storage pick for Windows, Mac, Linux and music
- Icedrive — Top cloud drive newcomer
- MEGA — Excellent free cloud storage with security
- IDrive — Best cloud storage-online backup hybrid
- OneDrive — Best cloud storage service for Office integration
- Google Drive — Top pick for integrated apps and students
- Koofr — Top pick for multiple cloud accounts
- Dropbox — Best pick for cloud collaboration
- Box — Great pick for business cloud storage
Then after we dig into all the details of these 10 cloud services, we will discuss the general details of how cloud storage works and the advantages of using cloud storage.
If you are still figuring out how to best pick the right service for you, we have a handy video guide, below.
The Top 10 Cloud Storage Providers for 2023
Without further ado, here are the 10 best cloud storage service providers on the market right now.
1. Sync.com
More Details About Sync.com:
- Pricing: 5GB free, 2TB for $96 per year ($8 per month)
- Number of devices: 5 on Individual Plans
- Website: Sync.com
Pros:
- Excellent value
- Secure cloud storage
- Easy to use
Cons:
- Slower than some rivals
Sync.com is our choice for the best cloud service, hitting the top spot in many of our cloud storage lists. It’s one of the most secure cloud services out there, and it keeps improving its service and adding new features as the service matures and grows.
Security & Collaboration in One Package
To start with, Sync.com comes with zero-knowledge encryption as standard. This means that if there was a security breach or the authorities demanded access to your account, the intruder would only see scrambled data because you’re the only one holding the encryption key.
To add to this, Sync.com offers advanced sharing controls, including passwords, download limits and expiry dates for sharing links. Plus, Sync.com allows you to create and edit Microsoft Office documents (including Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents) in a privacy-friendly collaboration environment, without breaking zero-knowledge encryption.
Sync.com Pricing & Free Storage
Pricing is where Sync.com truly shines. Sync.com comes with 5GB free storage, which isn’t much, but it’s enough to try the service out. However, its paid plans are some of the cheapest around. For just $8 per month (paid annually), you get 2TB of storage space.
For comparison, the same amount of file storage from Dropbox is $9.99 a month. In fact, there is no provider in our top 10 that offers 2TB of storage for a lower price.
The only flaw we can find with Sync.com is that it’s slow. In fact, it was one of the worst performers in our fastest cloud storage list, so if you’re impatient, Sync.com might not be for you.
However, all in all, Sync.com is a great online storage provider at a price you’ll be hard-pressed to beat. It also has a good number of features, as well as support for Windows 10 and Mac users (it even makes the top of our best cloud storage providers for Mac shortlist). If you want to learn more, take a look at our Sync.com review.
- 5GB
- 2TB
- 6TB
- Price per user
- 1TB
- Price per user
- Unlimited GB
2. pCloud
More Details About pCloud:
- Pricing: 10GB free, 2TB for $95.88 per year ($7.99 per month)
- Number of devices: Unlimited
- Website: pCloud.com
Pros:
- Excellent value
- Choice of encryption levels
- Clever virtual drive
- EU servers available
Cons:
- Zero-knowledge encryption isn’t free
- No document integration
You’ll often see us praise pCloud in our cloud storage reviews, and it’s not hard to see why. It has a number of unique features wrapped in a sleek and secure package. Plus, it offers great pricing, putting it alongside Sync.com.
Top-Shelf Media & Sharing Capabilities
pCloud is a great option for media lovers. That’s thanks to features offered in the embedded pCloud music player, which automatically crates playlists by artist, album or folder. Its video player is also fairly advanced, even letting you change playback speed and convert video files to other formats.
If you’re running out of media storage space on your device, pCloud’s virtual drive will come in handy. pCloud can mount a virtual drive on your device (similar to Local Disk (C:)) which uses your cloud storage instead of your hard drive’s storage.
If you’re a creator that loves to post on social media, pCloud lets you back up images that you previously uploaded to your socials as part of its backup feature. This feature also lets you back up your entire device to the cloud, or even move all your files from another cloud service to pCloud.
What Is pCloud Crypto?
pCloud doesn’t offer zero-knowledge encryption out of the box, which is a downside. You’d have to pay $3.99 per month for this protection — called pCloud Crypto — although it is included for free with business plans. However, pCloud Crypto is a little different from the kind of encryption you’ll see other providers offer.
With pCloud Crypto, you get a specific folder to store your files that you want to be protected with zero-knowledge encryption. Anything outside of pCloud Crypto can still be read by pCloud’s servers, allowing you to preview files or play content from within the app.
pCloud and Sync.com fight hard to be the top-value services in this list., so take a look at our Sync.com vs pCloud head-to-head article. Also consider that pCloud lets you can save money by signing up for a pCloud Lifetime account, giving you online storage that remains yours — forever.
- 10GB
- 500GB
- 2TB
- 10TB
- 2TB
- 10TB
- Price per user (minimum 3)
- 1TB
- Price per user (minimum 3)
- Unlimited GB
- Encryption for pCloud Drive
3. Icedrive
More Details About Icedrive:
- Pricing: 10GB free, 1TB for $49.99 per year ($4.17 per month)
- Number of devices: Unlimited
- Website: Icedrive.net
Pros:
- Secure Twofish algorithm
- Zero-knowledge encryption
- Preview encrypted files
Cons:
- Zero knowledge isn’t free
- Limited choice of plans
Icedrive is a new entry on our list, and it’s a provider you may not have heard of before. That’s not surprising, given it has only been in operation since 2019. It’s been making waves, though, with highly competitive pricing and some interesting features that set it apart from some of its more established rivals.
Novel Encryption Methods & Zero-Knowledge Security
One of the biggest differences from the other providers on our list is that Icedrive doesn’t use the industry-standard AES 256-bit encryption. Instead, it uses an algorithm called Twofish.
Twofish was one of the final contenders for the Advanced Encryption Standard contest at the turn of the century. Some consider Twofish to be more secure (if sometimes slower) than the eventual winner, Rijndael (now known simply as AES). Icedrive points out that the current standard is backed by the NSA — make of that what you will, but don’t let it scare you just yet.
Paid accounts include zero-knowledge encryption as standard, so files should be safe from prying eyes. Unlike most other zero-knowledge providers, Icedrive lets you preview certain files by streaming them in encrypted form to your computer, where they are then decrypted on the fly.
Icedrive also offers two-factor authentication (2FA) and it has a no-nonsense privacy policy that rules out most problematic behaviors. As a UK-based company, Icedrive is governed by stringent GDPR regulations.
Icedrive Online Storage Pricing & Lifetime Plans
One of the biggest selling points of Icedrive is the price, though. If you pay annually, 1TB of storage costs just $4.17 per month. If you need more space, the next tier up gives you 5TB of cloud file storage for $15 per month (for accounts paid annually). That’s quite a big jump, which might be costly for some users, but you can also opt for a lifetime subscription.
That may or may not be a risk, though, especially given how new of a provider Icedrive is. Still, if you’re looking for a highly secure provider and need less than 1TB of storage space, then Icedrive is a great option. Learn more in our Icedrive review.
- Bandwidth limit: 3GB
- 10GB
- Bandwidth limit: 250GB
- 150GB
- Bandwidth limit: 2TB
- 1TB
- Bandwidth limit: 8TB
- 5TB
- 3TB
- 10TB
4. MEGA
More Details About MEGA:
- Pricing: 20GB free, 2TB for $122 per year (around $10 per month)
- Number of devices: Unlimited
- Website: MEGA.io
Pros:
- Zero-knowledge encryption
- No U.S. servers
- Great free storage
Cons:
- Time-limited rewards
- Ownership concerns
If you’re worried about privacy with other free cloud storage providers, like Google (our number seven pick), you can go for a provider at the other end of the privacy spectrum: MEGA. Although MEGA’s colorful founder Kim Dotcom has had run-ins with the law, he’s no longer part of the company. MEGA’s focus is security, so zero-knowledge encryption is the absolute standard, with nobody but you having access to your files.
A Truly Secure Cloud Storage Service
In terms of privacy, MEGA has servers in Canada, New Zealand and Europe — it’s one of the best cloud storage for Europe. They’re all locations that have reasonable privacy laws that, as you might have noticed, is exactly why no data is held on American servers.
Because MEGA uses zero-knowledge encryption, it can’t read any of the files that you store, but it does keep some of your metadata (like IP logins) to monitor access. However, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the recent report that found serious problems with MEGA’s encryption process. Still, we feel confident recommending it as an overall secure and private service.
There is also some controversy about how much of MEGA’s stock is owned by people under the influence of the Chinese government, which could be a concern for some users. You can read more about this in our MEGA review.
Best Cloud Storage: Free 20GB
MEGA is a good option for users who want a free storage cloud account. In 2021, it increased its free file storage space from 15GB to 20GB. Plus, you can extend your free space by completing various tasks — like installing the desktop and mobile apps — but that extra space expires after a year.
Although its paid plans aren’t the cheapest cloud storage options out there, at the end of the day, the base 20GB still blows its free cloud storage rivals away, earning it the fifth spot on our list. The good news is that, even if you don’t pay for a MEGA subscription, free accounts get full access to the privacy and protection that MEGA’s encrypted cloud storage provides.
- 20GB
- File transfer: 2TB (Monthly plan) 24TB (yearly plan)
- 2TB
- File transfer: (monthly plan) 96TB (yearly plan)
- 8TB
- File transfer: 16TB (monthly plan) 192TB (yearly plan)
- 16TB
- Price per user (minimum 3)
- Unlimited GB
5. IDrive
More Details About IDrive:
- Pricing: 5TB for $6.63 per month
- Number of devices: Unlimited
- Provider website: idrive.com
Pros:
- Cheap storage
- Both backup & cloud storage
- Easy to use
- Packed with features
Cons:
- No monthly plan
IDrive is a unique option, offering a hybrid solution for both cloud storage and online backup — it’s actually our number one pick for online backup, a fact that it owes mostly to its incredibly affordable prices and incredible wealth of features.
Hybrid Cloud Storage & Backup With IDrive
Besides all the backup features like disk-imaging and courier recovery that we won’t spend too much time on here — check out our IDrive review for that — it also boasts proper file sync and share features that earns it a spot on this list. Read our IDrive vs Dropbox comparison to see how their syncing features compare.
You can designate any folder on your device as a sync folder, and you can move them wherever you want. There’s also selective sync, which can save you a lot of time and bandwidth if there are certain large files you want to exclude. In comparison, the file-sharing is a bit bare-bones, though you can set access privileges on the share-links that you create.
Although IDrive works great as traditional cloud storage, online backup is its bread and butter (check out our cloud storage vs online backup guide to understand the difference). That means that unlike other entries on this list, IDrive is an excellent solution for backing up your entire device automatically, since you won’t have to manually move things you want to protect into a sync folder.
Affordable Cloud Storage Pricing Plans
One of the best aspects of IDrive is just how much storage you get for such a cheap price. IDrive’s two personal plans are incredibly generous. These offer 5TB and 10TB of storage — which is a lot — for just $6.63 and $8.29 per month respectively.
The only downside here is that you have to sign up for a full year, but if you’re a first-time user, you can snag a year’s subscription for just $19.88 by using our IDrive promo code. It also has a free 30-day trial, so you can test it first.
- Large discount for first-time signup.
- 5TB
- Large discount for first-time signup.
- 10TB
- Large discount for first-time signup.
- 20TB
- Large discount for first-time signup.
- 250GB
- Large discount for first-time signup.
- 500GB
- 1TB
- Large discount for first-time signup.
- 3TB
- Large discount for first-time signup.
- 5TB
- Large discount for first-time signup.
- 13TB
6. OneDrive
More Details About OneDrive:
- Pricing: 5GB free, 1TB for $6.99 per month
- Number of devices: Unlimited
- Website: microsoft.com/microsoft-365/onedrive
Pros:
- Excellent collaboration tools
- Great integrated apps
- A large variety of features
- Generous free storage
Cons:
- No zero-knowledge encryption
- Limited file versioning
There are big names in cloud computing, and then there’s Microsoft. There isn’t a market in computing that Microsoft hasn’t tried to dominate, and it’s not surprising that it has an online storage offering in its OneDrive service, which offers seamless integration with other Microsoft services, such as Office. It’s even integrated into Windows itself.
Collaborate Easily With Microsoft Office & OneDrive
Office integration is the biggest selling point for OneDrive users — or rather, the collaboration benefits that come from a combined Office and OneDrive service. A Microsoft 365 Personal subscription (previously Office 365) includes 1TB of OneDrive storage, but it also comes with full desktop versions of Office apps, with Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint thrown in.
These Office apps make collaborating on documents simple. You can share any of your documents stored in the cloud, and multiple users can work on them together in real time. Any changes are instantly visible to all other co-authors and automatically saved to the cloud.
You never have to worry about losing that 90-page thesis to a hard drive failure ever again. With a Microsoft Personal subscription, you can install Office on up to five different devices, allowing you to share the service across an entire family or household. You can learn more about these collaboration options in our OneDrive review.
The collaboration features come at a cost, though. OneDrive doesn’t have zero-knowledge encryption, so your information is visible to Microsoft and anyone else who gains access to its servers, legally or not. Of course, we can’t ignore the fact that as a U.S. company, Microsoft servers are based stateside, so your data is subject to intrusive laws, such as the Freedom Act.
OneDrive Family & Business Plans
You can take things a step further with a Microsoft Family 365 subscription, which gives users 1TB of storage for up to six people at just $8.33 a month (paid annually). This can save you a small fortune on storage and productivity apps for the family, making it a good value option.
OneDrive also has some excellent business options that make it our favorite value product in our list of the top enterprise file sync and share providers (where a business online storage provider like Egnyte reigns). With Office and Windows integration, as well as pretty good pricing, OneDrive is certainly a provider we can recommend with confidence.
- 5GB
- 100GB
- Comes with Office 365 Personal
- 1TB
- 1TB
- Comes with Office 365 Home
- 6TB
- Price per user
- 1TB
- Price per user
- Unlimited GB
- Price per user
- 1TB
7. Google Drive
More Details About Google Drive:
- Pricing: 15GB free, 2TB for $99.99 per year ($8.33 per year)
- Number of devices: Unlimited
- Website: google.com/drive
Pros:
- Excellent collaboration tools
- Great integrated apps
- Generous free storage
Cons:
- No zero-knowledge encryption
- Privacy concerns
If you want a similar experience to OneDrive, you may want to try Google Drive. Like Microsoft’s service, Google offers storage that integrates well with its own suite of office applications, which serve to replace the Microsoft Office experience in full — and do so pretty well, too.
An Endless List of App Integrations
You can collaborate in real time using Google Docs, leave comments and roll-back changes, thanks to Google’s built-in versioning features. Only OneDrive and Dropbox can really rival Google Drive for collaboration, and you check out our Dropbox vs Google Drive vs OneDrive article to see how they compare.
There’s an entire marketplace of other Google Drive apps, so you can integrate other productivity apps, grammar checkers and more. You can also use Google Drive with other apps, including Google Calendar and Google Keep, a simple note-taking app.
Google Drive Free Storage & Pricing
These kinds of integrations make Google Drive our top choice as the best online cloud provider for integrated apps, but it shines in other areas, too. If you have a Gmail account, you’re already using Google Drive, with 15GB of free storage thrown in, although its pricing is reasonable if you require more.
Google Drive is the best cloud storage for students and free users, for good reasons. Unlike some of the other providers we’ll mention, free users gain almost all of the same features that come with paid subscriptions. Powerful collaboration options in a free product help Google Drive to come out near the top of our list of the best no-cost cloud storage.
If you’re curious about Google Drive pricing, then you can add 100GB of extra storage for a very reasonable $2 a month. There are some downsides, though. As you can read in our Google Drive review, there’s no zero-knowledge encryption, which is particularly concerning given that Google is not renowned for having the greatest policies when it comes to your personal data.
The price you pay for accessing the collaboration tools and app integrations is that Google will scan the contents of anything you upload to Google Drive; it has full access to read, catalogue and use that data. You’ll need to decide for yourself whether you’re willing to give up some privacy to benefit from the useful tools that Google offers.
- Free plan
- 15GB
- 10TB
- 20TB
- 30TB
8. Koofr
More Details About Koofr:
- Pricing: 10GB free, 1TB for $10.85 per month
- Number of devices: Unlimited
- Website: Koofr.eu
Pros:
- Links to other cloud accounts
- Virtual drive
- Integrates with Microsoft Office 365
Cons:
- No zero-knowledge encryption
- More expensive than some
It’s by no means a household name, but Koofr offers some features that set it apart from the other providers on our list. As a downside, Koofr isn’t the cheapest, as our Koofr review will explain. It has some very cheap plans that offer 100GB of storage or less, as well as a free 10GB plan.
Manage Multiple Cloud Storage Services
One of the most useful is the ability to link it to other cloud storage services. Currently, you can connect accounts from Dropbox, OneDrive and Google Drive, allowing you to mix and match your services in one place. Still, with other big platforms available, this is only a minor blip in a pretty unique offering from Koofr.
Once you’ve connected your accounts, you can access all your remote files at once, letting you move and copy files between each of your linked accounts, as well as search for files across all platforms. Any files stored in your other cloud accounts won’t count against your Koofr storage quota.
Great Privacy, Lacking Security
Unfortunately, this level of access between services does mean that Koofr lacks the kind of zero-knowledge encryption that privacy-focused providers offer. Still, Koofr’s servers are based in Germany, so your data falls under much stronger EU privacy laws. Koofr does offer 2FA to help keep your data safe in the event that your password is hacked, though.
Koofr integrates with Microsoft Office 365, though this feature has a few limitations. Free accounts can create an Office document but only paid accounts can edit it. Plus, Koofr doesn’t let you set editing permissions for files (only for folders), so you can’t really collaborate with other people on documents.
You’ll pay around $10.85 per month for 1TB of storage (prices are in euros, so conversion rates will fluctuate). This is costly, compared to Sync.com or pCloud, which offer double the storage for a similar cost. If you don’t need a huge amount of space but want to have all your cloud accounts in one place, then it’s worth taking a look at Koofr.
- 10GB
- 10GB
- 25GB
- 100GB
- 250GB
- 1TB
- 3TB
- 10TB
- 20TB
9. Dropbox
More Details About Dropbox:
- Pricing: 2GB free, 2TB for $203.88 per year ($16.99 per month)
- Number of devices: 3 to unlimited
- Website: Dropbox.com
Pros:
- Collaboration with both Office & Google
- Smart sync
- No U.S. servers
Cons:
- No zero-knowledge encryption
- Not the cheapest
- Privacy concerns
Dropbox may not have been the first cloud storage service, but it was the first to really bring the idea into the mainstream. More than a decade after its launch, it’s still going strong, with only Google Drive having a larger market share. Dropbox also has the name recognition that providers like Sync.com can only dream of at present.
One of the Best Cloud Storage Services for Collaboration
One of the reasons why Dropbox is still so popular is the excellent collaboration it offers, which is why Dropbox Business is one of our top recommendations in our cloud storage for collaboration shortlist.
You can launch and collaborate on both Microsoft and Google documents with Dropbox, making it a good solution for users who need to use both services. Both formats work seamlessly, allowing you to co-author documents in real time, which are then automatically saved to the cloud.
The excellent collaboration tools come at a cost in two ways. First off, this integration is only possible because Dropbox’s servers can access your files, due to the lack of zero-knowledge encryption. Dropbox has had security breaches in the past, which we discuss in our Dropbox review. This could be a red flag for some users, and for good reason.
Dropbox is also more expensive than some of the other providers in this list, with 2TB of storage costing $9.99 per month if you pay annually. If you’re looking for information on Dropbox’s business storage plans that are paid per user, you can find out more in our Dropbox Business review.
Save Hard Drive Space With Dropbox Smart Sync
To help users save up on space, Dropbox introduced “smart sync”, which allows you to set all of your files and folders to be either stored locally or online-only. The online-only files still show up in your Dropbox folder, but they don’t take up any space.
For many users looking for the best cloud storage with sync, Dropbox continues to be a good choice. Its pricing and a lack of encryption could put you off, as could historical data breaches, but features like “smart sync” show that Dropbox continues to innovate, and it still remains one of the greatest services for users who are looking to collaborate on documents.
- 1 user
- 2GB
- 1 user
- 2TB
- 1 user
- 2TB
- 1 user
- 3TB
- 3 users minimum
- 5TB
- 3 users minimum
10. Box
More Details About Box:
- Pricing: 10GB for free, 100GB for $14 per month or $120 per year
- Number of devices: Unlimited
- Website: box.com
Pros:
- Strong collaboration options
- Google Workspace and Microsoft Office integrations
- Great security
Cons:
- Primarily business focused
- Expensive
- Private key management costs extra
Although Box is a cloud storage provider that focuses on businesses, it still offers two plans for personal users — one free and one paid. Due to its nature as a business-focused storage option, Box comes packed to the brim with advanced features. Everything from strong collaboration options to two-factor authentication, note-taking and project management is present, which makes for a solid list of features.
The one thing that is missing out of the box (we’ll show ourselves out) is private key management — the main requirement for zero-knowledge privacy. This is a feature that you have to pay extra for with Box, and the company won’t even tell you the price unless you contact them directly.
Collaboration With Box
The clear standout feature of Box is the long list of collaboration options it offers to users. The two most important integrations for this are obviously there, namely Google Workspace and Microsoft Office, but Box goes far beyond these two popular options.
Instead of forcing you into the apps themselves, Box lets you edit and collaborate on documents directly from its own software, and this even extends to the mobile version. If you ever find yourself needing to edit a text or spreadsheet while on the move, Box is one of the few cloud storage options that let you do this directly from your mobile device.
Pricing That’s Hard to Swallow
By far the biggest drawback to Box is its frankly absurd price. As mentioned, there are only two plans available for personal users. The first is free and gives you access to 10GB of storage and most of Box’s features. However, the paid plan is a terrible value for money if all you want is storage. A mere 100GB will cost you $14 per month or $120 per year, which is outrageously expensive.
If you’re more concerned with collaboration and security than you are with price and storage space, then Box is an excellent cloud storage solution. If that’s not the case, you’re better off with any of the options presented above. For a deeper dive into the service’s pros and cons, check out our Box Review and our Box vs Dropbox showdown.
- Single user
- 10GB
- Single user
- 100GB
- Price per user, minimum of three users
- 100GB
- Users: No limit
- Unlimited GB
- Users: No limit
- Unlimited GB
- Users: No limit
- Unlimited GB
How Does Cloud Storage Work?
Cloud storage is a way of storing your files and folders on online servers, allowing you to access them from any location and on any device with an internet connection. Your data is stored on servers that belong to your cloud storage provider, which usually offers a web interface, desktop app or mobile app to access your information.
These servers might be located in your own country or on the other side of the world. Most services use a sync folder on your desktop, allowing you to store files easily. Any files you put into this folder are also uploaded to the cloud servers, which will automatically update if you make any changes.
Why We Use Cloud Storage
People use cloud storage for many different reasons, starting with storage. While services like Dropbox and Sync.com might not be great for disaster recovery, they work very well for short-term storage of files that you access often.
In fact, that’s exactly what Drew Houston had in mind when he dreamed up the “sync” folder model commonly used by cloud storage services today back in 2007. He was traveling from New York to Boston on a Chinatown bus and realized that he left his USB drive behind. He decided he wanted a means of storing and accessing files online in a way that required little effort on his part.
Sync folders facilitate device synchronization, which we call “sync” for short. Any file you drag and drop into a sync folder gets automatically sent to the cloud, then sent to any other devices with a sync client installed. That way, you never have to worry about messing with removable storage. Changes to files also get synced across devices, which is what makes cloud storage ideal for getting work done, even remotely.
Syncing Mobile Apps
Cloud storage tools also generally have mobile apps for Android and iOS that let you access files stored in the cloud. Many let you manually and automatically upload files, as well. That makes them convenient for safeguarding photos taken with your smartphone camera and saving memory at the same time.
Take a look at our roundup of the best cloud managers for Android if you have multiple cloud storage accounts.
A handful of cloud storage tools don’t sync devices. We can’t think of any tool, though, that doesn’t let you share files. File sharing can be used for both collaboration and socializing.
Most cloud storage tools let you invite specific users to access files based on their email address and generate links to files that can be more broadly used. Many cloud storage tools also let you share folder access, even granting others edit and upload permissions.
Some cloud storage solutions also integrate with productivity tools like Office Online, Google Docs, Trello, DocuHub and DocuSign. Unfortunately for home users, such integrations are more common with EFSS tools, which are basically cloud storage services for businesses.
Cloud Storage vs Online Backup
Before you start shopping for cloud storage in earnest, it helps to have a good understanding of what “cloud storage” actually means. That way you don’t end up with software that doesn’t really meet your expectations.
The first hurdle to overcome is knowing the difference between cloud storage and online backup. It’s easy to see why one might confuse these terms: both cloud storage and online backup are used to safeguard files in remote data centers. Both let you access the files stored in these data centers from different devices. Online backup is even sometimes confusingly called “cloud backup.”
The difference between the two is that the ultimate goal of online backup is disaster recovery, while cloud storage is generally best suited to quick file access and collaboration. We generally like to think of cloud storage as a productivity tool here at Cloudwards.net, although many people use such solutions for things like streaming music, watching videos and sharing photos, too.
Online backup safeguards hard drives better than cloud storage thanks to backup schedulers, better data recovery options and a few other things that you can read up on in our guide to best online backup.
Aside from storage, there are two features generally common to cloud storage: file sharing and file syncing. On top of that, a handful of cloud storage tools have integrated apps like word processors and task managers that help facilitate productivity.
We have an entire article dedicated to the differences between backup versus storage if you’d like to learn more about this subject. Also, it’s important to note that there are a handful of cloud solutions that blur the lines between storage and backup. IDrive and SpiderOak ONE are two of the best.
Is Cloud Storage Safe?
Most cloud storage services encrypt your data when it’s being sent to their servers and many store your data in encrypted form. However, no system is completely secure, and cloud storage servers can be hacked.
For instance, Dropbox suffered a major breach in 2012, when 68 million passwords were leaked. Government authorities may also request to access your data for legal reasons. You can help to keep your data more secure by using a service with zero-knowledge encryption, which means that the only person who can decrypt your data is you.
We also recommend setting up two-factor authentication with cloud storage services. This requires you to use an additional code when you log in, which is either sent to your phone as an SMS message or generated by an authenticator app. Even if someone has your password, 2FA means they can’t log in to your account without access to your phone, too.
Cloud Storage Speed Tests
Speed is one of the most important aspects of any cloud storage service. Although the time differences for a gigabyte or two may not be all too large, the time spent uploading or downloading terabytes can add up substantially. The upside of faster cloud storage is clear: using a faster service means you can access your files more quickly across your devices.
If you know where to look, you can find the fastest cloud storage services, too. Our recent analysis of 12 top cloud storage services showed that around half of them only take 25 percent longer to upload and 27 percent longer to download than expected. This is using raw megabytes per second as a baseline, ignoring all other network conditions.
| Providers: | Average Provider Upload Time (Expected: 23 min 41 sec): | Percent of Extra Time for Uploading 1GB Folder: | Average Provider Download Time (Expected: 4 min 22 sec): | Percent of Extra Time for Downloading 1GB Folder: |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| pCloud | 28:38 | 21% | 4:56 | 29% |
| IceDrive | 28:36 | 21% | 4:58 | 34% |
| SugarSync | 29:45 | 26% | 5:59 | 37% |
| OneDrive | 29:52 | 26% | 5:04 | 56% |
| Koofr | 30:02 | 27% | 5:28 | 25% |
| MEGA | 30:10 | 27% | 5:43 | 31% |
| Dropbox | 30:18 | 28% | 5:33 | 27% |
| Woelkli | 30:28 | 29% | 5:31 | 26% |
| Tresorit | 30:51 | 30% | 5:19 | 22% |
| Google Drive | 30:59 | 31% | 6:34 | 50% |
| Amazon Drive | 32:50 | 39% | 5:51 | 34% |
| Sync.com | 36:18 | 53% | 7:54 | 81% |
Note: Testing was performed in Macedonia using 5.9 Mbps upload and 32 Mbps download speeds.
Of the lot, pCloud and IceDrive were the fastest across upload and download, with SugarSync following closely behind. Google Drive and Sync.com trailed the pack with the slowest speeds. For Google Drive, that’s bad news. Sync.com, on the other hand, offers full end-to-end encryption, so the speed loss makes sense.
Final Thoughts: Best Cloud Storage
This list has our current top 10, but there are other good-quality providers that didn’t make the list. SecureSafe, SugarSync, Jumpshare and others all have their strengths, so be sure to take a look at our full list of cloud storage reviews to learn more about some of the other options out there, with new providers being added as they appear. You can also use our online data storage price list, to make sure you’re getting the best value with today’s best cloud storage deals.
Sync.com and pCloud are great, privacy-focused options for most users, but if you’re more interested in document collaboration, you can’t go wrong with bigger players like Dropbox, Google Drive or OneDrive. However, MEGA offers more free storage, plus excellent security.
While, if you need online backup options in addition to cloud storage, IDrive is the way to go. It’s also the best online back-up for archiving, in case you need to archive data you rarely use to maximize storage space.
Do you use any of the products on our list? Do you think there are some glaring omissions, or do you think we’ve been unfair (or too fair) with any of the providers we’ve mentioned? Leave your own personal cloud storage reviews in the comments below and, as always, thanks for reading.
The post Best Cloud Storage Services: Personal & Business Storage Providers in 2023 appeared first on Cloudwards.
