Box vs Google Drive

Overview

Box

Stacks237

Followers217

Votes44

Google Drive

Stacks84.2K

Followers70.4K

Votes2.1K

Box vs Google Drive: What are the differences?

Developers describe Box as "Build Innovative Applications on Box". The Box API gives you access to the content management features you see in our web app and lets you extend them for use in your own app. It strives to be RESTful and is organized around the main resources you’re familiar with from the Box web interface. On the other hand, Google Drive is detailed as "Integrate your app with Google Drive". The Drive SDK gives you a group of APIs along with client libraries, language-specific examples, and documentation to help you develop apps that integrate with Drive The core functionality of Drive apps is to download and upload files in Google Drive. However, the Drive SDK provides a lot more than just storage..

Box and Google Drive can be categorized as "File Storage" tools.

Some of the features offered by Box are:

Enterprise-grade file sharing
Native mobile apps
File sharing links

On the other hand, Google Drive provides the following key features:

Create & collaborate.- In Google Drive, you can create new documents, spreadsheets and presentations instantly. Work together at the same time, on the same doc, and see changes as they appear.
Work better with the products you use everyday.- Say goodbye to bulky email attachments. Send a link from Google Drive in Gmail and everyone has the same file, same version—automatically. Your pictures in Google Drive are instantly available in Google+, so you’re never more than one click away from sharing with your circles.
Powerful search.- Google Drive helps you get to your files faster. Search for content by keyword and filter by file type, owner and more. Google Drive can even recognize objects in your images and text in scanned documents.

"Easy to work with" is the primary reason why developers consider Box over the competitors, whereas "Easy to use " was stated as the key factor in picking Google Drive.

Lyft, StackShare, and Asana are some of the popular companies that use Google Drive, whereas Box is used by LinkedIn, Pandora, and Anaplan. Google Drive has a broader approval, being mentioned in 2092 company stacks & 2014 developers stacks; compared to Box, which is listed in 40 company stacks and 13 developer stacks.

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CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Advice on Box, Google Drive

Noel

Founder, CEO, CTO at NoFilter

Jun 8, 2021

Decided

Due to we are using G Suite for emails, Google Drive comes out of the box.

In Google Drive we keep save just some basic marketing files. We used it as a single repository to share files between designers and developers. Nothing more than that. In some moment we had some backups there, but just for security reasons, we removed it

18.9k views18.9k

Comments

Pascal

IS Manager at CEMS

Mar 23, 2021

Decided

Key criteria for that choice. I needed a collaborative backup tool for a 15 people team. All people would have access to both their individual private space that should synchronize automatically to/from their desktop and various shared spaces, with various kinds of access rights. Only Box would allow high fine tuning of the access rights. Multi-platform was important too. The ease to transfer ownership of a folder from one departing colleague to their N+1 was a real plus.

19.7k views19.7k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Box	Google Drive
The Box API gives you access to the content management features you see in our web app and lets you extend them for use in your own app. It strives to be RESTful and is organized around the main resources you’re familiar with from the Box web interface.	Keep photos, stories, designs, drawings, recordings, videos, and more. Your first 15 GB of storage are free with a Google Account. Your files in Drive can be reached from any smartphone, tablet, or computer.
Enterprise-grade file sharing;Native mobile apps;File sharing links;Desktop App;Version History;Share folders;Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and AES-256 bit encryption;Password protected sharing;Full-text search;SDK's for iOS, Android, Python, Ruby, Java, OS X (thrid party: C# .NET, PHP, JS, Nodejs, Perl);API/SDK's allow for: Reading and writing files, sharing, search, comments, and restoring files to past revisions;	Create & collaborate.- In Google Drive, you can create new documents, spreadsheets and presentations instantly. Work together at the same time, on the same doc, and see changes as they appear.;Work better with the products you use everyday.- Say goodbye to bulky email attachments. Send a link from Google Drive in Gmail and everyone has the same file, same version—automatically. Your pictures in Google Drive are instantly available in Google+, so you’re never more than one click away from sharing with your circles.;Powerful search.- Google Drive helps you get to your files faster. Search for content by keyword and filter by file type, owner and more. Google Drive can even recognize objects in your images and text in scanned documents.;View anything.- Open over 30 file types right in your browser—including HD video, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop—even if you don’t have the program installed on your computer.;Google Drive with your favorite apps.- Create, open and share files from a variety of apps directly in Google Drive.;Share the way you want.- You can share files or folders with anyone, and choose whether they can view, edit or comment on your stuff.;Start a discussion.- Create and reply to comments to get feedback and make files more collaborative.;Go back in time.- Google Drive tracks every change you make—so when you hit the save button, a new revision is saved. You can look back as far as 30 days automatically, or choose a revision to save forever.
Statistics
Stacks 237	Stacks 84.2K
Followers 217	Followers 70.4K
Votes 44	Votes 2.1K
Pros & Cons
Pros 8 Easy to work with 6 Great API 6 Shared file hosting 5 Ability to see who has downloaded the file you sent 4 No brainer	Pros 505 Easy to use 326 Gmail integration 312 Enough free space 268 Collaboration 249 Stable service Cons 7 Organization via web ui sucks 2 Not a real database
Integrations
NetSuite G Suite Salesforce Sales Cloud Jive Social Intranet DocuSign Formstack ProofHQ Yammer Zendesk RightSignature	Trello DocuSign RingCentral Balsamiq Conceptboard HelloFax Notable Marqueed

What are some alternatives to Box, Google Drive?

Dropbox

Harness the power of Dropbox. Connect to an account, upload, download, search, and more.

Nextcloud

A suite of client-server software for creating and using file hosting services The most deployed self-hosted file share and collaboration platform on the web. Access & collaborate across your devices.

ceph

In computing,It is a free-software storage platform, implements object storage on a single distributed computer cluster, and provides interfaces for object-, block- and file-level storage.

Microsoft SharePoint

It empowers teamwork with dynamic and productive team sites for every project team, department, and division. Share and manage content, knowledge, and applications to empower teamwork, quickly find information, and seamlessly collaborate across the organization.

OneDrive

Outlook.com is a free, personal email service from Microsoft. Keep your inbox clutter-free with powerful organizational tools, and collaborate easily with OneDrive and Office Online integration.

Dropmark

Dropmark offers super simple drag-and-drop file sharing, like a number of web apps before it, but if you want to use it for more you can create presentations, slideshows, and collaborate with others just as easily.

Alfresco

Alfresco Platform is an open, modern and secure system that intelligently activates process and content to accelerate the flow of business.

Streem

Unlike other cloud storage tools, Streem takes up no space on your computer, but still gives you instant access to your files without any lag. All media on Streem is converted on-the-fly so you can access it seamlessly regardless of the device or bandwidth.

ownCloud

It is an open source, self-hosted file sync and share app platform. Access & sync your files, contacts, calendars & bookmarks across your devices. You decide what happens with your data, where it is and who can access it.

Syncthing

It is a continuous file synchronization program. It synchronizes files between two or more computers and replaces proprietary sync and cloud services with something open, trustworthy and decentralized. Your data is your data alone and you deserve to choose where it is stored, if it is shared with some third party and how it's transmitted over the internet.

Related Comparisons

Some of the features offered by Box are:

Enterprise-grade file sharing
Native mobile apps
File sharing links

On the other hand, Google Drive provides the following key features:

Create & collaborate.- In Google Drive, you can create new documents, spreadsheets and presentations instantly. Work together at the same time, on the same doc, and see changes as they appear.
Work better with the products you use everyday.- Say goodbye to bulky email attachments. Send a link from Google Drive in Gmail and everyone has the same file, same version—automatically. Your pictures in Google Drive are instantly available in Google+, so you’re never more than one click away from sharing with your circles.
Powerful search.- Google Drive helps you get to your files faster. Search for content by keyword and filter by file type, owner and more. Google Drive can even recognize objects in your images and text in scanned documents.

"Easy to work with" is the primary reason why developers consider Box over the competitors, whereas "Easy to use " was stated as the key factor in picking Google Drive.

Box vs Google Drive