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Dropbox vs Google Drive: What are the differences?
Dropbox: Build the power of Dropbox into your apps. Harness the power of Dropbox. Connect to an account, upload, download, search, and more; Google Drive: 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..
Dropbox and Google Drive can be primarily classified as "File Storage" tools.
Some of the features offered by Dropbox are:
- Dropbox Chooser- Get files from Dropbox into your web app with just a few lines of JavaScript.
- Sync API- Read and write to Dropbox from iOS & Android as if it were a local filesystem.
- Core API- The basics. Upload, download, search, and more from your web or mobile app.
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", "Free" and "Popular" are the key factors why developers consider Dropbox; whereas "Easy to use ", "Gmail integration" and "Enough free space" are the primary reasons why Google Drive is favored.
Lyft, StackShare, and Zillow are some of the popular companies that use Google Drive, whereas Dropbox is used by Lyft, StackShare, and MIT. Google Drive has a broader approval, being mentioned in 2070 company stacks & 1949 developers stacks; compared to Dropbox, which is listed in 1068 company stacks and 939 developer stacks.
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
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.
Pros of Dropbox
- Easy to work with434
- Free256
- Popular216
- Shared file hosting176
- 'just works'167
- No brainer100
- Integration with external services79
- Simple76
- Good api49
- Least cost (free) for the basic needs case38
- It just works11
- Convenient8
- Accessible from all of my devices7
- Command Line client5
- Synchronizing laptop and desktop - work anywhere4
- Can even be used by your grandma4
- Reliable3
- Sync API3
- Mac app3
- Cross platform app3
- Ability to pay monthly without losing your files2
- Delta synchronization2
- Everybody needs to share and synchronize files reliably2
- Backups, local and cloud2
- Extended version history2
- Beautiful UI2
- YC Company1
- What a beautiful app1
- Easy/no setup1
- So easy1
- The more the merrier1
- Easy to work with1
- For when client needs file without opening firewall1
- Everybody needs to share and synchronize files reliabl1
- Easy to use1
- Official Linux app1
- The more the merrier0
Pros of Google Drive
- Easy to use505
- Gmail integration326
- Enough free space312
- Collaboration268
- Stable service249
- Desktop and mobile apps128
- Offline sync97
- Apps79
- 15 gb storage74
- Add-ons50
- Integrates well9
- Easy to use6
- Simple back-up tool3
- Amazing2
- Beautiful2
- Fast upload speeds2
- The more the merrier2
- So easy2
- Wonderful2
- Linux terminal transfer tools2
- It has grown to a stable in the cloud office2
- UI1
- Windows desktop1
- G Suite integration1
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Cons of Dropbox
- Personal vs company account is confusing3
- Replication kills CPU and battery1
Cons of Google Drive
- Organization via web ui sucks7
- Not a real database2