Dropbox
Many customers of mine and friends have used and continue to use Dropbox to upload, store and share files and folders. It has become the
“Kleenex” brand of online file storage. Dropbox is a fantastic program. It is super easy to use and has a number of great features including its newest collaboration piece called
Dropbox Paper.
Google Drive
If your company is using G Suites (formerly Google Apps for Work) for your work email, then you already get something similar to Dropbox called Google Drive. Originally Dropbox was better. I stored all my long term files/folders in Dropbox and then used Google Drive for unimportant documents and misc. files. Over a few years, I noticed that I began to save things in both places as Google Drive created more features and became similar to Dropbox. Soon I noticed I was wondering where I was saving things?
“Was that file in Dropbox of Google Drive?” Several years ago,
I moved every file and folder from Dropbox to Google Drive. I absolutely loved Dropbox, and I hated parting ways. Yet I realized that Google Drive did exactly the same things as Dropbox with even more options and features like collaboration and direct integration with my email platform (gmail). It also allowed me to create documents and custom spreadsheets very similar to Microsoft Word or Excel. I do not remember the last time I opened up
MS Word or Excel to create a doc or spreadsheet! Once I got Google Drive
100% setup, I stopped paying for Dropbox and using
MS Word and Excel. (P.S. I can still save and work with
MS Docs/Excel with Google Drive…in case you were wondering)
Dropbox or Google Drive For Your Organization
If you are using Dropbox and Google Drive and keep file and folders in both places, it is time to plan on choosing Dropbox or Google Drive.
I would strongly encourage you to not use both. The
ONLY reason you would ever want to consider using both is if you want a second backup in case, God forbid, one of them was hacked.* Life will be so much easier when you choose one product and stick with it! If you have G Suites, you do not need Dropbox. That is the bottomline. It will save you money too! If you want to pay extra and you like Dropbox better (and do not want to learn how easy it is to use Google Drive) they pay for both —but only use
1 file storage program. As slick as Dropbox continues to be, Google Drive will definitely do the trick for any organization who already has G Suites.
*To avoid getting hacked, make sure two-step authentication is turned on for all users!