Looking for a Dropbox alternative is mostly a question about paying twice. Companies that already have Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace see storage in the bundle and wonder why they fund a second service. A smaller group wants files the provider cannot read, or on their own hardware, and accepts weaker sync to get that.
Sebastiaan SmitsFounderShort answer: The first three alternatives to Dropbox in our cloud storage ranking are Zoho WorkDrive, Koofr and Tresorit. Places 1 to 3 go to challengers, vendors outside the best-known brands in a category, wherever the category has them; the established names follow from place 4 in their ranked order. Choose Zoho WorkDrive if cost per user is the issue and your folders are not enormous. All 11 alternatives below are ranked products from Best Cloud Storage for Business in 2026, and each says where it differs from Dropbox.
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Dropbox is priced above the bundled suites for storage alone. A company paying for Microsoft 365 effectively has OneDrive for free, and Workspace customers have Drive. Unless the team has a specific synchronisation problem, finance will eventually ask what the extra subscription is for.
Business plans carry minimum seat counts, and as in most of this market the bill is driven by users, not by gigabytes. A two-person studio storing a great deal and a ten-person office storing very little are both poorly served by that shape of pricing.
Dropbox, like Google Drive, OneDrive and Box, holds encryption keys it can use, which is part of why collaboration works well. For law firms, clinics and anyone else who needs the provider to be unable to read the files, that is a disqualifying design.
| Alternative | Headquarters | Free option | Pricing | Key difference | Switch if | Our rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zoho WorkDrive | India | Yes | Free 5 GB plan; paid per user per month, minimum three users, published | Team folders and file sync at a low per-user price | cost per user is the issue and your folders are not enormous | #10 |
| Koofr | Slovenia | Yes | Free 10 GB plan; paid yearly by storage size, published | Small Slovenian service that also reaches your other cloud accounts | you want one search across several clouds and pay for capacity, not seats | #2 |
| Tresorit | Switzerland | No free tier | Per user per month, published | Encrypted storage built for regulated work | confidentiality obligations require that the provider cannot open your files | #6 |
| Microsoft OneDrive | United States | No free tier | Per user per month, published; included in Microsoft 365 | Already included with Microsoft 365 | you already pay for Microsoft 365 and the files are ordinary office documents | #15 |
| Google Drive | United States | No free tier | Per user per month with Workspace, published | Storage as part of the document suite | the company is already on Workspace and works mainly in shared documents | #13 |
| Sync.com | Canada | Yes | Free 5 GB plan; Teams per user per month, minimum three users, published | Zero-knowledge encryption as the default | you need zero-knowledge storage and can live without integrations | #5 |
| pCloud | Switzerland | No free tier | Per month, per year or one-off lifetime, published | Lifetime plans from a Swiss company, stored in the US or EU | you resent a monthly fee for storage and need little collaboration | #4 |
| Box | United States | No free tier | Per user per month, published; minimum of three users on business plans | Governance, retention and workflow around files | retention, legal hold and audit are requirements you must evidence | #16 |
| Nextcloud | Germany | Yes | Free self-hosted; enterprise subscriptions per user per year, published | Self-hosted, so the data never leaves | files must stay on your own infrastructure and you have operations capacity | #7 |
| Jottacloud | Norway | Yes | Free tier; paid per month or year by plan and user count, published | Norwegian storage and device backup at a published price | you want a flat price for a small team and Norwegian hosting | #9 |
| Egnyte | United States | No free tier | Per user per month, published from $10 on the Team plan; top Ultimate tier quoted | Governance and hybrid storage for regulated industries | compliance tooling and permissions matter more than the lowest seat price | #11 |
India · Free 5 GB plan; paid per user per month, minimum three users, published
Zoho WorkDrive offers team-owned folders, role-based permissions and an office editor at a per-user price well under Dropbox. Its desktop client is less dependable with very large folders, and its integrations favour Zoho's own applications over third parties.
Switch from Dropbox if cost per user is the issue and your folders are not enormous.
Slovenia · Free 10 GB plan; paid yearly by storage size, published
Koofr, a Slovenian company, sells storage in fixed sizes from a free 10 GB tier upwards, not per user, and can connect existing Dropbox, OneDrive and Google Drive accounts in one interface. Its client-side encrypted Vault covers only selected folders, and it offers little in the way of team administration.
Switch from Dropbox if you want one search across several clouds and pay for capacity, not seats.
Switzerland · Per user per month, published
Tresorit encrypts end to end so the provider cannot read the files, which Dropbox can, and adds granular sharing policy, access expiry and audit logging under Swiss and EU hosting. It is expensive per seat and noticeably slower on large transfers.
Switch from Dropbox if confidentiality obligations require that the provider cannot open your files.
United States · Per user per month, published; included in Microsoft 365
OneDrive is effectively free for a company already paying for Microsoft 365, with proper Office co-authoring. Dropbox costs extra and syncs better: OneDrive's SharePoint foundation surfaces as path-length limits and sync errors that IT ends up explaining repeatedly.
Switch from Dropbox if you already pay for Microsoft 365 and the files are ordinary office documents.
Microsoft OneDrive, #15 of 16 in our cloud storage ranking →
United States · Per user per month with Workspace, published
Google Drive comes with Workspace and leads on real-time collaboration and on search inside documents. Its desktop sync client is its weakest component, exactly where Dropbox is strongest, so the choice turns on whether people work in browsers or in folders.
Switch from Dropbox if the company is already on Workspace and works mainly in shared documents.
Canada · Free 5 GB plan; Teams per user per month, minimum three users, published
Sync.com encrypts every file end to end by default under Canadian jurisdiction, a materially different position from Dropbox. The cost is functional: no server-side search and almost no third-party integrations, where wide integration is one of Dropbox's selling points.
Switch from Dropbox if you need zero-knowledge storage and can live without integrations.
Switzerland · Per month, per year or one-off lifetime, published
pCloud sells storage as a one-off lifetime purchase as well as by subscription, with data held in Switzerland or the EU at your choice. Collaboration is basic and client-side encryption costs extra, so it replaces Dropbox as storage, not as a team workspace.
Switch from Dropbox if you resent a monthly fee for storage and need little collaboration.
United States · Per user per month, published; minimum of three users on business plans
Box treats files as records: retention policies, legal hold, classification and audit are first-class, with a workflow engine on top. Dropbox sells synchronisation. For a company that only wants a shared drive, Box is overbuilt, and its interface is dated.
Switch from Dropbox if retention, legal hold and audit are requirements you must evidence.
Germany · Free self-hosted; enterprise subscriptions per user per year, published
Nextcloud puts the files on infrastructure you control, with apps for calendars, chat and office documents and no licence for the self-hosted edition. Dropbox's reliability is replaced by whatever your own hosting delivers, since you are now running a storage service.
Switch from Dropbox if files must stay on your own infrastructure and you have operations capacity.
Norway · Free tier; paid per month or year by plan and user count, published
Jottacloud prices business storage by plan and user band, not per seat: its published Business Small plan covers two users with 1 TB for EUR 12 a month, excluding VAT. It owns and runs its servers in Norway and edits Office documents online. Encryption is not zero-knowledge, and Dropbox's third-party integrations are absent.
Switch from Dropbox if you want a flat price for a small team and Norwegian hosting.
United States · Per user per month, published from $10 on the Team plan; top Ultimate tier quoted
Egnyte is a US content platform built for governed file sharing, with retention, ransomware detection and AI features sold in higher tiers. Its published Business plan costs USD 22 per user a month on annual billing, well above Dropbox's entry price, and it suits regulated firms more than design studios.
Switch from Dropbox if compliance tooling and permissions matter more than the lowest seat price.
Dropbox is still worth paying for when the work involves very large files and unreliable connections. It has the most reliable synchronisation in our ranking, particularly with big folders, and Smart Sync saves local disk without breaking workflows. That is why creative and engineering teams keep it alongside a suite they already own. If a failed sync costs hours, bundled storage is a false economy.
Sync quality is what you give up, so trial the replacement with your biggest real folder on your worst connection. OneDrive has path-length limits inherited from SharePoint, and Zoho WorkDrive is less proven on very large folders. A small test set hides both.
Links already sent to clients point at Dropbox and will not follow the files. List active shared folders and external collaborators, share again from the new service, and keep the old account running through an overlap period so nobody meets a dead link.
Downloading everything to a laptop and uploading it again is the slow route. Koofr can connect a Dropbox account and copy files out directly. Check too which integrations the team relies on, because the encrypted providers support few or none.
For a company already paying for Microsoft 365, usually yes: the storage is effectively free and Office co-authoring works properly. Expect path-length limits and sync errors from its SharePoint foundation. Teams moving very large files over poor connections are the ones who keep Dropbox.
Tresorit, Sync.com, Proton Drive, Filen and Internxt encrypt end to end, so the provider cannot read your files, whereas Dropbox holds keys it can use. The consequences are no server-side content search, no password recovery by support, and weaker collaboration.
pCloud and Internxt sell one-off lifetime plans, and Nextcloud is free to self-host if you run the server. pCloud is the mainstream option of the two; Internxt is a smaller service that suits individuals better than organisations.
Zoho WorkDrive is priced well under Dropbox per user, with team folders and an office editor. Jottacloud publishes business plans by user count with device backup included. If you already pay for Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, the bundled storage costs nothing more.
Founder of The Knowledge Engineers and of 2 Steps Ahead, an AI search visibility agency. Editorially responsible for every page on this site; research and drafting are AI-assisted.
Written, edited and fact-checked by Sebastiaan Smits. Last reviewed 9 October 2026. How we review.
