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What better way to kick off our comparison blog series then with a match-up against the top cloud storage contender? Let's be real; there isn't a cloud storage company out there that's not talking about how they triumph over Dropbox in one way or another. Though that forces the questions to be begged, if you're so much better than Dropbox, why are they the one with 180 million registered users? Well there were many factors at play that shifted the direction of Dropboxs' success, which has been described in plenty of detail on their and other blog pages. Rather, in this entry we will be attempting to rationalize the majority populations' decision to choose a service provider with inferior technology and less than a fraction the features. Allow me to first clarify that I am in no way aiming to belittle the work done by Dropbox. The company has had achievements that other cloud providers could not even manage to dream of. In fact, we fully understand that there are some users out there who are better off using Dropbox as opposed to DriveHQ. For those with cloud needs that are limited to synchronizing a single folder with pictures and word documents, having accounts with DriveHQ would be a waste. To these users we still encourage to enter our Drop The Dropbox Campaign for the opportunity to win a $50 cash prize.
When asked how we differ from other providers, before we yammer on about our extensive features, we like to talk about how most company's get their feet in the door (Dropbox included). Funding. Don't get us wrong, there is no shame in a company receiving dough from a conglomerate with deep pockets. The users, however, feel the repercussions of your decisions to take on seed money with promises of facilitating the requests of the investors (not the users). As of 2011, Dropbox had collected just under 260 million dollars from investors like Y Combinator and Sequoia Capitol. The thing about taking that money is, you have to worry about making profit to back the initial funding; which takes focus away from your users needs. At DriveHQ, we made the decision long ago not to seek out (or accept) money from outside investors. By making this decision we are able to put our time, money and energy into perfecting the experience of our users.
This could potentially be considered a subsection of funding because if you think about it, they have to make the prices outrageous to compensate for the investors. As it stands, a consumer looking to purchase a small 10GB subscription for basic folder mirroring should go with Dropbox. However, Dropbox business users are quickly learning the disadvantages of using service from a provider that is tailored toward consumer users. When you want to start talking about integrating other users with your Dropbox account, you are hit with user licenses that are $125/user/year. A small business that needs 20GB of storage space and only 7 users would be paying $1045/year with Dropbox. With DrivHQ's exponentially lower $6/user/year, the same business for the same 20GB + 7user plan would pay only 209.98/year. Who will you be choosing as your cloud storage provider for your business?
I almost feel guilty for having a section with such a title because in many ways, Dropbox and DriveHQ are not even in the same league. Dropbox is in reality no more than a single mirrored folder with some file sharing capabilities. It could be argued a more fitting name would be “synch-a box.”
We often see Dropbox users switch over to our services simply because of this feature. If you have a cloud storage provider and are using a separate backup service, you can seamlessly halve your cost by combining features with our service. What's more is our Backup service is bundled so that any DriveHQ user (paid or free) can download the software. A few of the online backup features include; incremental scheduled or real-time backup, keeping multiple file versions, data encryption, and data compression for faster upload/download speeds.
As a Dropbox user when you a share a file, the recipient must also be a registered Dropbox user. Though with DriveHQ, not only can you publish a folder so anyone with that URL can download/view those files, but you can also publish a folder that permits anyone with a given URL to upload documents to that folder. Dropbox also restricts a users ability to manage permissions: for example, users cannot share a folder with read only permission.
It's area's like these that make me feel as though I'm hitting Dropbox below the belt. Each DriveHQ user upon registration is issued an associated DriveHQ email address. Additionally, users with existing registered domains have the option of bundling their services even further by hosting their site with us. There are a variety of other extras I could throw at this already-crumbling box, but perhaps this will entice you into checking out our features page.
Like I said, receiving a little funding isn't all bad. By taking in money quickly, Dropbox had the ability to spread their name at an incredible rate. And let's be honest, they didn't get to where they are by having morons behind the wheel. Becoming so popular opened many doors for Dropbox (i.e. their Facebook partnership and acquisition of Mailbox). The teams' new Mailbox app, while being a terrific feature, fortunately does not qualify as a service they have over us. In addition to our email hosting feature, DriveHQ has provided an EmailManager software for several years that is also compatible with our Iphone/Android App. But really, we're happy for them.
We are back to the funding; unfortunately this comes down to the sheer numbers. Dropbox simply has the ability to provide users with a larger amount of initial space. This creates attraction especially to consumer users, which increases their popularity, and the snowball continues. But when you charge by every user (as explained above), the prices will be astronomical for those who intend on sharing documents among several (or several hundred) sub-users. As with most of our other competitors, the pricing design is not scalable for business; so as the amount of storage increases the savings decrease.
Dropbox has recently implemented a new Reseller Program that our team is not too familiar with, and therefore cannot rightfully categorize it in either section. However, we can say that our program makes it possible for resellers to make up to 500% in gross margin, and receive a minimum of 30% discount for their front-end subscriptions. We will keep you all updated as we can more accurately compare the two. Looking now to the differences in our referral plans -- we understand that Dropbox has actually become quite popular because of their referral offerings. Many users earning up to 20 or even 30GB of free space simply by having their buddies sign up. What they don’t tell you is the restrictions you will still be under for your download/upload bytes which are still held with your ordered subscription. DriveHQ also has a referral program that permits users to reap a great deal of extras (including storage and commission!) simply for sending a link to friends they think would benefit from switching to cloud, or improve an existing service.
Just a quick clarifying statement for those who overlooked the important message of this comparison; the DriveHQ team completely understands that there is a large (in fact, probably majority) population that would benefit more from the simplistic, single-user folder mirroring features offered by Dropbox. However, those who are running a small business with a need for multiple users, or even for those who wish to truly get the most out of what cloud solutions have to offer: DriveHQ is the choice for you. To learn more about what we have to offer our consumer and business users, read our new and improved detailed solutions page.
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