Dropbox vs. Egnyte: Which Is Better Suited for Business?

Year after year, more consumers are looking toward cloud services to centralize their files online and easily share them across devices. Since cloud file access is so practical and useful, consumers are bringing these tools into their workplace so they can have mobile access to business files when their work environment has no good options available. When this happens, businesses face a huge risk of data intrusions and compliance issues when employees use their own consumer product to help with file mobility. Much of the time, these are personal Dropbox accounts. Dropbox was initially designed as a solution for individual consumer file access. It had no regard for scalability, specific file permissions, or business security. This put the individual in complete control of everything and was left without a centralized administrative account for the profile. As the company found it needed to enter the business space, Dropbox for Business became the solution for these problems, however, it fails to provide scalability and enterprise-level security. Although it attempts to have centralization, file sharing and permissions isn’t natively controlled by IT unless they are intentionally shared by the file owner. Contrary to other consumer-level products, Egnyte is designed specifically for business, which allows users to easily store, share, and access files from anywhere without compromising control. IT retains control and full visibility to safeguard data security and to keep accounts manageable. It also allows the ability to manage user permissions at any file level as to ensure that the correct users have access to the correct files.

Both Dropbox and Egnyte have user-friendly web interfaces through any browser and mobile device, and they both have the ability to sync files with your desktop computer. But where Egnyte really shines is the ability to access files directly through a mapped network drive without having to download the files. Downloading and syncing files on your computer’s hard-drive can take up a huge amount of space very quickly. Sometimes it isn’t even possible, especially if your computer has an SSD, generally your available space will be somewhere between 100 and 300GB. If you decide to sync this with your Dropbox account, much of the time you’ll find that it will take up too much space. If the files are mapped to a network drive, it will not take up any of the local storage space which can prevent hardware management issues. Offering much more granular folder permissions, overarching administrative control, and storage-saving network mapping options, it seems Egnyte is a superior product when it's used within a business environment.