OneDrive Vs Google Drive Vs Dropbox Vs ICloud — Best Review
OneDrive vs Google Drive vs Dropbox vs iCloud: Cloud storage is pretty neat. We’d just like to take a moment to think about and appreciate this fact honestly.
Of course, we as gamers are primarily referring to cloud saves, but cloud storage as a whole has injected a new level of convenience to our everyday lives that’s easy to take for granted.
There’s nothing quite like the ability to sync your data across multiple devices and access it on the fly.
And best of all, everyone can use cloud storage since all significant providers offer free accounts, but which storage provider would you like handling your essential data?
OneDrive vs Google Drive vs Dropbox vs iCloud
At the moment the four big players in this field are
Each provider offers something unique that’ll cater to a specific kind of user. Which is why we’ll go over all four options to figure out what’s the best for whom. So, without any further ado let’s begin,
Now before we go over each provider and the unique features, they offer individually. We’d like to cover the basics that apply to all of them, and nothing is as essential in this context as the price and volume of storage on offer.
As we’ve said, all four providers offer free accounts that anyone can make and use, but not all of them come with an equal amount of storage. Read Also QLED vs OLED — Which One Is The Best?
Amount of Storages
iCloud
For the low price of $0 iCloud offers 5 gigabytes of storage and
OneDrive
The same goes for OneDrive
Google drive
In contrast, free accounts for google drive come with no fewer than 15 gigabytes of storage and
Dropbox
As for Dropbox here you only get 2 gigabytes of storage as a free user.
PRICES
iCloud and Google Drive
On the other end of the spectrum, iCloud and Google Drive both cap out at 2 terabytes at a monthly cost of $9.99.
OneDrive
Microsoft’s OneDrive caps out at one terabyte for $6.99 although their shared family plan offers a whopping 6 terabytes of storage for just $9.99.
Dropbox
As for Dropbox, it has only two plans in addition to the free one. 2 terabytes for $11.99 and 3 terabytes for $19.99 a month.
Best for free users
Google Drive
So, if you’re looking for the provider that’s best for free users, Google Drive stands out with its generous storage volume that beats the competition by a landslide.
Dropbox
However even the meagre 2 gigabytes of free storage that Dropbox offer can be quite enough if you’re just interested in backing up pdfs, word files and some images.
iCloud and OneDrive
If you’re itching for more storage but don’t need literal terabytes of its iCloud, Google Drive and OneDrive are all viable options.
Among them, you’ll find plenty of plans ranging from 50 to 200 gigabytes at anywhere between $1 and $3 a month. However, there’s more to these services than just price and storage.
Which one is best for you?
As we’ve said, they all come with unique features that will make them more appealing to specific target demographics. So, let’s take a look at each of them to determine which one is best for you?
iCloud
Best for Apple users
First up we have iCloud which is overall underwhelming in terms of extra features. To be more specific, it has none. If you pay for the storage, you get the storage that’s pretty much it on.
The plus side, like all Apple software iCloud, works brilliantly within the confines of the Apple ecosystem. So, if you’re already a Mac or iPhone user, then you’ll love how brilliantly iCloud runs on them.
Worst for window users
If you’re using Windows, we don’t recommend it. The software feels cumbersome and dated when used outside the Apple infrastructure.
What’s more, the only way you’d be able to access iCloud apps like photos or mail-in windows would be through a browser which isn’t ideal.
For multiple devices
So, if you’re a dedicated Apple user who’d like to quickly and conveniently sync their data across multiple devices go for it. It even has family sharing, and folder sharing and best of all, the 50 gigabytes plan costs only a dollar a month.
However, if you haven’t already made a settlement for yourself within the Apple ecosystem, this is probably not the place to start building next up.
Google Drive or Google One
We have Google Drive or Google One as it’s been rebranded. Even though it technically has more features and benefits than iCloud, Google Drive shares many similarities with it.
Extra benefits to paid plan users
It allegedly offers various extra benefits to paid plan users, but these benefits vary from country to country and aren’t well defined.
For example, some of the benefits listed include rewards on google store credits in the play store and discounts on hotels found through a google search. Which supposedly go up as high as 40.
At first glance, this sounds awesome, but because the benefits aren’t well defined. We can’t consider the potential best-case scenario here when different users can have wildly different experiences.
No extra benefits
So, we like to think of google drive as offering no extra benefits, and you shouldn’t pick it over another cloud storage service just because of this.
If you like the base offer, then you can think of the extra benefits as cool perks that you may or may not get but nothing more.
Works better on windows
What’s also noteworthy is that Google Drive works much better on windows than iCloud. It’s far less clunky and feels more modern needless to say. It’s fully optimized to work on android and chrome.
So, if you’re a Windows user, this is the right choice, and if you’re a Windows user with an android, it’s an even better one.
OneDrive
Best for windows users
But if you’re looking for the best windows experience cloud storage has to offer. You should look no further than Microsoft’s very own OneDrive now this is where things get interesting the free version of OneDrive.
Of course, nets you just the allotted storage room and the same goes for the 199 plan that raises the storage cap to 100 gigabytes. But if you should purchase the more expensive 365 personal or 365 family plans, you’ll receive access to use extra features.
Extra security, features expandable storage
In particular, you’ll get full access to Microsoft word, excel, PowerPoint and outlook on up to five pcs. It comes with extra security and rollback features as well as extra expandable storage.
So, while these plans are more expensive than the standard fare that ranges between 0 and $3, they sure pack a lot of stuff. Most notably, the 365 personal plan that goes for $6.99 is the only plan on OneDrive, or otherwise, that offers 1 terabyte of storage. In terms of value getting two terabytes for $9.99 or $11.99.
In case of Dropbox may seem like a better deal but let’s not underestimate just how massive a single terabyte of storage is. Most users won’t max out the first terabyte. Let alone start filling out the second one.
So, unless you genuinely need the extra volume, you’re not going to lose out on anything. Add to that the rather affordable access to 4 Microsoft office apps, and you’ve got yourself a winner.
Originally published at https://softsplus.com on August 17, 2020.
