Alternatives to Box

Enterprise cloud content management and file sharing

Pricing: Free 10GB (personal), $15/user/mo Business, $25/user/mo Business Plus From $15/mo

Common pain points:

  • Expensive per-user pricing compared to Google Drive or Dropbox
  • File upload size limits on lower-tier plans
  • Desktop app sync can be slow with large file sets
  • Individual file size cap of 5GB on Business plan

3 Alternatives to Box

Seafile

High-performance self-hosted file sync with end-to-end encryption

Open Source

Free Community edition, Pro from $10/user/yr

  • Fastest sync speeds among self-hosted options
  • Client-side end-to-end encryption
  • Built-in online document editor (SeaDoc)

Pydio Cells

Self-hosted enterprise file sharing and collaboration platform

Open Source

Home edition free for up to 10 users. Enterprise edition requires contacting sales.

  • Fine-grained access controls and compliance features
  • Used by 1,800+ organizations globally including Greenpeace and BMW
  • Full data sovereignty with self-hosted deployment

ownCloud

Established open-source file sharing platform with 1.5M+ users worldwide

Open Source

Community Edition is free. Standard support from ~$6/user/month (min 25 users).

  • Battle-tested platform with 1.5M+ users since 2010
  • 1,100+ community contributors and actively maintained
  • Full desktop and mobile apps for all platforms

Detailed Comparisons