Drive vs Dropbox

Bijan posted yesterday about Drive vs Dropbox. He prefers Dropbox. I commented on his blog saying that I prefer Drive.

I figured it would be interesting to poll the AVC readership to see where everyone stands on the two most popular cloud storage services.

I had to hack Quipol to do this, so upvote if you prefer Drive and downvote if you prefer Dropbox.


#Web/Tech

Comments (Archived):

  1. andyswan

    Doesn’t matter. My mom prefers “keychain disk drive”, so that’s how she gets the pics. 🙂

    1. falicon

      +1

    2. leigh

      my mom prefers email. i tried to get her to use dropbox. total fail.

      1. anand

        tried to get my aunt to use dropbox – failed as well. she made me send an audio cd via snail mail..heh

        1. leigh

          lol

        2. Jon

          What’s wrong with that?

      2. Riaz Kanani

        my mum had skydrive enabled in her hotmail by default – caused no end of pain to both her and the people she sent attachments to (which were hosted inside skydrive)

      3. Mozzo Analytics

        She’s not alone!

    3. karen_e

      My mother-in-law prefers I print at CVS and ship them to her in her envelope. So that’s how she gets the pics. 😉

    4. Aaron Klein

      My dad just did a location check-in on Facebook the other day, so I do believe the apocalypse is nigh.

      1. fredwilson

        yesssssssssss

    5. fredwilson

      i bet that would have beat both of them

  2. Cam MacRae

    I love Dropbox, although I’m not a fan of their new nag strategy with respect to photos.The problem with Google is that they have non-existent customer service for individuals, and so-so customer service for corporations — even corporations spending $500k pcm on adwords. My data is too important to me to suffer shitty customer service.

    1. bsoist

      Not a fan of the nagging either. I don’t remember ever seeing that on my Mac, but it came up on my windoze box a couple of times.

      1. Cam MacRae

        From memory it’s come up on all my devices, so it hasn’t even remembered my preference. (I’m willing to be wrong about *all* devices, but I’ve definitely dismissed it multiple times).

        1. bsoist

          I plugged an SD card into my Mac yesterday and it did pop up. I know I’ve asked it not to for “that device” so I tried something. I clicked “never for this device,” unmounted it, pulled it, put it in again. No pop up this time. Then I unmounted, pulled it, put it in my camera and formatted it, and put it in my Mac again. This time I saw the popup.I regularly format the card since the last time I checked Macs leave .Trashes files on the card when photos are deleted using the Mac. So, there needs to be a way to disable this popup forever on all devices.

          1. Cam MacRae

            Very annoying. Tarnishes an otherwise good product reputation in my book.

          2. bsoist

            Agreed. I take photos in waves so I hadn’t seen the popup much recently and forgot about it. I will pop that card in – reformatted with new photos on it – much more in July and August.

    2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      ON OTHER CLAW, NEW DROPBOX PHOTO THING PRETTY AWESOME.NAG TO BECOME MORE AWESOME LESS BAD THAN NORMAL KIND OF NAG.

  3. JimHirshfield

    Your hack is biased. One choice had to be upvote, one had to be downvote. I predict this bias will effect the results. #justsayin’ #notjudgin’

    1. kenberger

      yep: suggestive bias. #rigged 🙂

    2. LE

      Also no option for neither.

      1. fredwilson

        #pollfail

        1. GoPollGo

          You should use GoPollGo!

  4. Jeff T

    Haha, I do prefer dropbox, probably because I am still more familiar. But I found it hilarious that I hesitated on down voting it because I perceived that as a negative. Biased polling!!

    1. JimHirshfield

      That’s what I’m sayin

    2. Ernest Oppetit

      Not sure the polling is that biased. If someone prefers Dropbox (like me because it has a Linux app) they’re not gonna go “oh, oops can’t click on the downvote button, gonna have to choose drive, thumbs up, yeah!”. We’re not such sheeps!

      1. Amit

        You may have been raised differently, but its always hard for me to be negative. So, I agree with Jeff that the polling is slightly biased. I don’t think anyone would vote “thumbs up” by accident but people may abstain on voting. I think the author of the poll should reverse the poll next time… ties in with the errors of type 1 and 2 for those of us who have studied some stats.

        1. Riaz Kanani

          I suspect even Fred understands this 😉 Even so the results are pretty conclusive. What is interesting is this applies to a tech savvy audience – Google Drive really makes sense for google docs users – maybe it is too much of a leap but suggests day to day use of google docs is still not that high?Or maybe the lack of a both is creating a gap?

    3. leigh

      yes the poll seemed like a LSAT test which i suck at. Am i saying yes to dropbox by downvoting it?

    4. Donna Brewington White

      70% of voters didn’t seem to have this problem. Plus, we have more than a few contrarians in this crowd.

  5. Wells Baum

    Dropbox, for the simple reason it feels like an Apple product.

    1. fredwilson

      that explains why i have never warmed to it 🙂

      1. kidmercury

        +1

  6. JimHirshfield

    Also, these products aren’t exactly apples to apples, right?

  7. OurielOhayon

    Dropbox because it is built as a platform and not a service. Dropbox is hooked to hundreds of third party apps that make syncing a breath (eg 1password settings, iAwriter,…)Drive is better for document creation/collaboration. they overlap but are very different in my opinion

    1. Britt O'Halloran

      I think that’s mostly because Drive is so much newer

      1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

        YOU SPELL “EVILER” WRONG.

  8. Britt O'Halloran

    I’m a paying Dropbox user. I WANT to switch to Drive, but I really dislike the online UI, and the awkward Google docs files (.gsheet ?!?!) that are put into my folders.

  9. bsoist

    I haven’t tried Drive because of the way I understand the license agreement for each product. I do know that very few products or services have impressed me as much as Dropbox. After years of using other methods to keeping shared data between computers, I was thrilled to find Dropbox.

  10. James Ferguson @kWIQly

    I guess I have the hacking needed to build a drop-box myself (in a couple of centuries) , but why bother – it does a simple job well.Props to Drive on collaboration it’s great.BUT navigation, and awareness of shared scope – really ? Did anyone get fired yet ?

    1. Britt O'Halloran

      This.I’m still confused when I go to my Drive. Folders used to act like Gmail labels, but now they’re more like folders? Unclear if things can be in two folders at once, and I’m always looking in a folder where I swear I put it and its not there.I end up just using ‘recent’ and scrolling down.

      1. James Ferguson @kWIQly

        Amen !And I don’t think its about familiarity – it’s about sucking harder than deep space does !

  11. kidmercury

    drive, no question. so long as we remain in the application layer (characterized by engineering-centric firms looking to create big networks with hundreds of millions of users) the odds favor google, amazon, and facebook (given their focus on hardware, apple is not really a data mining company). especially in the realm of file storage, i see this as incumbent territory and i don’t see a new disruptive dimension being introduced by dropbox or any of its peers.i also like box.net more than dropbox; i regard it as a better product and it is what i use (as well as google and amazon).

  12. LIAD

    From install, to syncing, to sharing, to backing up, to company culture, to customer service – Dropbox wins hands-down. A delightful product from A-Z.

  13. kirklove

    Dropbox for me all the way. So smooth and just works. Especially on the iPhone where I need it most.Also, the poll seems really biased having Dropbox be the down vote. Just felt weird down-voting the option I strongly prefer.

    1. fredwilson

      that’s a design decision my friend 🙂

  14. William Mougayar

    If you’re on Android, you’ll see G Drive benefits. Otherwise you don’t. Dropbox has much better and more pervasive integration features, and a smoother user experience.Does this give you a hint for how I voted?

    1. ShanaC

      No – how did you vote?

      1. William Mougayar

        Dropbox. But I will be using both in reality. I’m not nixing one over the other. They are both entrenched already.

    2. Abdallah Al-Hakim

      I have android and never felt the temptation to try drive. I might give it a try after reading your comment but overall the experience with dropbox on android is more than satisfying

    3. fredwilson

      it does seem android users prefer drive and ios users prefer dropbox

  15. Riaz Kanani

    dropbox but then i am not using Google Docs.. I suspect if I did my answer might be different..

  16. Nathan Guo

    My main issues with Google Drive is still the formatting issues I have moving between Microsoft Office documents and Google docs.

    1. ShanaC

      It isn’t just me that has this problem!!

      1. Mrmoo

        Nope .. Many Ppl using office for anything meaningfull have this prob. Personally I like skydrive … Dropbox is ubiquitous but don’t like their cross user file agregation model and drive is a pain in the *** w.r.t. Office doc creation and google keyword scanning the docs and using the info

      2. Donna Brewington White

        I get frustrated too, especially trying to save tables in Word with special formatting.

    2. anand

      Same. My margins get screwed up if someone opens my Google doc in Word. It’s totally frustrating.. Tried Office 365 on Skydrive but it’s very pathetic – doesn’t edit margins – so I wouldn’t recommend wasting time with it.

  17. davidwparker

    I don’t know why I can’t choose both. I use both. I like both.I also use them as slightly different tools for slightly different jobs. For active “document” type work, I use drive. For file sharing and as my working directory for code, I use dropbox.

    1. Luke Chamberlin

      Some here. I use drive as a document “backup” but I share files and collaborate with dropbox.

    2. fredwilson

      you are right

    3. Eduardo Silva

      Similar… Drive for startup docs/specs and team collaboration (with Google Apps), Dropbox for personal files.

  18. William Mougayar

    As an aside, the Polling interface is confusing. Why do I have to “downvote” if I’m voting for Dropbox.

    1. James Ferguson @kWIQly

      Given all this bias – doubtless Drive should win – Errr – NOT!

    2. John Revay

      I liked Fred use of the word “Hacked”…when I read the post I was not sure to what degree he had hacked Quipol, …then after re reading I got the up / down vote thing.I think Fred was biased in his assignment of the Up/down vote hack

      1. fredwilson

        you do?? 🙂

    3. Dale Allyn

      Quipol should offer the option of at least an A/B poll UI, i.e. ala red pill vs blue pill. The software can remain the same, it’s just a UI selector that could be done via a little JS at time of setup.

      1. Max Yoder

        @wmoug:disqus @daleallyn:disqus Good advice, Dave. Sorry to have caused you guys confusion!

        1. Dale Allyn

          Hi Max. I wasn’t “confused”, but felt the “hack” required to do an A/B poll exposed a weakness that can be easily addressed. Feature-bloat is something to avoid, but delivering the right minimum feature set is important.Your product is attractive. Good luck with Quipol.

          1. Max Yoder

            That’s fair. Thanks, Dave!

      2. Timothy Meade

        Or logos? Head to head matchup like on Lifehacker sometimes? (They don’t use logos either in the actual poll)

        1. Dale Allyn

          Right.

    4. fredwilson

      i stuffed the ballot box and still lost!

  19. Andrew Martens

    Dropbox, but I suspect that I prefer it for the same reason that I prefer Facebook over Google+. All of my shared folders and files are already on Dropbox (much like how all of my friends are already on Facebook). Even if Drive has a better service for the fresh user, it’s going to take a little more “oomph” to make me switch.Google is more than capable of generating this oomph, of course. The Drive vs. Dropbox competition is less reliant on current user base than the the rivalry between Google+ and Facebook.

  20. Giles

    I currently pay $20/month for 100Gb on Dropbox and have wanted to upgrade to get more space for a while — but the only option was to pay for their high-priced “team” product, which didn’t seem worthwhile. So when Drive came out with lower pricing and larger storage tiers it sounded perfect, especially as they don’t double-bill for shared folders, so we could set up a separate account for the company and let everyone share it. But I really cannot get Drive to work. Every time it runs, it crashes after a few minutes of eating up a CPU core. Lots of complaints on their forums, which are handled in a typical Google fashion — one post saying “we’ll look into it” from a month or so back, and then silence. Contrast this with the Dropbox forums, where pretty much any sensible customer problem is answered within a day or so, usually much faster.So, +1 for Dropbox — responsive customer support and a product that works for me.

      1. Giles

        Yes, I saw that! Great timing 🙂

    1. Timothy Meade

      Customer acquisition is really all that matters to Dropbox (once you get it you’re pretty much hooked).Google must feel they already have that down and don’t need to be as responsive.

  21. sprugman

    I have no idea which color represents which choice in the results display. Another down vote for Quipol

    1. kidmercury

      i mentally downvoted quipol as well. if you put your mouse over the colors on the results tab, you can see which is which.

      1. Max Yoder

        @kidmercury:disqus @twitter-16665698:disqus Sorry about the headache. That is a UX flaw.

        1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

          BAD UX SAME AS FAIL! REDO!

      2. sprugman

        Assuming you’re using a device that has a mouse…

        1. kidmercury

          lol i’m dating myself with such assumptions — good point!

  22. James Ferguson @kWIQly

    See Drive as a bowling ball metaphor !The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

  23. Britt O'Halloran

    If you haven’t read this brilliant Quora answer on why Dropbox is beating all the competitors (Drive did not exist at that time), it’s worth 2 minutes:http://www.quora.com/Dropbo

  24. ShanaC

    Dropbox by a hairs width (particularly someone who has thinner hair than me).It is better for random files, sometimes drive screws up pdfs. Still, I like the ability of not thinking about software like word when it comes to drive. Much like you, I kind of wish both worked seamlessly together.

  25. monsur

    With the various security breaches on high-profile sites this year, I’ve become very security paranoid and trying to be less “promiscuous” with internet services. My Google account is important to me because Google manages my email, and email is a proxy for your identity on most sites. Google has strong security practices such as two-factor auth which make me feel safe. So I’m more comfortable keeping my data with a service I already trust rather than create an account with a new service.

  26. goldwerger

    Dropbox is far superior to Google Drive or to any other platform-specific drive because it is a platform-AGNOSTIC repository of your files.It is for the very reason why Dropbox was such a huge success to start with.I think that, in any situation, getting locked into an ecosystem (Apple, Google, etc.) is very risky. But, when it comes to your personal files, the thing that is the closest to personal property in the digital age (even more than your customized play lists, bookmarks, etc.), not having the freedom to migrate, access, and manage your property at will is unacceptable risk.The problem is not what the platform allows you to do today, but what it may be tempted to do tomorrow. And there’s plenty of lessons on that.I have migrated all my personal documents to Dropbox a year ago as I moved to Mac. Because I didn’t want to be locked into either a PC or Mac environment, and I wanted the freedom to move between the two ecosystems and access files equally well on both.And last week I have migrated all my work documents(!) to Dropbox, because I don’t want to be dependent on any company IT vendor, VPN application, or jump through any other legacy hoops. Being in the cloud to me is FREEDOM of 2 critical types:- Freedom from the desktop/client/hard drive- Freedom from being locked into a platformGoogle Drive provides only the first. Dropbox provides both.Eyal

  27. Sebastian Wain

    I don’t get Google Drive. For me it is no sense to synchronize files from Google Docs and having only strange files on my filesystem (gsheet, gdoc). May be it is my ignorance but with Dropbox I don’t need to use my brain.

  28. James Ferguson @kWIQly

    Oops – A rant forgotten …Google drive is not available Linux offline (I had to check this was still true because I am amazed that Google is “soooo far behind the curve” ! )This makes using it a completely sucky experience for devs (or me) , less productive and generally a pain.

  29. John Revay

    It sounds like if you are an iOS user you may be better off w/ dropbox, You would think Drive is more native to Fred’s driod

  30. asmith

    For the individual consumer, +1 for Drive. For businesses who need to automatically synch files, Dropbox takes the cake.I like Drive because at $0.10 a GB ($2.49 plan) or $0.05GB ($4.99 or $9.99 plan), plus integration with my Google email account(s) there is no need to have a separate service.For my business, I don’t use Gmail, I need to keep documents separate from my personal cache, and I want a dead-simple experience. So I use Drive.

  31. Yalim K. Gerger

    I am going with Drive. There is no need to be sentimental here. The more integrated file sharing is to my overall web experience the better. Since I use many Google products, having file sharing tightly integrated to these products is what I needed. Also, it is only logical that Google provides this service. The interesting thing is how seldom I use Drive (or Dropbox) since I’ve been doing most of my work in the Cloud anyway.

  32. Yalim K. Gerger

    I would also remind everyone there is a new startup in this space which might change the game. http://www.bitcasa.com . Not my thing since I don’t use local files much but Bitcasa is definitively worth a look for the heavy users of Drive and Dropbox.

    1. Abdallah Al-Hakim

      Also, I got in a conversation yesterday that tempted me to try sugar sync. There were a couple of items in their comparison table that seemed interesting https://www.sugarsync.com/s

  33. Jason

    Forget NFS, dropbox on the server rocks!!

  34. William Mougayar

    I just noticed that GoogleDrive has a new iPhone app now. I just installed it and it’s not bad, but not as slick as the Dropbox app. I think I will have to use both. You can’t totally ignore one in favor of the other.

  35. Abdallah Al-Hakim

    I commented on Bijan blog yesterday and also Gotham’s gal blog where she sugar sync was mentioned in the discussion. I have been using Dropbox loyally for the past 3 years and have been very happy with the experience. I am an android user but do not see the value (at least yet) of trying Google drive. Dropbox has been easy to use, mobile app for android was revamped a few months ago and recently I start using sparrow as email client for Mac and it integrates really nicely with dropbox.

  36. Fernando Gutierrez

    I stay with Dropbox for a couple of reasons:-I’ve been a happy customer for a few years without a single problem, so if it ain’t broken don’t fix it-Many shared folders with people in DropboxHowever, having everything in Google Apps and using and Android phone the pull from Drive is hard to resist. I guess I’ll switch sometime, but not yet.

  37. kenberger

    The 1 thing I CAN’T STAND with Drive, and other G-products, is how they manage identity. They seem to want to force you to use your gmail address front and center. They hope you’ll just give in and ditch your other email addresses. They want to shove Google+ down your throat at every turn.You know how much an Android fanboy I am, at least these days, but I hate this kind of thing as much as I have when MSoft, Apple, and Sony, etc have done it. ie: buy into the entire vertical stack if you want to use our products.

    1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      YOU TRADE IDENTITY FOR USE GOOGLE PRODUCTS.IT LIKE MATRIX, EXCEPT YOUR LIFE IN PODS INSTEAD OF NEO.

  38. ErikSchwartz

    I use both, each for different things. I pretty much only use google docs and prezi at this point. Using google drive is therefore a complete no brainer for the majority of my file/document sharing needs.I have a drop box for the few local based file based sharing I need to do.Different horses for different courses.

  39. Max Yoder

    I just like the competition. I can see Google offering free 25 GB Drive accounts soon. They can afford to commodotize storage. DropBox can’t.Thank you for using Quipol, Fred.

  40. BWhaler

    I think we can all agree that the loser today was Quipol.From the voting buttons to providing a chart with no legend to comment system where there is no way to comment yet says, “Be the first comment on this Quipol,” this is oddly and deeply flawed product. Not ready for market.

    1. Max Yoder

      I’m sorry that Quipol caused you headaches. Are you unable to connect to your Facebook or Twitter account to add a comment?Quipol was built for very specific questions, like, “Do you like DropBox better than Google Drive?” or “Would you go skydiving?”The legend issue is a UX flaw. Hover over the pie chart to reveal the metrics. Thanks!

      1. Max Yoder

        @40c84c3830ce96be8fd5c7320eaa7f55:disqus @kidmercury:disqus @twitter-16665698:disqus Update: I just fixed one of the problems. The legend will now populate as soon as you vote, instead of forcing you to hover over it. It’s a much better experience and I really should have launched that way. Thanks for the help, all!

  41. LE

    Neither.scp and a colocated servers.

  42. matleroux

    Next time use @heycrowd for polls, the best tool around, proudly made in France…

    1. fredwilson

      suggestion noted. will try to do that.

  43. K_Berger

    Having people use a product is so important, I think you really need to give Drive more time. It is still new relative to Dropbox. But if Google focuses on Drive, it could get much better in a hurry (especially the mobile apps).

  44. Marjan Ghara

    I started using Dropbox because someone wanted to share a file with me, sent me the link and I have become a loyal user since. A few months ago, I was on a project and the people on that project were using Google Docs so I started using Docs. On some level it doesn’t matter what I want to use (I like DropBox and have no good reason currently to switch entirely) but what platform my partners are using.

  45. Paul Kaiser

    I prefer DropBox because it is my “incumbent,” so to speak. I do not have time to even check out Drive. Also, I already have MozyHome (which I pay for) bugging me about using “Sync” which is basically the same thing. Thought about switching, but again, DropBox is already here and working.

  46. ZekeV

    For enterprise use, I prefer a service called Egnyte. It is relatively cheap for its class, and is more trustworthy than drive or dropbox for highly sensitive documents.

  47. Jackson

    I gotta go with Dropbox because that’s what I use, never used Deive, maybe I should check it out.

  48. Jackson

    Oops – I voted for Drive, so I’ve messed up your polling. I should just go back to my cave.

    1. fredwilson

      whoa. jackson returns to AVC after a four year hiatus? this is big. kid mercury may have to hand over the bouncer handle.

      1. kidmercury

        even i have to agree with that! jackson was the original bouncer, back in the days of typepad comments.

        1. fredwilson

          back in the days when 10 comments per post was big

    2. Tony_Alva

      After careful consideration, I vote for Drive too. Okay, Jackson told me to vote for Drive… Read AVC everyday, comment seldom, but remain a big fan!Holy crap! I still remember my Disqus password!

  49. Aaron Klein

    Just made this decision over the weekend and went with Dropbox.The killer feature was automatic photo upload on the Android and iPhone apps. I plunked down $99 for the 50GB plan and my wife and I finally have our photos merged and in the cloud.Would have gone Drive if it had been a little more focused on photos, but Google has a hodgepodge of photo features that don’t interact well across Google+, Picasa and Drive. Needs to be fixed.

  50. scottythebody

    Dropbox hands down. I’m barely ever in a “web browser” these days — almost always in apps. Dropbox integrates with many more of them than does Drive.

  51. LukeG

    Drive replaces MS office (just deadly if you use enterprise Gmail); Dropbox replaces local personal storage.(On that note, Drive probably competes more directly with Box.com/net than with Dropbox)

  52. j

    If I vote will I see change?

  53. baba12

    Drive is what I have used and prefer, I did not have to do much to get it to work for me and now with Chrome on IOS, it becomes a lot better. I have dropbox but I may never use it, I don’t use the 50GB Boxnet account I have either which came with the HP Touchpad.Oh how I wish someday soon everything is HTML5 and javascript and it wont matter which platform you are on.

  54. blackmarkt

    Why is this a binary poll? I use both & enjoy storing certain types of files on each (i.e. personal v. work). How can I vote for both. ha

  55. Andrew Brackin

    I prefer the Dropbox website but Drive gives you way more storage for your money and when I mostly use it desktop app to desktop app, it doesn’t really make a difference.

    1. Adrian Sanders

      I dunno, i haven’t spent a dime on dropbox and i’m to 12 gigs of storage…

  56. Eric Leebow

    I prefer Drive just because… Never used Dropbox.

  57. Laura Yecies

    Pretty narrow choices in this binary poll. Both DropBox and Google Drive restrict you to a single syncing folder. For users who want control and flexibility, I suggest SugarSync as an option to consider. A few others in the comments have suggested it as well.

  58. robchogo

    I think folks who are currently already loyal Dropbox users will be pretty hard pressed to change for a while. There is a fair bit of intertia I think.But for brand new users, Google Drive will probably win out. Google has huge competitive advantage due to its scale and ability to price much more aggressively. And Dropbox’s first mover advantage is minimal due to limited network effects.As a user, I prefer Google Drive because it’s about as good and cheaper. I also like the potential for seamless integration with Google Docs and Gmail and also OCR search.Plus, this is much more in GOOG’s area of excellence vs. Google Plus.

  59. heuristocrat

    If you use and are happy with Dropbox is there a killer reason to spend time and effort on Drive? There are so many tools and services out there when one works I like to leave it in place.

  60. jonathan hegranes

    Google Drive on mobile FTW! Though I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive.

  61. temojin

    drive but it still need to be backed by a cloud i control and not something the FBI can grab at any given time due to whatever reason they concock against another party. Re: megaupload.

  62. Tommy Chen

    for now dropbox. google drive’s mobile apps are not up-to snuff yet and i really dislike google’s new strategy off bundling all their services. it wont be long before drive is tied into gmail and google plus.

  63. pridisc

    This poll is weird. Why do you make me downvote to express my liking? Wait you are a smart guy. Is this really an experiment in human psychology to find how poll questions can be twisted to favour a particular outcome?

    1. fredwilson

      i called it a hack

  64. Guest

    Fred,Drive.I will not be pulled down into a stupid debate over which is better. I had to use Dropbox before Google Docs got better. Now there’s no point to it.

  65. troygroberg

    I use both. As far as functionality they are mostly the same except for the built in Google Docs. But, I don’t really use those as often as some so I can understand if that’s the clincher for those folks. Call me crazy but I don’t really trust Google with every little bit of information that I own (or they own), they already have my email, search history, browsing history, and my blog analytics. I don’t think they need access to my spreadsheets and docs.

  66. Mirek Burnejko

    IFTTT supports only Dropbox so far 🙂

  67. Ritu Raj

    I love Quipol, thanks for introducing the product/co.

  68. FAKE GRIMLOCK

    DROPBOX FOR WIN!

    1. fredwilson

      the grimlock spongepants mashup is excellent

      1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

        HOORAY!… IT NOT GET MUCH REACTION. ME MARK THAT EXPERIMENT AS NO CONTINUE.THIS REFERENCE FOR PUNY HUMANS CONFUSED ABOUT CHANGE OF CONTEXT: http://www.flickr.com/photo

        1. andyidsinga

          my kid (and her father) totally digs that.

          1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            THAT PROBLEM WITH METRICS. NO CAN TELL IF LOW ENGAGEMENT BECAUSE NOT AWESOME, OR JUST BAD TIMING.

  69. bogorad

    Drive is so much faster for me, it’s a no-brainer: 3MiB/sec drive vs 0.9MiB/sec dropbox.

  70. Luke Chamberlin

    Who wrote this poll the Florida election commission!?

    1. kidmercury

      hahahahaha +1

  71. Mozzo Analytics

    Great discussion here. I think these services are both great at what they do … my concern remains with organization. Documents are flooding in these spaces and the more people I speak to who are running SMBs, the more I find that these spaces are not scaling well. Essentially, it is coming down to crodwsourcing the organization as more people get access to folders and files. Anybody else seeing this?

  72. Timothy Meade

    I think the bigger and deeper question is what does Dropbox (and Drive) look like on a Windows 8 Metro system? Is it the classic icon in the tray, or is it more like an integrated service providing Metro apps with backend storage in the cloud?This to me would answer a lot of questions about the future of computing.The other thing that came to mind, all the great startups really consist of great UX. The technology is almost a solved problem, it’s building a compelling product that is interesting. Second to that would be network effects, which pretty much all effective startups in this generation have nailed. Dropbox easily has both, organically expanding it’s business through it’s users.Drive is skin deep, it’s a nice interface over the existing Docs and Sheets UI, and on Android that fact is almost apparent. Intents are nice for a lot of things, sharing a file to the cloud has not proven to be one, it’s still too cumbersome. The sheets applet on Android is particularly horrible. (Though Google recently acquired a company to hopefully fix that.)I’m perennially disappointed in Google for missing the obvious and building one interface for the combined drive, docs, gmail product. (Sorry, KM). I’m still disappointed in them for not giving away hardware and killing Microsoft Windows in the enterprise while it’s so vulnerable. (Question, would you prefer to upgrade to Windows 8 or Chrome OS if I give you the hardware, management is all through the cloud, devices plugin to ethernet and LCD and you can start a new employee on the desktop you want them to have a in a few minutes. Oh, a native-backed Office clone is builtin and free with your GA account?)

  73. Tom Allen

    We tried to use Drive for our startup, but were constantly irritated by tiny little things. The most annoying being that new files and folders aren’t shown by default to the whole organisation, or synched to your local computer. There’s no option to change this – there’s an option to make them *accessible* by default to the whole org (i.e. you can search for them if you psychically know they’re there), but not *visible*. We had a whole bunch of “but I swear I added that file!” discussions and a few “but I swear I checked the visible to the whole organisation checkbox” discussions too before we realised this just wasn’t supported.

  74. Elia Freedman

    I prefer Dropbox to Drive. Dropbox has screwed me a lot less often so far.

    1. andyidsinga

      oh – do tell more 🙂

      1. Elia Freedman

        You’ll have to ready my blog post tomorrow… 😉

        1. andyidsinga

          Will do 🙂

  75. Dorian Benkoil

    Drive has greater promise, but today Dropbox does it for me. I can very easily store and share,drag things in and sync easily — the thought process (for me, an assistant, clients, others) is so minimal with Dropbox as to make it not even a thought process. Drive, on the other hand, like some other Google products, takes longer to figure out and is harder to use for many.

  76. Guest

    After using both, I personally prefer DropBox for ease of use in my work scenarios. Also – While I get the advantages of drive, this is one of the cases that I feel I owe Dropbox a lot for the long time I’ve been using them. Drive will have to be really compelling to make me make the effort to change sides.

  77. SDB

    Fred would like to see you take on Twitter basing their platform on Gimbal….

    1. fredwilson

      huh?

  78. Adham AbdelFattah

    Google Drive is better and more browser enabled which makes life easier editing and viewing docs. It’s also way cheaper! I use SkyDrive as well coz it’s super cheap and I can store large files I don’t use that much

  79. Andrew Burton

    Why limit yourself? Want the option of using the cloud or just sync’ing between your devices without it? Want the option of sync’ing folders in place? Want the option of creating multiple things to sync and/or share? Looking for something secure? As the SVP of Products at LogMeIn I’m clearly biased, but I’d ask you to consider Cubby – https://www.cubby.com. These are but some of the reasons we’ve built it. It’s still early, but check it out. It’s free to try, and anybody can sign-up. And I’d love to hear from the community on what you think. Best.

  80. Scott Barnett

    I’m very late to the game here, but the tiebreaker for me was my Dad’s experience – he’s not very tech savvy, but trying. I finally got him to share photos and videos on Dropbox – but the problem is, the other family members that are sharing this particular folder keep deleting the files because they eat up too much of their 2 GB space. So we switched to Drive and it’s working like a champ. My Dad can specify some files read-only, so they can’t be deleted. And stuff he wants to be able to make collaborative, he can do that too. It took him no time to get it working. So, I vote Drive…. although I do love Dropbox!

  81. Blacknox

    I just moved to Drive. Here’s the post I wrote about my decision to move from DropBox to Google Drive: http://clickbrain.com/2012/

  82. Christian 

    for sure the most important future to me is the mac integration (better then Drive) along with the ability to make 1-right-click link (dropbox GETLINK) in Drive this is still old fashion and you have to pass to web version and sharing option. I use both to have more free space 😉

  83. Edoardo Moreni

    As I said on what bijan wrote, I do prefer Dropbox because it perfectly fits on Ubuntu. Further I am going to use Dropbox for two simple reasons. They started first without copying another project. Drew Houston impressed me during an e-corner stanford talk which he gave two months ago.

  84. ayah

    Drive is by far an inferior product. We used dropbox for teams since we launched the company as our company server for littleBits. But when drive came out, and the prices per person were far cheaper (dropbox for teams is 125usd per person per year, drive is 5usd per person per month), we switched to drive. We spent over a month in transition, and really wanted to make it work. The drive app is very slow to sync, it crashes frequently, it behaves differently on the web versus on the app. Also you cannot set permissions within folders in any meaningful way, and worst of all, “edit” and “delete” privileges are merged into one, which means any person that can add new files, can also wipe out your company drive entirely! I spent countless hours with Google employees on the phone and they dont budge. Anyways, I decided to move back to dropbox, and we’re transitioning back next week. Their commitment to a better product is worth the extra money

    1. William Mougayar

      That’s a pretty good analysis Ayah. Tough to argue with it.

  85. Abdallah Al-Hakim

    I read today about Groupiter which is a soon to be released extension to dropbox that allows comments to be attached when sharing files http://news.cnet.com/8301-3… Another reason Dropbox is better than GoogleDrive (at least until the extension is made to work for google drive 🙂

  86. Shawn Cohen

    I agree–in addition to security and syncing, Drive cuts out at least 3 steps that are mandatory w/ Dropbox.

  87. ShanaC

    +1

  88. leigh

    LOL +1

  89. fredwilson

    blog comments are hard to summarize quickly

  90. kidmercury

    definitely siding with charlie in this beef. only a non-commercial entity can aspire to being platform agnostic — even then it may not occur.

  91. goldwerger

    I agree that non-commercial is one more step removed that is invaluable. Though the risk that funding may run out longer run.My point on this one is that Dropbox’s strategy itself is based on interoperability across platforms, and it does not have another business (search, email, computers, mobile, content) to which it needs to hook the drive business as a corollary.i.e., the drive is its core business, and it’s ubiquity across ecosystems is it’s core differentiator and value proposition anchor.

  92. kidmercury

    they all start that way — google was one just a search engine. they start that way because they need other platforms to leech off. but as they grow, which they will need to pursue to satisfy shareholders and defend market share, they will need to turn into a platform of their own. that is when they enter the platform wars. as a user, the only question is whether you want to join them on this journey.

  93. panterosa,

    I love Evernote for the many things you mention – including pictures. Image management is a pain and I’m just at the thin end of the wedge on that. But Evernote works well to keep track of where it all comes from.Dropbox is for my produced content and final imagery, and Evernote for the notes and so on which go into making things.

  94. scottythebody

    I love Evernote, too, but I feel like their client apps always have way too much friction. My main reasons for loving them is that my notes and clips are available everywhere and on many devices and the sync works almost every time.But the drag is that their client application for Mac and Windows SUCKS. It confuses me more than it helps me.Regardless, I’m a happy paying customer — it’s just too useful — especially for travel and things like that. I come across articles, deals, web sites, etc. etc. and clip them into Evernote over time. When it comes time to go to, say, Sorrento, I just search Evernote for that, drag those into a new “offline” Notebook and I have a bunch of useful information with me on my phone or iPad when I arrive there without needing to get on wifi or find a SIM first.

  95. fredwilson

    i should have.

  96. goldwerger

    That’s true.But it also has to do, for me, with which war they are looking to win.For example, Google’s search business was based on the fundamental differentiation that people searching don’t want to stay on a destination, but want to leave the search engine fast as they can to find what they are looking for. That has remained true, even as Google itself has evolved and stuck together lots of other stuff that it tries to force into its ecosystem, like Google+, and now Google Drive. So its corollary components are in the service of its core business (search), to help build traffic, lock in data, etc.Dropbox is based on the fundamental differentiation that people want access to their files from any place/device/platform. That, in my opinion, may remain true much as Google’s search premise has, even as they too evolve and stick together other corollary components to bring more users back to this core product.Of course, I may be wrong… it’s all a risk and there are no guarantees :)But I prefer to take a risk today with the service provider that has agnostics in the very definition of its current value proposition vs. one that is plainly starting with fences.And worst case, I will switch in the future if I see them deviate to the next in line…;)

  97. fredwilson

    i asked drew for it today

  98. falicon

    I wonder how a hashtag system could work for this? Give the users a set of hashtags they can throw into a comment to ‘officially’ vote for something…easy enough to detect/count/summarize on that, and allows for additional conversation and details to be added to any ‘vote’…a win on every level 🙂

  99. Dale Allyn

    Good call. Spelling will count, so not completely fool proof, but a cool solution. AJAX could refresh a display widget as comments post. 😉

  100. fredwilson

    if i had some sort of app that could read all the comments and add them up, that would workcool idea

  101. Donna Brewington White

    I like how your brain works.

  102. Riaz Kanani

    didnt know that – thanks

  103. Mozzo Analytics

    Doable. We actually started there, but the use cases are somewhat infrequent. Summarizing eMail and presenting meaningful output is a different story.