Box vs. IBM Cloud Object Storage

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Box
Score 7.2 out of 10
N/A
Box is an online Intelligent Content Management solution that caters to individual users as well as businesses.
$7
per month per user (3 minimum)
IBM Cloud Object Storage
Score 7.1 out of 10
N/A
IBM Cloud Object Storage is an IBM Cloud product in the endpoint backup and IaaS categories. It is commonly used for data archiving and backup, for web and mobile applications, and as scalable, persistent storage for analytics.
$5,000,000,000
per month
Pricing
BoxIBM Cloud Object Storage
Editions & Modules
Business Starter
$7
per month per user (3 minimum)
Business
$20
per month per user (3 minimum)
Business Plus
$33
per month per user (3 minimum)
Enterprise
$47
per month per user (3 minimum)
Enterprise Plus
$50
per month (billed annually) per user (3 minimum)
Enterprise Advanced
Contact us
per month per user (35 minimum)
One-Rate Plan
As low as USD $12/TB a month
per month
Standard Plan
Free up to 5GB—no minimum fee, pay only for what you use
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BoxIBM Cloud Object Storage
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalOptional
Additional DetailsA discount is available for annual pricing.The One-Rate and Standard service plans for Cloud Object Storage include resiliency options, flexible data classes and built-in security. Pricing is based on the choice of location, storage class and resiliency choice.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BoxIBM Cloud Object Storage
Features
BoxIBM Cloud Object Storage
Enterprise Content Management
Comparison of Enterprise Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Box
6.1
Ratings
26% below category average
IBM Cloud Object Storage
-
Ratings
Content capture & imaging8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
File sync, storage & archiving9.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Document management6.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Records management5.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Content search & retrieval7.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Enterprise content collaboration8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Content publishing & creation5.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Security, risk management & information governance6.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Contract lifecycle management5.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Automated workflows5.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Artificial intelligence2.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile support3.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
Box
-
Ratings
IBM Cloud Object Storage
7.9
Ratings
2% below category average
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime00 Ratings8.10 Ratings
Dynamic scaling00 Ratings7.50 Ratings
Elastic load balancing00 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Monitoring tools00 Ratings7.40 Ratings
Security controls00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
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BoxIBM Cloud Object Storage
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User Ratings
BoxIBM Cloud Object Storage
Likelihood to Recommend
6.8
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Usability
6.8
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.5
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
5.8
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BoxIBM Cloud Object Storage
Likelihood to Recommend
Very likely to use it. It gives you the comfort that all the files are being stored in [the] same places from different team members. It is easy to organize in folders and also very useful by adding time stamps. [With] an easy setup u can have and box extension installed on your laptop and use it directly. So you can sync files easily.
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IBM Cloud Object Storage is well suited for businesses that require scalable and cost-effective data storage solutions. It excels in scenarios involving massive unstructured data, like multimedia content, backups, and archives. However, it may be less appropriate for organizations with minimal storage needs or those requiring high-performance, low-latency access to data, as it's optimized for durability and data integrity rather than real-time data retrieval.
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Pros
  • The main feature that I like the most in Box is that it makes collaboration seamless, workers can easily check the documents any time and make changes according to the needs.
  • Box manages and backs up all of your files on its cloud servers, and provides a very nice interface for creating, viewing, editing, and collaborating on the most commonly used file types (PDF, XLS, DOC, etc.).
  • Over the past few years, Box has built on top of its basic cloud storage management with a host of other tools, such as workflows, AI, monitoring, and analytics.
  • It is helping us to make good connections with clients and our workers themselves as to its syncing and viewing feature to all is very much helpful and easy to go.
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  • Cloud storage allows you to save data and files in an off-site location that you access either through the public internet or a dedicated private network connection.
  • Cloud storage delivers a cost-effective, scalable alternative to storing files on on-premise hard drives or storage networks.
  • Cloud storage services provide elasticity, which means you can scale capacity as your data volumes increase or dial down capacity if necessary.
  • Business continuity of Storing data offsite supports business continuity in the event that a natural disaster or terrorist attack cuts access to your premises.
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Cons
  • The graphic design of the dashboard should be simpler and more tangible that can be changed to the liking of the Admin.
  • Sometimes there are some syncing issues in the background.
  • The product has very limited functionality in some areas which could be a bit frustrating at times.
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  • Unexpected errors are known to occur when downloading/uploading files.
  • Not easy to get started. In order to take full advantage of the platform and its features, additional training and reading documentation is needed.
  • The UI of the platform can get a bit confusing and it's easy to get lost.
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Likelihood to Renew
As I've stated Box is very easy to use and to set up. The documentation provided by Box is easy to follow and the interface is designed in a way that makes sense. With only a few limitations on the administrator side the system is fully capable to get the job done for our company
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because it is a robust, safe and flexible product
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Usability
I think I can only describe it as excellent. All aspects of Box work without problem, quickly and efficiently. The file upload and download systems are quite fast, the process of access from different platforms is carried out without problems, so far no document has been generated in conflicts or unexpected copies, or any type of error.
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For my use cases, it has been a very smooth experience. Even my new colleagues have been able to get on top of things very quickly. This shows how easy it is to work with
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Reliability and Availability
Yeah, it's always worked, I've never had any kind of connection issues, the only issues I've had it I've been on our end when the Internet hasn't worked.
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We rarely face downtime or access issues with IBM Cloud Object Storage. It’s mostly available when we need it, even during peak hours or heavy data loads.
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Performance
It's performance is great. Everything loads as soon as you open a page. The same goes for the local file application, if is just like going through folders on a native "My Computer" or "Finder" folder. The integration into other softwares is also fantastic, as Box keeps them all running smoothly and quickly
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I would give it a 9 because it works smooth with our AI and analytics tools, no major slowdown. Pages and dashboards load fine most of the time, and reports finish in decent time even when data is heavy.
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Support Rating
I found their support community lacking in clarity when I experienced a login issue. The error messaging was poor on my Box Sync application. I did not reach out to support staff for help, instead, I reasoned that I should try downloading the Box Sync application again and reinstall it. That fixed my issue, thankfully. I think a less computer-savvy user would've been much more frustrated.
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I have been working in IT sector for more than 15 years. I have worked with various vendors. IBM's sales team, support team have been really helpful. After we start to use their product, their UX design team also contacted us to get feedback from us. They are really interested about our experience.
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In-Person Training
The in person training was done in house and I helped with the training, people seem to respond well.
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No answers on this topic
Online Training
The documentation is good. Since Box is a popular service, there were also a number of YouTube videos and other sources that were helpful as we were considering the product and planning for deployment. Also, the ability to try the free version helped to prepare us.
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I just researching and applying the tools on their platforms to ensure a good learning path, based on my needs. Reading the documentation related with resources, tools. Is too big, but I am trying to know more about it every day. It is a good way to know more about their resources. A new way to attract new customers. At the end of the day, we are all involved in improvement and automation of our tasks and resources for customers and end-users.
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Implementation Rating
Be careful with settings. It is easy to get overwhelmed with updates. For example, you don’t want to be updated when doing historical data uploads. I recommend taking off notifications initially and then turn on post you have done your historical data upload.
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IBM's professional service for migrating data and implementing new cloud environment was perfect. They started to help us before we begin to bring together all data such as how can it could be best to transfer all data without problems. During the migration they watched all the process closely to prevent any failure. Lastly, after the migration, they gave us trainings on implementation.
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Alternatives Considered
I slightly prefer Box over Dropbox, especially if I need to store and manage thousands of files. Dropbox online file management was not as easy to navigate as Box. However, Dropbox also has a similar cloud sync feature that worked similar to Box and was pretty comparable to the Box feature. The main reason my team switched to Box was because our organization provided it at no cost to our team, whereas for Dropbox we had to use our own research grant money to pay for it.
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As Google Cloud Storage is our main product for this kind of thing, it remains the standard but in terms of overall performance, flexibility, stability, durability, and scalability, IBM Cloud Object Storage has put it through its paces. I think having a product put Google through its paces is always a good thing, both for businesses and for the industry overall.
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Scalability
It's great, as we put more files on there it's done very well.
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Scaling up the number of users can lead to significant increases in licensing costs, which, while not a technical limitation, can be a practical constraint for some organizations
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Return on Investment
  • Box has been an only positive experience. It provides a seamless way for me and my team to collaborate on documents in such a way where we're not sending the document back/forth via email. It's a huge timesaver.
  • Box reduces the risk of sharing a sensitive document to the wrong person via email.
  • Box has provided a platform where my team can share notes in meetings - this has helped streamline and organize our meetings. Our meetings are more productive and actionable.
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  • In our company, we moved from on-premise to IBM cloud, our ElasticSearch Solution storage in block storage to an ICD elastic search solution with Object storage, and we reduced our cost by more than 45%.
  • Object Storage is a managed service, so you can have savings in your storage-managed team.
  • We have improved our data availability because the Regional solution of COS is distributed in three different Availability Zones.
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ScreenShots

Box Screenshots

Screenshot of an overview of Box's intelligent content management platform. It provides a unified, AI-powered approach to managing and securing your unstructured data, or content. ICM provides organizations with collaboration, AI, security, compliance, and workflow tools, interoperable and customizable, to get the most from their content.Screenshot of how with Box AI, AI can be accessed right where enterprise content exists. While that work can reside within Microsoft, Google, Apple, and other productivity suites, Box helps users to tap the full potential of AI for unstructured data.Screenshot of how Box creates a central workspace to edit, review, and assign tasks. Users can automate business processes and centralize content workflows in Box, including a configurable content submission, unlimited e-signatures, user-drive no-code workflow, and task assignment to power approvals.Screenshot of how Box secures content from threats, including malware and ransomware, and recover from attacks if they happen. This helps to maintain a zero trust architecture to ensure proper usage of corporate data, and prevent data theft.Screenshot of how Box can connect to any productivity suite, including Microsoft, Google, and Apple. This extends any existing security investments with integrations into key DLP, SIEM, and network security tools. Thus, seamless experiences can be built for users in any system they use, whether that’s a business tool like Salesforce or ServiceNow, or communications engines like Zoom and Slack.Screenshot of an overview describing Box's scalability. With unlimited storage capabilities Box has an exabyte (1,000PB) of customer data plus 1 gigabit per second upload and download speed. At its core, Box is a multi-tenant global SaaS platform with enterprise-grade reliability and end-to-end encryption to secure content.

IBM Cloud Object Storage Screenshots

Screenshot of Cloud Object Storage set upScreenshot of storage bucket creationScreenshot of the Access Management interfaceScreenshot of the interface to create, add and management of Storage BucketsScreenshot of data uploadingScreenshot of usage details