Cloud file storage and sharing

Cloud file storage services keep a team's work files online, sync them to computers and phones, and share them with colleagues and people outside the company through links and shared folders. Small businesses, agencies and departments use them in place of a file server or email attachments. They differ in how storage is counted (a pool for the team, a fixed amount per person, or unlimited), whether they come on their own or inside an office suite with email and documents, which plan carries link passwords, single sign-on or a HIPAA agreement, and how long deleted files can be recovered. This category covers business file storage; storage APIs for developers are in Object storage.

We compare them on the same six indicators, read from each vendor's pricing, trust, legal and help center pages:

• Pricing clarity: whether the plan you need has a published price, can be bought online and month to month, and whether the pages leave prices out or contradict each other.
• Free plan and trial: the storage a free plan gives at sign-up, the length of the business trial and whether it needs a card.
• Price for 10 users: the monthly cost for 10 users with 2 TB of work files in all, on the cheapest business plan whose storage covers it, billed annually, with the arithmetic shown; 0 when the pages cannot price it.
• Sharing controls and recovery: password-protected and expiring links, view-only sharing that blocks downloads, file request links, and how long deleted files can be restored.
• Compliance and data residency: the vendor's own SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001, a HIPAA agreement, and storing files in the EU.
• Admin and security controls: single sign-on, an admin activity log, remote wipe of devices, team-wide policies on external sharing and a documented API.

Sync speed, upload speed and uptime depend on networks and devices, so we do not score them. Each review says which pages it was written from and when. Where we have run a product hands-on, the evidence is on its page.