Best Cloud Storage for Teams 2020: Group Work the Easy Way

Working with others on a complex project can be demanding, especially if you need to share files and collaborate in real time. However, you can make it less challenging by using one of the best cloud storage options for teams. 

A great example of this type of service is Egnyte Connect, but as you’ll see in this article, other online cloud storage services for teams are right on its heels. Another good option is Slack, and you can see which services use it in our best cloud storage for Slack roundup. 

You can learn more about how the best cloud storage works small teams in our article about cloud storage and collaboration. If you’re looking for the best cloud storage for pictures, you should consult our article about the best online storage for photos. 

For multiple business users, you’re in the right place. However, note that services on this list can’t qualify as the best free cloud storage for teams because they don’t offer such plans.

That said, we’ve chosen the providers in this roundup from our list of the best EFSS services and from our online storage price comparison. Before we get to the list — and the winner, Egnyte Connect — we’re going to define the criteria we used to rank the services.

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Best Cloud Storage for Teams 2020

What Makes the Best Cloud Storage for Teams

Having a team of people is expensive, so we’re going to make sure you don’t add any unnecessary costs. That’s why we’ll look at how expensive the subscription plans are, how much space they offer — ideally, providing separate storage for each user — and how many plans. The more plans, the better the chance of finding one that suits your needs.

Sharing files and folders is important when collaborating in a team environment. Services need to be able to share files and folders quickly and easily. On top of that, content control options — such as password protection, link expiration, download disablement and permissions when sharing folders — are necessary.

Before you can share your files, you first need to get them into the cloud. That’s where sync comes in. It should be easy to transfer your files; fast, so your work doesn’t suffer; and able to utilize advanced sync features, such as selective sync and syncing any folder. How fast it is will depend on your internet service provider and how close you are to a server.

Lastly, its cloud security should be strong enough to make any fears about keeping data in the cloud unfounded. To do that, services should at least employ encryption, preferably zero-knowledge, in-transit protection and two-factor authentication, which protects your login credentials. Plus, the data centers that hold your files should be hardened.

Egnyte Connect

It’s not a big surprise that Egnyte Connect takes this list’s top spot because it is also the winner of our best EFSS roundup and our pick as the best cloud storage for teams. 

If you have one to three users, you will have to subscribe to Egnyte’s Team plan. It’s $10 per user per month, and it provides 1TB of storage, which is a great offer.

You can subscribe to Egnyte’s Office plan if you have five to 25 users. It provides 5TB of online storage for $8 per user per month. If you need more users, the Business plan will meet your needs because it supports 25 to 100 users. It provides 10TB of storage $20 per user per month.

The Enterprise plan can have more than 100 users and doesn’t limit your storage. In fact, the storage scales with your needs. For this offer, though, you will have to contact Egnyte for a quote.

To share a folder using Egnyte, you can invite others and give them one of several permissions: “owner,” “full,” “editor” and “viewer.”

You can also share content by generating links, which you can then restrict to “anyone,” “anyone with a password,” your users or anyone you email the link to. Plus, you can make the link expire on a specific date, protect it with a password, disable download and get a notification when the link is clicked.

Another option is to generate an upload link so others can save content to your cloud space. There’s also a page that shows your shared links and links others have shared with you.

Other Reasons We Like Egnyte Connect

Cloud services usually provide a sync folder, but Egnyte Connect uses a network drive folder. This lets you access your cloud content without taking up space on your hard disk, but that means you need to be online to access your files. 

That said, you can tag files for offline use if you’re going off the grid. On the other hand, you can also use selective sync to mark only specific files in your sync folder that you want to store in the cloud.

We used a 1GB zipped folder to test Egnyte’s sync speeds, and the transfer took exactly the time we expected. However, Egnyte doesn’t use a block-level sync algorithm, which would speed up transfers after the initial one by uploading only the changed portions of files.

Egnyte uses the TLS protocol to protect your files in transit and AES 256-bit encryption to scramble them, and it also classifies as a zero-knowledge service thanks to its Egnyte Key Management feature. You can also mandate minimum password strength and length, as well as customize the login policy. Plus, two-factor authentication is available to protect your credentials.

Egnyte’s data centers employ 24-hour surveillance, access controls and redundancy, and they are hardened against natural disasters, such as earthquakes and fires. That said, Egnyte lets you keep data on your servers, too, which means you can enjoy the benefits of a hybrid cloud. Last, but not least, Egnyte lets you cut off devices from sync and wipe all cloud data from them. 

We place Egnyte Connect as our top pick thanks to its good value, great security, capable sync and rich sharing features. If you want to learn more about Egnyte’s other features, read our Egnyte Connect review.

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OneDrive for Business

OneDrive for Business comes from Microsoft, and it’s one of the most popular solutions on the market. That’s in large part thanks to its great value.

Unlike many other business services, OneDrive for Business provides separate storage space for each user. Plus, it has seven plans that you can choose from, which provide a better chance that you will find a match. Notable plans include Plan One, Plan Two and Business Premium.

OneDrive for Business Plan One is $60 per year per user and gets you 1TB of space for each user. Plan Two is $120 per year per user and provides each user with unlimited storage space. If you need to use Office 365 and other Microsoft features, you can subscribe to the Office 365 Business Premium, which is $15 per month per user, or $150 if you pay for a year.

OneDrive for Business lets you share content with others by generating a link or email. If you share a link, you can set it to expire after a number of days, restrict access to certain users and password protect it. You can also disable editing and restrict the link so it works only with specific people, people in your organization or those with existing access.

Other Reasons Why We Like OneDrive for Business

We tested OneDrive’s sync using our 1GB zipped folder, and we managed to upload it in about a minute more than we expected. OneDrive for Business even uses block-level sync, albeit only for Office files. However, that still beats services that don’t use it at all.

Another option that OneDrive boasts, but others don’t, is the ability to block the sync of certain file types. Microsoft’s team has also included selective sync, which means that by using both features, you can create a nice sync setup.

OneDrive also uses encryption to scramble your data: BitLocker at the disk level and AES 256-bit encryption at the file level. To protect your files in-transit, OneDrive uses the TLS protocol, and it redirects unauthenticated connections to HTTPS. 

You can set a password policy for your employees, but the only possible configuration is password expiration. That said, passwords need to be at least eight characters long and meet strength conditions, such as having a number, a symbol, and uppercase and lowercase letters. Plus, two-factor authentication is available to protect your credentials.

OneDrive for Business is a great service for teams because of its excellent value, security, unique sync feature and block-level sync. It’s not as good as Egnyte Connect for sharing, which is why it’s in second place. If you want to know more about this service, read our OneDrive for Business review.

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Box

Box is a service that’s popular with small and big businesses alike, which makes it a suitable candidate for teams.

You can subscribe to one of four Box plans, depending on the size of your team: Box Starter, Box Business, Box Business Plus and Enterprise. The Starter plan requires a minimum of three users and caps the maximum at 10. All other plans start at five users and don’t have an upper limit. Plus, they all provide a discount if you pay for a year in advance.

The Starter plan gets you just 100GB for $5.80 per month per user, but it might be sufficient for some smaller teams. The Business plan, though, provides unlimited storage for $17.30 per month per user.

The Business Plus plan also provides unlimited storage but offers additional features for $28.70 per month per user. Similarly, the Enterprise plan adds compliance and other features, but you’ll need to contact Box for the price.

You can share content by inviting others and giving them permissions, or by generating a link and sending it. Regardless of the method, if you invite people, you can give them “editor” or “viewer” permissions. 

In addition, when sharing folders, you can choose to set one of five additional levels of permission: “co-owner,” “viewer uploader,” “preview uploader,” “previewer” or “uploader.”

When generating a link, you can also secure it with a password, disable downloads, define a custom URL and set the link to expire on a specific date. However, there’s no page that shows your shares.

Other Reasons Why We Like Box

Box uses a sync folder to send your files to the cloud, and vice versa. If you think that storing files from the cloud might take too much of your hard disk space, you can use selective sync to mitigate that. You can also choose to remove files from your hard drive — making them “cloud-only” — by choosing to unsync them from the sync folder.

Box’s sync speeds were close to what we expected and compare well to other services. Plus, like many other EFSS services, it doesn’t use block-level sync.

Box protects your files in transit using the TLS protocol and uses AES 256-bit encryption to make your files unreadable when they are at rest in the data center. Plus, Box lets you use Box KeySafe to let you manage your encryption key, which means you can enjoy private encryption.

To help prevent account intrusions, Box provides two-factor authentication and custom password requirements.

You can use Box’s device pinning to cut any stolen or lost devices from sync and prevent future syncs. However, you will have to use the remote wipe feature to clear already synced content. For that, though, you’ll have to contact Box.

Box’s plans are expensive, to say the least, and there’s no page to audit shares. That said, Box has many upsides, including strong security, fast sync and more. You can get more details in our Box review.

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Dropbox Business

Dropbox is a household name in cloud storage, and its business version is no different. Similar to Egnyte Connect, it offers just three plans: Standard, Advanced and Enterprise. All require a minimum of three users. The Standard plan provides 3TB for $15 per month per user, or $12.50 per user if you pay for the year. 

For more storage, you can subscribe to the Advanced plan, which gets you unlimited storage for $25 per month per user. If you pay for a year in advance, the price drops to $20 per user. Enterprise also provides unlimited storage, plus additional features. You will have to contact Dropbox for the price, though.

Dropbox provides you with a shared “team folder” right from the start. All your users have access to it, but you can create other folders and invite people to access them. Once you do, you can give them either “can edit” or “can view” permissions.

In addition, you can generate share links for files and folders. You can restrict them to team members, users with the password or anyone with the link. Plus, you can disable download for the link or set it to expire on a certain date. If you want others to share with you, Dropbox lets you generate an upload link. To keep track of shares, there’s a page that shows all of them.

Other Reasons Why We Like Dropbox Business

Dropbox invented the common model of sync, so it’s a given that it does great in this category and it came first in our best cloud storage with sync piece. However, Dropbox enhances the standard approach by using “smart sync.” It lets you select files to store only in the cloud, but it still gives you the option to access them from the desktop app.

Dropbox’s sync took more time than we expected to upload our 1GB zipped test folder, but it wasn’t slow. That said, Dropbox supplies true block-level sync, so uploads after the initial one will be much faster.

On the security front, Dropbox uses AES 256-bit encryption to scramble your files at-rest and the TLS protocol to protect your files while in transit to its data centers. You can secure your account by using two-factor authentication and by tweaking the login policy, which lets you mandate password conditions, require password resets and more.

However, one of the downsides is the fact that Dropbox keeps your metadata in plain text. Note that this is a common practice, though, used for indexing and enhancing the user experience. Plus, Dropbox lets you remotely wipe a device, even just using the mobile app. For more information about Dropbox Business, read our Dropbox Business review.

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Tresorit

Tresorit is a service that focuses on advanced security, which in this case means it doesn’t come cheap. Still, it’s a great choice for teams that require the best security features.

Tresorit has only two plans that support more than one user: Business and Enterprise. The Business plan requires a minimum of two users and places a maximum limit at just nine users. It gets you 1TB of storage for $25 per month per user, or $20 per month per user if you pay for a year in advance. 

For more users, you can subscribe to the Enterprise plan, which goes up to 100 users, but requires a minimum of 10. It provides unlimited storage space for $30 per month per user, or $24 per month per user if you pay for a year up front.

Tresorit lets you share folders by generating a link or inviting users via email. In the email case, users will need to register for a Tresorit account. You can circumvent that requirement by sharing a folder as a link. Files can only be shared as links. 

In either case, you can protect links with a password, set an expiry date or place an access limit. When sharing folders, you can give three levels of permissions: “edit,” “read” and “read and modify.”

Tresorit supplies a page that lets you keep track of all the shares, and another view that shows all the people you’ve shared with.

Other Reasons We Like Tresorit

Tresorit doesn’t use a single sync folder, unlike other cloud storage services. Rather, it asks you to create individual folders called “tresors” to sync your files. Tresorit enables you to selectively sync specific files with your tresors. Plus, uploading our 1GB zipped file took the time we expected.

Chief among Tresorit’s security measures is private AES 256-bit encryption, which Tresorit provides by default. Plus, the TLS protocol protects your files in transit.

Two-factor authentication is available to protect your account from intrusions. In addition, Tresorit secures its data centers with 24/7 surveillance and biometric scanning, and it also adheres to the latest ISO standards. If you want to learn more about Tresorit’s extensive security features, read our Tresorit review.

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Final Thoughts

All these plans are suitable for teams, but we find Egnyte Connect to be the best thanks to its security features, capable sharing, good value and rich sync capabilities. That said, OneDrive for Business is close behind and might be a better offer depending on your use case. 

We can say the same for Box, except that it’s more expensive, as are Dropbox Business and Tresorit. If you think these services might be a better fit, we invite you to read their separate reviews and make use of their free trials to test them before committing.

Which service is the best for you? Let us know in the comments below. Thank you for reading.

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