MultCloud Review
Though not as versatile as some of its competitors, MultCloud is a great set-it-and-forget-it multi-cloud management tool that combines a decent price with a friendly interface. Read our full MultCloud review for the details.
Multi-cloud management might be one of the next big things in cloud storage, although as it stands right now, the pickings are pretty slim. If moving files from one cloud drive to another is your main concern, MultCloud is one of the best options available right now, at least until a more sophisticated tool comes along.
Great for cloud-to-cloud transfer, cloud-to-cloud backup and cloud-to-cloud sync, MultCloud is otherwise a pretty limited tool when it comes to juggling multiple cloud drives. Unlike Otixo (read our Otixo review) MultCloud doesn’t have any desktop or mobile apps; it’s entirely web-based. While you can share files with MultCloud, it isn’t a terrific productivity tool, either.
Still, for those looking to create set-and-forget relationships between their cloud services, MultCloud gets the job done and supports many of the best cloud storage services, too.
Over the course of this MultCloud review, we’ll talk about what some of those services are, look at MultCloud’s full feature set, talk pricing and walk you through the user experience.
Alternatives for MultCloud
Strengths & Weaknesses
Strengths:
- Cloud-to-cloud sync
- Cloud-to-cloud backup
Weaknesses:
- No desktop or mobile apps
- Limit file previewing
- No file encryption option
Features
MultCloud specializes in cloud-to-cloud file transfers, allowing you to perform one time file migrations or create automated backup and sync relationships between services. See below to find out what cloud storage services can be integrated.
The process is managed entirely via a web interface. There’s no desktop client available, but cloud-to-cloud processes you’ve set up still take place whether you’re logged in or not. Somewhat surprisingly, MultCloud doesn’t have apps for Android or iOS either.
Whether you’ve set up a one-way or two-way sync relationship, you can let that process run continuously or put it on a schedule to conserve bandwidth (if you’re a subscriber), which is useful for running large migrations overnight. One-way syncs used for backup can also be set to run incrementally.
MultCloud can perform multiple file copies simultaneously. For subscribers, up to 10 such processes can run at once. For free users, you’re limited to two. Additionally, paying users can establish one-way syncs to multiple cloud destinations.
MultCloud Sharing
MultCloud lets you share and preview files stored in any connected cloud drive, too, but both features are pretty limited. For example, there’s no way to attach expiry dates to file sharing links, and you can’t preview Microsoft Office or Google Docs files.
Aside from feature misses, along with no desktop and mobile apps, the big one for most users will probably be the lack of two-factor authentication and private encryption, which we’ll discuss more when we talk security later.
That’s really all there is for feature highlights. Let’s see how much it all costs.
Pricing
There are two plan options with MultCloud: a free version and MultCloud Premium.
| |
Monthly Cost
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Quarterly Cost
| $ 6.66/ month $19.99 |
Annual Cost
| 1-year plan $ 5.83/ month $69.99 billed every year |
The free version of MultCloud isn’t a trial, meaning it’s good for life. However, it’s capabilities and features are limited, making it only really suitable for SOHO use. Limitations include a 2TB cap on monthly transfers, only two threads max for file copying, fewer one-way sync options and less responsive customer support. You also can’t schedule file movement on a free account.
SMBs and larger businesses with multiple cloud repositories and a lot of data to work with will want to go with MultCloud Premium, which removes the monthly bandwidth cap and runs up to 10 threads at once.
The cost of service, overall, is pretty good. Mover.io, for example, costs $20 per user per month and you only get 20GB of transfer bandwidth, which is a pretty terrible deal in comparison. Although, Mover is also more specifically for one-time migrations rather than ongoing syncs.
Supported Clouds & Protocols
MultCloud may be a mostly capable tool but that only matters if it supports your cloud drive of choice. Thankfully, the list includes around 30 cloud options at the time of this writing. Those options include some of our favorite providers, including pCloud and Egnyte Connect, as well as the big three in Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive.
| Google Drive | Dropbox | Dropbox Business | Egnyte Connect |
| OneDrive | OneDrive for Business | Amazon Drive | Amazon S3 |
| Box | pCloud | MediaFire | ADrive |
| Hubic | SugarSync | HiDrive | Backblaze B2 |
| CloudMe | OwnCloud | MEGA | Yandex.Disk |
Amazon S3 and Backblaze B2 are the only cloud infrastructure services supported of note; Azure, Google Cloud and Rackspace Cloud Files aren’t on the list. However, MultCloud does support FTP and WebDAV, which expands the possibilities considerably.
Google Photos and Flickr inclusions will let you backup your photos, while that of Evernote, our pick for best note-taking app, will let you backup and sync your research notes to another cloud service.
OwnCloud, for those building a personal cloud storage network, is a nice addition as well.
User Experience
MultCloud operates through a browser-based UI that you can log into once you create an account. The interface doesn’t look like much, but it doesn’t need to. The home screen is a “cloud explorer” that shows the cloud accounts you have connected, how much data you have stored in each and how much space you have remaining.
Before you can see all of that, of course, you’ll need to connect your cloud storage accounts to MultCloud. Thankfully, there’s not much to it.
Click the “add cloud drives” button near the top-right corner. This will cause the central pane to populate with all of the cloud services supported by MultCloud.
To add a cloud service, click on its icon to “check” it.
Hit “next,” and the following page will have you connect the cloud service using your login credentials for it.
Once you’ve granted permission for the MultCloud software to pull data from your cloud storage service, it’ll appear on the left-side margin of the cloud explorer. Clicking on any cloud service listed there will let you access folders and files stored within it.
You can also add files to your cloud provider directly from MultCloud by clicking the “upload” button. The interface supports drag-and-drop, letting you add multiple files and folders at once.
If you’re adding a large amount of data, the interface will keep you apprised of its progress, and you can go about your work. With MultCloud Premium, transfers should happen faster than with the free version since you’ll get 10 threads running concurrently to transfer data.
While that’s a nice advantage, we wish MultCloud had a desktop client. Without one, you have to leave the MultCloud browser open or the process will halt.
One-Time Cloud-to-Cloud Transfers
To perform a one-time transfer from one cloud drive to another, click the “cloud transfer” link near the top of the interface. On the page that opens, select your source and destination clouds.
You can transfer both folders and files. In fact, you can transfer everything in your cloud storage account at once if you’d like, which is useful for performing migrations from one service to another.
Under “options,” you can tell MultCloud to only overwrite duplicate files in the destination folder if they’re older, tell it to delete the source file once the transfer is complete, send notifications after the task is complete and setup file type exclusions if you don’t want to transfer everything in a folder.
You can also schedule a transfer to take place at a later time.
One-Way and Two-Way Sync
To set up a cloud-to-cloud backup (one-way sync) or two-way sync system, click on “cloud sync” instead of cloud transfer. As with transfers, you’ll need to pick a source cloud and a destination cloud, and you’re able to select specific folders for each.
In addition to choosing your source and destination, you’ll need to give the process a name, then select whether you want a one-way or two-way sync relationship.
If you’re setting up one-way sync, under options there are several different types of one-way sync you can choose between:
- Simple Sync: added, edited and deleted files in source will be replicated in destination
- Mirror Sync: files in source and destination are always identical; extra files in destination will be deleted
- Cumulative Sync: deleted files in source will not be deleted in destination
- Update Sync: files in the destination will be deleted, then added/edited files in source will be copied to the destination
- Incremental Backup: on each sync, a subdirectory will be created in the destination where added/edited files from the source will be copied
- Full Backup: on each sync, a subdirectory will be created in the destination where all files from the source will be copied
One-way and two-way sync can be scheduled, too, with options to run daily, weekly or monthly. If not scheduled, file copies will run in near-real time, providing continuous sync or backup.
In addition to moving files, the cloud explorer also lets you create folders and download, delete and copy files. You can preview certain file types in MultCloud, too, including .pdf, .txt and image files, but not Microsoft Office or Google Docs files.
To find files quickly, use the search feature. You can scan for files by keyword, with both general search and quick search options available (quick search runs faster, but not all providers support this feature).
The MultCloud explorer lets you share files, as well, whether by using file links, providing access by email or by posting content to supported social media networks (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest and Linkedin).
When generating links, you can create a public link that anybody can use or a private link with a password. However, passwords are automatically generated and only four characters long. Also, there’s no option to set up automatic link expiration like you can with some of the more secure cloud storage services, like Sync.com and pCloud.
Right-clicking on any file or folder in the cloud explorer and selecting “go to official site” will take you directly to your cloud storage account, which is useful if you need to use Google Docs or another integrated application to edit a file.
Overall, the cloud explorer is useful for gathering all of your cloud storage solutions in one place for ease of access, and it’s easy to set up as well. However, the real user benefit of MultCloud lies in its cloud-to-cloud features.
Security
MultCloud encrypts files being copied between cloud drives using SSL encryption with 256-bit AES. That should be plenty of protection against online eavesdropping attempts like man-in-the-middle attacks.
MultCloud doesn’t, unfortunately, provide a means of encrypting files uploaded to your cloud drives, though. Private, end-to-end encryption would go a long way toward securing otherwise leaky cloud services, particularly those that insist on managing your encryption keys for you, or, worse, those that don’t encrypt files at rest. If that’s a need, look to Boxcryptor.
Another security miss is two-factor authentication (2FA). 2FA is a means of limiting the potential damage caused by a stolen password by requiring an additional security code, usually sent to your mobile device when logging in from an unfamiliar machine.
Support
Multcloud provides a support center, or online knowledgebase, where you can find answers to many of the more common questions that might come up. The center includes tutorials and an FAQ page.
One thing we noticed right away is that the support center doesn’t provide any search capabilities to find articles more quickly. The tutorial portal isn’t very well organized, either, with articles listed haphazardly under three broad categories: cloud transfer, cloud sync and cloud explorer.
While there are pages and pages of tutorial articles available, without an easy way to find what you want, MultCloud’s support center will likely provide more frustration than answers.
If you need direct support, you’ve got one avenue with MultCloud: email support. Paying users receive higher priority responses but no alternate means of contact, such as live chat or telephone support.
We fired off a test email to MultCloud to gauge support response time and received a response in about 48 hours. Not exactly a great turnaround but not the worst we’ve seen, either.
Final Thoughts
MultCloud works like a charm for setting automated file-management relationships between your cloud storage services. Its free account is great for home use, while MultCloud Premium is worth the cost, even though we wish it came with desktop and mobile clients, two-factor authentication, an option for private, end-to-end encryption and better collaboration features.
We also love the fact that MultCloud Supports pCloud and Egnyte Connect, two CommQueR.com favorites that you can learn about in separate reviews:
Are you a MultCloud fan, or do you think it needs a little more time in development? Let us know your thoughts below and thanks for reading.
A technophile with a love for words, Joseph Gildred utilizes his degree in comparative literature and background as an information technology analyst to ponder the future of human ingenuity. Not one to sit still for too long, Joseph joined the team because cloud technology and hopping from place to place go hand in hand. He has roots in Belgrade, Maine.