Onedrive better then Dropbox?

[ghanwani]

Yes, kind of. As good as Dropbox may be, it is too expensive considering that Microsoft 365 offers cloud storage plus all Office apps for a little bit more than half of its price.

If your employer participates in Microsoft’s home user program (HUP) then you get 30% off, so it becomes more like $50 vs $120.

Of course the Microsoft 365 HUP is a lousy deal compared to getting the standalone Office for a one time $20 price.

I suspect the strategy would be to get people hooked then start raising prices just like all the others are doing — prime, Netflix, YouTube, etc.

 

[nickdalzell1]

You can get standalone Office for $20? How? I cant seem to find a "buy forever and screw subscription models" option anywhere.

The strategy is simple. Klaus Schwab has been harping on it for over a decade. "You'll own nothing, and you will be happy".

Businesses hope people dont add up the cost over time and just see a $5 here and a $9 there. They hope no one notices or leases everything on credit. Late stage capitalism.

I see it all the time at work. People can either buy a replacement EV charger that's repairable and lasts longer for $450, or a cheaper and disposable one that's likely to break in a year for $150. They always choose the latter option. You cant educate them about cost over time these days. People have lost the concept. "You get what you pay for" is unheard of. You try to explain but they take offense assuming you are calling them dumb. I really hate working in Green Acres!

 

[sracer]

You can get standalone Office for $20? How? I cant seem to find a "buy forever and screw subscription models" option anywhere.

The strategy is simple. Klaus Schwab has been harping on it for over a decade. "You'll own nothing, and you will be happy".

Businesses hope people dont add up the cost over time and just see a $5 here and a $9 there. They hope no one notices or leases everything on credit. Late stage capitalism.

I see it all the time at work. People can either buy a replacement EV charger that's repairable and lasts longer for $450, or a cheaper and disposable one that's likely to break in a year for $150. They always choose the latter option. You cant educate them about cost over time these days. People have lost the concept. "You get what you pay for" is unheard of. You try to explain but they take offense assuming you are calling them dumb. I really hate working in Green Acres!

Yes. There are reputable sites and eBay sellers that sell standalone Office licenses for $20. I've bought Win 7 licenses from these same people/groups for my vintage ThinkPads. The legality of it is open to debate, but I've had 100% success using the license codes. I have no reason to believe that their Office license codes would be less reliable.

 

[ian87w]

Yes. There are reputable sites and eBay sellers that sell standalone Office licenses for $20. I've bought Win 7 licenses from these same people/groups for my vintage ThinkPads. The legality of it is open to debate, but I've had 100% success using the license codes. I have no reason to believe that their Office license codes would be less reliable.

These are usually taken from volume licenses. They are technically legit as they are actual licenses, but improperly licensed as they’re not supposed to be for individual licenses.

But the cheap HUP is real. Microsoft often made deals with large companies for cheap licenses.

 

[nickdalzell1]

Doesnt that mean you're stuck with outdated office apps like Word 2010 or Office 2007? I was hoping modern Office would let you buy outright.

If you're not subscribing you aren't asked for a product key if you open modern versions you just have limits. I was really hoping there would be a way to use the modern apps without a subscription since I'm not due until August. Oh well.

 

[ghanwani]

Doesnt that mean you're stuck with outdated office apps like Word 2010 or Office 2007? I was hoping modern Office would let you buy outright.

If you're not subscribing you aren't asked for a product key if you open modern versions you just have limits. I was really hoping there would be a way to use the modern apps without a subscription since I'm not due until August. Oh well.

Office 2019 was the last one through HUP. Not sure if it’s still available.

 

[nickdalzell1]

No I wanted to find a means to use modern Office without a subscription. I kinda had hope when someone mentioned they bought Office outright. I don't want to downgrade I just hoped there'd be a way to save $113 a year. I'm not a fan of subscription models anyway and hoped I could just use the modern apps somehow without any limits, hoping there'd be a way to 'own' them. Hopes shattered as usual sadly. I haven't been able to find a 'lifetime' option. Other SaaS apps like Calm or others tend to have a 'buy forever' option. It's usually expensive but you only pay once. I can't find any such option in the settings or on my Microsoft Account pages.

 

[Jay-Jacob]

No I wanted to find a means to use modern Office without a subscription. I kinda had hope when someone mentioned they bought Office outright. I don't want to downgrade I just hoped there'd be a way to save $113 a year. I'm not a fan of subscription models anyway and hoped I could just use the modern apps somehow without any limits, hoping there'd be a way to 'own' them. Hopes shattered as usual sadly. I haven't been able to find a 'lifetime' option. Other SaaS apps like Calm or others tend to have a 'buy forever' option. It's usually expensive but you only pay once. I can't find any such option in the settings or on my Microsoft Account pages.

It seems you can still buy standalone Office 2021 at moment. Expensive.

Buy Microsoft Office 2021 | Microsoft 365

Get the latest version of Microsoft Office products for your home or business with Office 2021 and Microsoft 365. See what’s new in Microsoft Office 2021.

www.microsoft.com

$249.99, scroll down bit from link above. Also options compare standalone vs subscription is very limited for standalone.

 

[nickdalzell1]

That's all? $249.99 I only pay ONCE as opposed to $113/year seems like a far more viable option. People have completely lost the concept of cost over time and how it adds up.

I deal with it all the time. People who need a replacement EV charger would rather pay $150 for a China-made pile of unrepairable crap that dies in a year or two later instead of the $450 Made-in-USA model that's repairable (and comes with a two-year warranty) and far more reliable. They don't ever see how that $150 adds up and you can't educate them without offending them, no matter how politely you try.

 

[SalisburySam]

I have OneDrive as part of my Microsoft 365 subscription. It is fine, but I can notice some problems when syncing. Especially when syncing between a PC and a Mac.

I have never had any of these problems with Dropbox. I would say that Dropbox is better than OneDrive.

However, it is very difficult to justify Dropbox. Microsoft 365 costs $100 a year, and that includes me and 5 people of my family, with 1 TB of OneDrive. And it comes with all Microsoft Office applications, which are the industry standard. Dropbox alone would cost $19.95 a month for just one user, giving me 3 TB of storage.

Dropbox may be better at syncing, but it is extremely expensive for what it offers. Microsoft 365 is miles ahead, no contest at all, wins hands down.

^^^ This.

We have an Office365 sub and the included (up to) 5TB of storage, and it works well. We also have 2TB of paid Dropbox storage, and it also works well. For us, Dropbox is just slightly easier for our gaggle of PC, iMac, iPads, and iPhones, and considerably easier for external Dropbox access. Additionally, we’ve chosen Dropbox as our secondary backup scheme after the iPads and iPhones are backed up to the iMac and in turn to TimeMachine on a local hard drive, and the PC is backed up its own local hard drive. Dropbox is indeed expensive, probably unnecessary for us, but we’ve become used to both and use them constantly.

 

[nickdalzell1]

I remember Dropbox being offered with my then new Samsung Galaxy SIII back in 2013 (bought a year after launch). I'd be more concerned about its longevity as a service over its price. Cloud services, much like actual clouds, eventually dissipate. Ubuntu One and Mega users found that out the hard way.

 

[Rafael Santos]

I don't have a love/hate relationship with OneDrive but rather a tolerate/hate relationship. Probably 90% of the time its fine, and it fulfills my needs, but those other times it can be frustrating.

I'm on a "don't trust it at all/hate with fury" relationship.

I'm also a subscriber, 1T is more than I need -- I have around 500Gb of data I'd like to be synchronized between my iMac at home and one at the office.

Onedrive often freezes/beachballs, crashes without warning (nice to see the file I was working on one day was not synched to the other computer!) and with the new version I am not really sure my files are even there.

For example, see this screenshot of a folder that is under OneDrive. Finder does not generate thumbnails for the images (and it is set to do so), some have the "√" mark, some have the "cloud" mark.

I can click all I want on the image with the cloud icon, it does not change. I can see the file on the terminal, but double-clicking on it just beachballs Finder. Stopping and restarting Onedrive does nothing.

All the suggestions I got (in other sites) were those generic "reset, reboot, check disk, reformat and reinstall" -- will probably do an uninstall instead.

Wasted some hours of my life today trying to solve this. I'll probably get a 200Mb subscription to Google Drive and be done with OneDrive.

 

[ian87w]

I'm on a "don't trust it at all/hate with fury" relationship.

I'm also a subscriber, 1T is more than I need -- I have around 500Gb of data I'd like to be synchronized between my iMac at home and one at the office.

Onedrive often freezes/beachballs, crashes without warning (nice to see the file I was working on one day was not synched to the other computer!) and with the new version I am not really sure my files are even there.

View attachment 1975882 For example, see this screenshot of a folder that is under OneDrive. Finder does not generate thumbnails for the images (and it is set to do so), some have the "√" mark, some have the "cloud" mark.

I can click all I want on the image with the cloud icon, it does not change. I can see the file on the terminal, but double-clicking on it just beachballs Finder. Stopping and restarting Onedrive does nothing.

All the suggestions I got (in other sites) were those generic "reset, reboot, check disk, reformat and reinstall" -- will probably do an uninstall instead.

Wasted some hours of my life today trying to solve this. I'll probably get a 200Mb subscription to Google Drive and be done with OneDrive.

OneDrive is working well with my mac mini under Catalina.
Have you checked in the Settings, Extensions, and make sure OneDrive Finder extensions is enabled?
Also see if there's an update for the OneDrive app. Microsoft updates it quite often. I use the App store version for easier update.

 

[ozaz]

From a speed and reliability perspective I have more confidence in Dropbox than OneDrive. Been using Dropbox for over 10 years and don’t recall ever having a sync problem. OneDrive is generally fine but I’ve definitely encountered several occasions where something hasn’t synced and it’s not obvious why. Value of Microsoft 365 is excellent though (especially family version).

 

[Sterkenburg]

Dropbox is definitely more expensive than competitors for what it offers, from a bang for the buck perspective it is a bit hard to justify. However, I still ended up sticking with it because it... just works. Runs on all my devices, syncing is very fast and reliable, and its overall behavior has been quite consistent over the years.

 

[ian87w]

From a speed and reliability perspective I have more confidence in Dropbox than OneDrive. Been using Dropbox for over 10 years and don’t recall ever having a sync problem. OneDrive is generally fine but I’ve definitely encountered several occasions where something hasn’t synced and it’s not obvious why. Value of Microsoft 365 is excellent though (especially family version).

Agree. OneDrive definitely delivers best value, but reliability can still be wonky. The worst part for me is the fact that OneDrive follows Windows limitation in filenaming. So there are many files that have no problems in macOS, fail to sync with OneDrive because it just doesn't like the characters.

 

[Rafael Santos]

OneDrive is working well with my mac mini under Catalina.
Have you checked in the Settings, Extensions, and make sure OneDrive Finder extensions is enabled?
Also see if there's an update for the OneDrive app. Microsoft updates it quite often. I use the App store version for easier update.

Yup, fully updated. Works one day then fails the other. Right now I cannot open a <10k text file that was created in another synchronized Mac. Cannot copy, either from Finder or command line. I can see the file and its size, but cannot get to its contents. Onedrive is making Finder beachball right now -- while attempting to copy a <10k file...

 

[GalileoSeven]

One Drive works well enough for me at work - never really explored it much at home (where I quickly eschewed Dropbox's expensive plans for 50GB of iCloud storage for $0.99/mo).

 

[max2]

I prefer Dropbox but I just use the free version.

OneDrive is ok.

 

[rachaelc]

I use the free version of both.
Dropbox seems to sync nicer than OneDrive in my experience, but it does seem rather expensive for the paid plan compared to other cloud storage providers (you'd think iCloud would be more!)

 

[dfritchie]

I've switched to pCloud, for me it works better than either one of these. You also get more storage for free than dropbox.

 

[max2]

I've switched to pCloud, for me it works better than either one of these. You also get more storage for free than dropbox.

I get 18GB free with Dropbox.

More than enough for my needs

 

[Isamilis]

I tried OneDrive few months ago (as I evaluated Office 365 for my personal). Compared to iCloud and pCloud, OneDrive is so-so. I even experienced corrupted files during sync (thanks God I still have its old copy in local disk).
I used to be Dropbox user but moved to pCloud as I found its Mac client took quite much system resources (also the price is high).

 

[Isamilis]

That's all? $249.99 I only pay ONCE as opposed to $113/year seems like a far more viable option. People have completely lost the concept of cost over time and how it adds up.

I deal with it all the time. People who need a replacement EV charger would rather pay $150 for a China-made pile of unrepairable crap that dies in a year or two later instead of the $450 Made-in-USA model that's repairable (and comes with a two-year warranty) and far more reliable. They don't ever see how that $150 adds up and you can't educate them without offending them, no matter how politely you try.

Yeah, problem is the standalone version does not let you use the mobile version (iOS / iPadOS). A dealbreaker for me.

 

[M5RahuL]

No I wanted to find a means to use modern Office without a subscription. I kinda had hope when someone mentioned they bought Office outright. I don't want to downgrade I just hoped there'd be a way to save $113 a year. I'm not a fan of subscription models anyway and hoped I could just use the modern apps somehow without any limits, hoping there'd be a way to 'own' them. Hopes shattered as usual sadly. I haven't been able to find a 'lifetime' option. Other SaaS apps like Calm or others tend to have a 'buy forever' option. It's usually expensive but you only pay once. I can't find any such option in the settings or on my Microsoft Account pages.

One of many... https://softkeyworld.com/product/microsoft-office-2021-home-business/

Use Code GEEK for an additional 20% or so off.. Bought 3 licenses from them a while back and working just fine ( updates fine, shows in my office account under 'purchases' )



Another option, albeit a bit more $$, is https://stacksocial.com/sales/micro...ifetime-license-2_012522&utm_term=scsf-535302

Both are a one time purchase for Mac ( Windows available for the same price as well )

Obligatory Disclaimer - I am in NO way associated with softkeyworld or stacksocial !