Dropbox vs SugarSync vs Google Drive vs Cubby vs Google Drive vs Syncplicity vs Box vs SkyDrive vs Ubuntu One vs Mozy vs CloudMe
In the world of free cloud storage, there are many competitors that offer free accounts, including Dropbox, Sugar Sync, Cubby, Google drive, Syncplicity, Box.com, Sky Drive, Obuntu One and other new competitors that are popping up all the time. Most recently, Google released their new cloud storage solution called Google Drive. However, not all free cloud storage is created equal. Some offer more free storage than others, and others offer a better feature set. I’ve had the opportunity to work with several of them (because they are free), so I thought I would offer some insight for those out there trying to make a decision. Here are my thoughts on what the best storage solutions is.
Click here to skip to my recommendation and referral links for additional storage
DropBox
DropBox is one of the biggest names in free cloud storage. It grew immensely popular very quickly. One of the biggest reasons for this is its ease of use. It is incredibly user friendly. If you are installing a cloud storage solution on your grandma’s computer, Dropbox is the way to go. It offers mobile apps for iPhone, Android, iPad, and BlackBerry. Unfortunately, it offers the little base storage. The free account initially offers 2 GB. However, it offers several ways to increase your storage. If you jump through some hoops, you can get some more storage. If you don’t need a fancy solution with lots of storage or lots customization, Dropbox is an excellent option. First, it is widely used by many people, so collaborating is very easy. Then there is the fact that it just works great without having to mess with anything. Despite the fact that I like other solutions better, I use Dropbox the most. Below is everything you can do to increase your Dropbox space.
| Complete the Getting Started tour | 250 MB |
| Connect Dropbox with your Facebook account | 125 MB |
| Connect your Twitter account to Dropbox | 125 MB |
| Follow @Dropbox on Twitter | 125 MB. |
| Tell them why you love Dropbox | 125 MB |
| Tweet about Dropbox | 125 MB |
| Use your Camera upload function to upload 2.75 GB | up to 3 GB |
| Use this link to get an additional 500 MB | 500 MB |
| Earn 500 MB for every referral | up to 15.5 GB |
| Total after maxing out referrals | 21.875 GB |
| Total using my referral link | 6.375 GB |
SugarSync
SugarSync was great option. It was actually my favorite option for a while. Unfortunately, they decided to do away with their free storage option. That means that it does not make this list, but I went ahead and left it here for comparison because it used to be a great opinion. It offers a whole lot of customization option. It also offers the most space for free. It offers more mobile options than the other, including apps for iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and even a Symbian app. It also offers a web archive feature that works as a secure backup. However, because of all the customization options, customizing SugarSync can be a bit confusing. It is easy to install and works just fine without messing with any of the settings.
Cubby
Cubby is probably the least know system out of the group. It is still in beta and by invitation only. However, despite being the new kid on the block, Cubby is shaping up to be a real contender in the Free cloud storage wars. It is very easy to use like Dropbox and Google Drive, but it also offers many options like SugarSync. It starts you off with 5gb of storage, and if you use my invite below, you will start off with 6gb. You can also refer your friends and receive 1gb for every friend that signs up. You can get up to an additional 25gb for a total of 30gb, which is one of the best offers on the net. I specially love that you can earn space much faster than any other service. Sure, you can get more than 30gb with SugarSync, but you have to refer 50 people! With Cubby, you have to refer half of that. This combination of excellent storage capacity, ease of use, and wide range of options make Cubby a very interesting Free cloud storage service to watch.
*** Update ***
Cubby is now open to everyone, and it is shaping up to be even better than expected. First, you can get up to 25gb of free space by referring people. They also added a new unique security feature, Cubby Locks, that adds an extra layer of security to important documents. Even more surprising, Cubby is beating out Dropbox in my survey question below. I definitely suggest you try it out!
| Use my link to get an additional 1gb | 1gb |
| Earn 500mb for every referral | up to 24gb |
| Total after maxing out referrals | 30gb |
| Total using my referral link | 6gb |
Copy
Copy is a brand new contender that is giving away a ton of space. If you want to get the most space, Copy is the the one to choose. They offer 15gb for free. What is even more interesting is that they are giving away 5gb for each friend you refer. That means that the free storage space can add up very quickly. Because of this, I strongly suggest opening an account through a referral link, so you can start off with 20gb. The only thing I don’t know is what the max free storage is. I have read that there is no limit, but I am not sure. The feature set is somewhat basic, but by no means a bad one. Simply because of the amount of storage, I highly recommend Copy.
| Use my link to get an additional 5gb | 5gb |
| Earn 5gb for every referral | up to ??? |
| Earn 2gb for connecting your account to Twitter | 2gb |
| Total after maxing out referrals | ??? |
| Total using my referral link | 22gb |
Google Drive
Google Drive is the newest option for cloud storage, and it is a good one. It offers 5 GB for new accounts, but it does not offer any ways to increase your storage free like Dropbox, SugarSync, and some others. It is not quite as intuitive as Dropbox. Dropbox does an amazing job of making cloud storage work seamlessly in the background. It is not as powerful and filled with options as SugarSync. SugarSync has tons of options. However, it offers a good amount of free space and it works great. If you are a Google fan or already have a Gmail account, you can’t go wrong with Google Drive. With that being said, there are better options.
Syncplicity
Syncplicity is another great option for cloud storage. It is easy to use and also has apps for iPhone, Android, and iPad. Unfortunately, Syncplicity only offers 2 GB of storage. You can get an additional gigabyte if you use this link, and you can get 1 gigabyte of storage for every person you refer, up to a maximum is three. That is a total of 6 GB. The biggest advantage that Syncplicity has over the other cloud storage services is that it integrates with Google Docs for free. You can send all your documents to Google Docs via Syncplicity. This was a great feature, but now that Google has Google Drive, it is a little irrelevant.
Box.com (formerly Box.net)
Box.com is an excellent paid option it focuses on enterprise solutions, and offers a ton of customization options through applications for the service. It offers a free account with 5 GB, and has many promotions for free 50 GB accounts (contact me and I can help you get one if you really want one). Unfortunately, it does not offer a free PC sync, which makes the 50 GB useless. It also limits file upload sizes to 25 MB, which makes the large amount of storage space useless. I have a 50 GB account, but I don’t even use it! I don’t recommend Box.com unless you want to pay for your account. Even if you do get access to the PC sync, it is nowhere up to the standards of other sync programs like Dropbox. Box was kind enough to offer me a PC sync for free, but I still don’t use it much because of its lack of options and user friendliness.
SkyDrive
SkyDrive used to offer 25 GB free, which is the most out of the bunch. Unfortunately, they recently lowered their new account size to 7 GB free. If you had Skydrive before the change, you can request to upgrade the account back up to 25 GB for free. Even if you did not have a Sky Drive account, 7GB is still the most initial storage out of all of them. However, it is not very user friendly, and it does not offer the easy sync experience that Dropbox and SugarSync offer. It also limits you to uploading certain file types, which is its biggest down fall. It does offer a very strong document editing suite that works very well with Microsoft Office documents, so if all you have is office documents and pictures, then SkyDrive may be a good option for you. However, don’t expect to be able to upload most file types.
Ubuntu One
Obuntu One is a great option for Linux users. Its 5 GB of storage make it an attractive offer, but it does not really make much sense for most people who are on PCs and Macs.
Mozy
Mozy is another Cloud storage service that offers a free account. Admittedly, although Mozy has been around for quite some time and I’ve had an account for a while, I left it out of the original list of free cloud storage options because I never use my account. It is not a bad service, but it is overshadowed by other more appealing offers. Like Dropbox, it offers 2gb of free storage to start. It also offers a referral program to earn additional storage, but it only offers 256MB of free storage for each referral. That is half the amount you get from most of its competitors, and a fourth of what you get from Cubby. However, the good thing is that you can get an unlimited amount of storage. through referrals. So, if you have 200 friends that are willing to open an account and back up their files, Mozy may be the service for you. Because I can get much more free storage from other competitors, I have not really paid much attention to Mozy. If you do decide to use Mozy, you can use my referral link to start off with 2.256gb.
| Use my referal link to get an additional 256mb | 256 mb |
| Earn 256 mb for every referral | Unlimited! |
| Total after maxing out referrals | Unlimited! |
| Total using my referral link | 2.25 gb |
CloudMe
CloudMe is another free file storage solution based in Sweden. Thank you, Monica (a CloudMe employee) for bringing CloudMe to our attention. They offer a service very similar to that of Dropbox, but with the addition of a social channel. They offer 3gb of free storage with a referral ram very similar to Dropbox’s referral program. They offer 500mb for every referral up to a max of 16gb. Where CloudMe differentiates itself is in its social component and its media features. For example, there is a music player that allows you to listen to music on the cloud as you surf your files using a browser. I thought was a very cool feature, specially for people who would like to listen to their music library at work without having to install something. However, I don’t see myself moving my data to CloudMe. I would’t use the additional media features enough for me to make a move. If you think you would, you may give CloudMe a try. It is a great service.
| Use this link to get an additional 500mb | 500mb |
| Earn 500mb for every referral | up to 15.5gb |
| Total after maxing out referrals | 19gb |
| Total using my referral link | 3.5gb |
MegaCloud
MegaCloud is a new product that caught my attention because of the large amount of storage it offers for free. You start with 8gb for sync and 8gb for backup. I really don’t know why they separate the two, but even if you do not use the 8gb fro back up, 8gb of sync is not bad. They have a HUGE list of things you can do to add more storage. Do each one, and you can end up with lots of free storage. The problem is that it is a little much. There is no way the average user will ever compete all those task no matter how hard he or she tried. Theoretically, you can earn up to 34.5gb of free storage plus the 8gb of backup for a total of 42.5gb. However, realistically i would say that you could earn 12gb of sync storage without referrals and 22gb maxing out referrals. Students can realistically earn up to 13gb of sync storage and 32.5gb maxing out referrals. Overall, Megacloud is a great option. The separation of sync and Backup storage is a little confusing. The application installs two separate applications. One for sync and another for backup. Between the two applications it does offer a healthy feature set, but I really wish they would just stick to one app that combines the features of both apps and combine both storage options. Of they did that, they would basically have the same feature set that Sugarsync and Cubby have with more storage. That would be a winner.
| Use this link to get an additional 500mb | 500mb |
| Complete the ‘Get Started’ tasks | 500mb |
| Earn 500mb for every 100 uploaded images or videos | Up to 2 gb |
| Install the Android mobile app | 500mb |
| Install the iPhone mobile app | 500mb |
| Install the iPad mobile app | 500mb |
| Like MegaCloud on Facebook | 250MB |
| Post about MegaCloud on Facebook | 250MB |
| Post MegaCloud’s official video on Facebook | 250MB |
| Connect your Twitter to MegaCloud | 250MB |
| Follow @MegaCloud on Twitter | 250MB |
| Tweet about MegaCloud | 250MB |
| Get 500gb for every 20 friends you follow on MegaCloud | up to 1gb |
| Use a .edu email addres to verify you are a student | 1gb + 1gb referrals |
| Earn 500mb for every referral | up to 9.5gb or 28gb for students |
| Total after maxing out referrals | 34.5gb sync + 8gb backup |
| Total using my referral link (realistically) | 12gb sync + 8gb backup |
| Total using my referral link (realistically for students) | 13gb sync + 8gb backup |
Other Free Cloud Storage
There are other free cloud storage options other than what I have listed. For example, JustCloud is another service that claims to offer unlimited storage. CX is another service that offers 10gb of free storage. CX focuses more on collaboration than file sync, so it offer a few unique features. However, it also comes with a few limitations. I have not tried either one of these, so I cannot comment on how well they work. I will add my review if I get a chance to use them.
My Recommendations
and referral links for additional free storage
With so much free storage, most people will not have a need to go out and pay for cloud storage unless they need it in extremely large quantities. All of these options will get the job done, but if you are looking for the best free, easy-to-use cloud storage space I suggest one of two options. However, before I give you my opinion, I want to mention Dropbox. DropBox is one of the easiest to use, and the most popular. It is the one I use Dropbox the most, but that is because I use it for work. That being said, I love the flexibility that Cubby offers, and the amount of storage Copy offers. You can’t go wrong with either one of those two, it is just a matter of personal choice: more storage or more options. My pick is either Cubby or Copy.
Either way, do not forget to use my links to open a new account so you can receive some extra storage!
Use this link to get an additional 500 MB when you open a DropBox account
Use this link to get an additional 5 GB when you open a Copy account
Use this link to get an additional 500 MB when you open a Cubby account
(These are not affiliate links. I make no money from any of the links in this article.)