Egynte isn’t your typical consumer storage platform with a business plan; rather, it’s an entirely premium offering dedicated to companies of all stripes, doubling as a secure file storage service and online workplace with excellent third-party integrations.
In our Egnyte review, we assess the platform’s best features and pricing structure, while running dedicated speed and compatibility tests, to determine how well it delivers on its promises.
Egnyte review: Snapshot
Whether you’re managing a start-up, small business, or large enterprise, Egnyte has a plan for you. What’s more, Egnyte is infinitely scalable, making it the perfect choice for growing organizations. Business plans start from at least ten users per subscription, increasing to an unlimited number. A plan is also available for solo entrepreneurs and fledgling startups with fewer than ten users.
As a Business plan user, you also get access to a host of administrative functions like task management and customizable security policies. Egnyte already offers native support for both Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, but if you want, you can further expand the platform with a host of other integrations including Zoom, Trello, Slack, and Docusign.
Read on to find out if Egnyte offers the best cloud storage for your business.
Score: 4.5/5
Read on for the full review.
Egnyte’s competitors
Egnyte | Dropbox Business | Google Drive | |
---|---|---|---|
Score | 4.5/5 | 4.5/5 | 4.5/5 |
Pros | Business-specific solution – Lots of third-party integrations – Excellent desktop and mobile apps | Business-specific application – Third-party integrations – File sharing and collaboration | 15GB of forever free storage – Excellent file-editing tools – File sharing and collaboration |
Cons | Expensive subscription plans – Not for individual use | No private encryption keys – Reduced file editing features | No end-to-end data encryption – No password-protected file sharing |
Verdict | Egnyte is a superb cloud storage application for startups and enterprises, offering lots of integrations for a relatively high price | Dropbox is a robust cloud storage platform with a host of third-party integrations, but it can be quite pricey for small businesses. | Google Drive isn’t the best platform for security or advanced use, but its file editing and collaboration features are truly unbeatable. |
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Key features
Egnyte comes packed with a range of options to suit businesses of all stripes. Here we look at some of its strongest features to help you determine if it’s the best choice for you.
Egnyte takes on a hybrid approach to storing data, which means that it acts not only as a cloud-based storage service, but also as an extension of your on-premises file storage. Based on your business needs, you can opt for any storage model of your choice, be it cloud-based, on-premises, or a combination of both.
Regardless of which storage model you go with, Egnyte offers access to the same intuitive user interface that lets you manage all your data from a single location. Its enterprise offering is perfectly suited for in-house developers who might be looking to integrate the service with their own backend software.
Egnyte offers one of the most intuitive ways to manage your files and documents. The web interface is designed to mimic Windows Explorer, offering a simple yet elegant file management interface that lets you quickly access and make changes to your entire drive.
The file manager is as simple and familiar as they come. A menu on the left shows links to your company’s file tree, while the more significant right side is reserved for opening and viewing specific files and folders. The interface supports full drag-and-drop, letting you easily upload files or move them around with the click-and-drag of a mouse button.
It’s hard not to talk about integrations when discussing Egnyte’s ever-expanding list of features. This business storage provider serves as a hub for your entire online workflow, integrating with a range of services and products from third-party developers. This includes built-in support for Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, along with a range of external integrations like Zoom and Trello.
Egnyte also offers businesses its own integrated task management program. While a bit barebones, the system is perfectly functional when it comes to assigning tasks to various files, and accessing them easily via the web app.
Egnyte: Key features and highlights
Apart from letting team members collaborate in real-time over Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, Egnyte’s desktop application lets users synchronize specific files and folders on their devices with the cloud. This allows for any changes to these files to be carried forward in real-time, much like the desktop applications offered by Dropbox or Microsoft OneDrive.
Of course, some businesses must prize individual ownership over collaboration. That’s why Egnyte offers a file-locking feature that restricts access permissions for a given file to specific users. Unlike the peer-to-peer file-sharing model whereby shared data is divided across team members, Egnyte’s server-centric system ensures that even if a team member quits the company, the others still have access to all parts of the shared files.
Egnyte’s servers are stored in a Tier II SSAE-16 data center. Every file is protected both in transit and at rest using 256-bit AES encryption. Private encryption keys are managed directly by large enterprises, ensuring that not even the provider’s own staff can access their precious files.
Moreover, a range of two-factor authentication options is available, from SMS verification to Duo authentication. You also get the option to remotely wipe data from your devices should there be an emergency.
What’s new?
Egnyte offers regular updates for its entire range of web and software applications, focused on everything from small quality-of-life changes to massive feature enhancements. A few recent changes include new font-mapping capabilities for the web-based file preview tool, various stability improvements for the smartphone apps, and fixes and improvements for the main desktop client.
As a business-class offering that prides itself on being on the cutting edge, Egnyte is constantly making changes to its systems to enhance performance and improve functionality. If you’re looking for a cloud storage platform with great developer support, you may have just found it.
Pricing
Egnyte recently overhauled its pricing structure to make it easier to understand. However, the new pricing comes with less storage per plan, even on the most expensive subscriptions.
Plan type / Feature | Team | Business | Enterprise Lite | Enterprise |
---|---|---|---|---|
Cost per month | $10 per user | $20 per user | Custom | Custom |
Cost per year | $120 per user | $240 per user | Custom | Custom |
Storage | 1TB + 10GB per user | 1TB + 10GB per user | Custom | Custom |
Users | 1–10 | 10–100 | 50+ | 50+ |
File sync | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Secure collaboration | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Unusual behaviour direction | X | X | ✓ | ✓ |
Content lifecycle management | X | X | ✓ | ✓ |
Content classification | X | X | X | ✓ |
Ransomware detection | X | X | X | ✓ |
Testing Egnyte
To better benchmark Dropbox against its competitors, we analyzed its upload speeds, which are a key factor in terms of cloud storage, its third party integrations and apps, and its file sharing and collaboration features.
How fast is Egnyte?
To test how fast Egnyte’s servers work during a data transfer, we tried uploading and downloading a 569MB file to and from the cloud storage web application across an 80Mbps broadband connection. Here’s what we found.
Egnyte took 13 minutes and 24 seconds to upload the file. This is standard for most cloud storage providers in this category. For comparison, Google Drive took 10 minutes and 15 seconds to upload the same file over the same connection. Downloads were also quite speedy, clocking in at one minute and 25 seconds.
What integrations does Egnyte offer?
We wanted to see how well Egnyte integrates with third-party applications. To do this, we enabled the Microsoft Office Online integration on our Egnyte Teams account. While we were able to successfully preview Office files on Egnyte, being able to edit them online required a subscription to Microsoft 365 Business.
We then tried enabling the Google Workspace extension since we already had a business account set up for that particular service. Everything worked quite well, letting us quickly navigate to the familiar Google Workspace applications with a click of a button on Egnyte. All changes made using Google Workspace applications like Docs and Sheets were automatically synced to our Egnyte storage drive.
How do Egnyte’s file sharing and collaborative features work?
Sharing a file through Egnyte is a rather simple process. Right-clicking on a specific file or folder opens up the option to share it via link or email. Regardless of which option you choose, you will have the ability to control who has access to view and edit your files—be it anyone with a link or specific members of your team.
Changes made to files are synced in real-time. You can also take advantage of the many third-party apps and integrations available on the platform to co-edit various files together with your team members. If you are using the desktop app instead of the web interface, all files contained within the synced folders on your desktop are continuously uploaded in real-time to Egnyte. Any changes you make to these files are carried forward across all synced devices.
The competition
As a business-grade cloud storage solution, Egnyte competes with the likes of Dropbox Business and Google Drive. But how well does this provider stack up against its competitors? Let’s find out.
Dropbox Business is the ultimate cloud-based file storage solution for enterprises. It comes with stellar features, powerful integrations, and excellent security. Like Egnyte, Dropbox Business has built-in support for Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, along with a plethora of external add-on applications like Slack, Zoom, and Trello. However, unlike Egnyte, Dropbox doesn’t support the use of private encryption keys to secure your storage.
Google Drive, available under the banner of Google Workspace, is an all-in-one cloud storage, file-sharing, and business productivity suite for organizations small and large. It’s got the best native file-editing capabilities in the trio, but doesn’t offer nearly as tight a security infrastructure as Dropbox or Egnyte.
In the end, Egnyte’s viability as the best cloud storage platform depends largely on your business’s priorities. Still, if you want a platform that offers strong security and robust integrations, you can’t go wrong here. Read our Google Drive review and our Dropbox Business review to learn more about the two systems.
Egnyte | Dropbox Business | Google Drive | |
---|---|---|---|
End-to-end encryption | Yes | Yes | No |
Third-party integrations | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Native file editing | No | No | Yes |
Support | Knowledge base, online form, phone | Knowledge base, live chat, email, phone | Knowledge base, online forum |
Basic plan | $120 a year | $198.96 a year | $99.99 a year |
The verdict
Throughout our Egnyte review, we found this cloud storage provider to be a speedy and reliable file storage solution for small businesses and large enterprises. Its hybrid storage structure makes it possible to use it not only as a cloud storage provider, but also as an extension of your existing on-premises storage, all through a single unified interface.
Egnyte is at its strongest when it comes to third-party integrations and platform compatibility. With apps for almost every device and integrations for most major business applications, this should be the go-to choice for organizations looking for a dedicated hub for their online workspace.
However, Egnyte is not a consumer product, and should not be used by individuals. For businesses, it offers a pricey but foolproof solution for storing and managing all your data.