Nextcloud vs. Progress ShareFile

While searching for tools to satisfy a quickly scaling online startup, we found Nextcloud is well suited for today's remote collaborative team. Nextcloud has just the right toolset for a collaborative workspace including video, chat, many file formats accepted, and intuitive user interface. Comparatively other popular tools like Trello were distracting with more features than functionality. Working with Nextcloud is much like having a workspace with all your content and tools available anywhere on any device, without the ads, distractions, and irrelevant functionality. We will continue to utilize Nextcloud as a remote workspace for evolving and scaling teams.

Incentivized

Progress ShareFile has been a great tool for sharing files. When you send to outside people they get an easy link to click on to download the needed files. On the sender side you get options to have the person do things logon to get the file, just enter a name and email address, or just click on the link and download. There are hooks to use other tools to scan for personal information like SSN or credit card numbers. Many of our users use email to send and store emails. They have found that clicking on a link to get a file adds a bit of complexity but many have learned how to adjust to the change.

Incentivized

• File sharing (internal, public or federated).
• One software, many activities (files, address book, calendar, chat, edit, email) ...
• Groupware, sharing between users or groups is really easy and finely controlled.
• Integrations and many apps.

• I think that one of ShareFile's greatest strengths is its ease of use. With the outlook plug-in sharing large documents is so quick and easy.
• I also like the security and control that is provided for who can access the documents and tracking the changes within them. I think it does well at protecting information that leaves the company.
• I also think the website is well organized and easy to use. It was very easy for us to implement and train our employees on the proper use of the website and software.

Incentivized

• Slow in comparison to other solutions
• May be complex for the start since there are lots of apps and features
• May be not focusing on core topics

Incentivized

• Users grow quickly (each client gets a separate account). Automated pruning would be nice.
• I'm not aware of integration with Office365 online (only the outlook app). This could make it harder for some users.
• It would be nice to have something that auto-scans emails and attachments for PII and would require Sharefile for those emails.

Incentivized

It's a highly effective and secure storage system, has robust workarounds for serving the various equipment limits of our users, meets high security requirements of HIPAA standards, significantly reduces our needs for producing paper trails.

Incentivized

Some of the clunkiness in the user interface and the processing of documents could be made more seamless. However, once you get over that learning curve, it's straightforward enough. The API for integrating external systems is well documented, and the support crew is great at getting you over the rough spots. There's nothing bad about their system, just a few things I thought could be more elegant.

The software has never been down when I needed to use it.

Incentivized

Easy to use, easy to integrate with Outlook. I only gave it a 9 because I have found that sometimes it does not play nicely with Outlook and can slow it down. But, when that happens (not frequent), I restart Outlook and all is well again

Incentivized

I never needed support as everything always worked fine. The documentation on Nextcloud website is extensive and clear. The community is very active on the forum and should support you if you don't already find what you are looking for.

Typically the support is very knowledgeable and interested in following an issue until it is fully resolved. I have not had any issues working with their staff as they are all polite and easy to communicate with. If the first or second level tech does not fix the concern then it is escalated until we get to someone who can close the case.

Incentivized

Good documentation for the API. With a little help from RS tech staff, any competent programmer should be able to integrate RightSignature with an existing system in a week or three. That help is easy to get as well

PIM and file sharing are the same as you get in Google's Drive/Calendar. With extensions, you can also implement web meetings (e.g., by using Jitsi), but this comes with more administrative effort. In the end, this comes down to how big of a user/customer base you are supporting. For small enterprises, Nextcloud stacks up very well against its big competitors. At a large scale, you will have increased maintenance and resource costs which you need to check against licensing fees for the cloud providers.

ShareFile offers more professional level services, and doesn't constantly "run out" of space, forcing you to upgrade to continue. When doing a cost comparison, the competitors may seem cheaper at first, but by the time you add on the features to make it comparable, the pricing is as much, if not more, than what we're paying for ShareFile. The access control level is better with ShareFile, so we chose to stay with them.

I am a one person office. I have no idea how this software would scale to a larger office.

Incentivized

• It allowed us access to our files from any device over the internet.
• It helped manage and organize our file sharing with third parties.
• It provided a secure wrapper for accessing files.

• All of our clients and consulting engineers find ShareFile easy to use, thus complementing our business.
• Our staff also find ShareFile intuitive, accessible, and easy to use, making it an ideal, everyday indispensable desktop tool for everyone in our company.
• ShareFile can be linked to our firm's primary website as a placed for private use. We haven't found need for this yet, but might in the future.

Incentivized