ShareFile Review

ShareFile at a Glance

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Our Rating

3.75 / 5 stars
[xrr rating=3.75/5]

Price:

  • Basic: 2 employee accounts $29.95 / month.
  • Professional: 10 employee accounts $59.95 / month.
  • Corporate: 20+ employee accounts $99.95 / month.
  • Enterprise: Call for quote.

Pros:

  • Business class cloud storage.
  • Excellent mobile options including apps for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Windows 8, Blackberry and Mobile website.
  • Web portal is useful and easy to use.
  • User administration.
  • Suite of apps and ways to access and manage data.
  • Decent sharing and sharing controls.
  • 256 bit SSL transfer encryption, with 128-bit RC4 storage encryption.
  • Free trial.
  • Owned by Citrix.

Cons:

  • Expensive for small businesses.
  • Can use FTP to access files. Yes this is only FTPS connections allowed but still a con in my opinion.
  • No Linux support.
  • Web portal lacks bells and whistles.

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Full ShareFile Review

Citrix ShareFile WebsiteCitrix is a well known name in business computing and even non business users are probably familiar with several of their other products like GoToMeeting and GoToMyPC. ShareFile was acquired by Citrix in 2011 and is their business class cloud storage service that offers businesses users a cloud storage service with more control and options that many consumer types of cloud storage services.

Getting Started
Getting started with ShareFile is easy, you just have to visit their website and look for the link to sign up for a free trial. You can use ShareFile from the web portal without downloading and installing any additional desktop applications but the service becomes more useful when you install Sync for Windows or Mac or by installing one of the many mobile apps that they offer.

Desktop Sync
I installed the Windows Sync app on my test machine and had no issues installing the application. Once installed it was simply a matter of copying some data to the ShareFile folder to have it automatically sync up to the cloud. I was then able to access the files through the web portal, share the files and download them on other machines. Anyone that has used other competitor products will not have a problem using ShareFile.

I have included a short video of me installing the applicaiton on my Windows 8 test machine for you to view the steps it takes to get running.

ShareFile also has a decent support section once you login where you can get help including a full video series of how to use the service.

Web Portal
As I mentioned you can use ShareFile exclusivly from the web portal and not install desktop applications. The web portal is useful and allows people to upload new files, download files and share files to others. The web portal is functional but perhaps missing some of the bells and whistles that users might hope for. For example there is no option to do a slideshow for images that I could find or stream video or audio. These are not huge items but they do make a difference between a good web portal and a great web portal but perhaps that is not what is needed for business use.

Mobile Apps
ShareFile has some of the best mobile coverage that you can find. Apps are available for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Windows 8 and Blackberry. You can even access a mobile website if you do not have the app installed or available.

ShareFile on Android

Sharing
Securely sharing files is a nice feature of ShareFile and they offer some decent options when you share files with users. The ability to be notified when a file is downloaded, only allowing a certain number of downloads and the ability to expire a download could all be useful depending on your needs. If you want more control over how people outside your organization have access to your files ShareFile can help you.

ShareFile Sharing Options

Overall
There is no doubt that Citrix is a leader in the world of business computing, and ShareFile does extend the services they offer to cloud storage. Overall the service is solid even though it lacks some nicer features that you often see in consumer cloud storage services. If your business is looking to offer a secure cloud storage solution for your employees and for sharing files ShareFile will fill your needs and is easy enough that people will easily be able to use it.

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Screenshots

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Comments

One response to “ShareFile Review”

  1. Robert Lunte Avatar

    I used this product to synchronize a 6.5 GB folder that has digital content in it for paying customers. When they had the synchronization applications that allowed a one-way synch, it worked great. Then they took away the one-way synch capability, which means… anyone of my customers can can change the contents of their product folder, click on “synch” and that will corrupt the master copy, creating a corrupted/broken set of data not only for every customer that synchs after that, but for me as well. TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE and complete joke that their engineers and business guys don’t see this gapping hole in their service!? When they had the ability to do a one-way synch, that insured that I could always synch back “up” to the customer copy and keep it clean… Nope, can’t do that anymore… everyone gets a two-way synch. Everyone, merchant and customers share the same data, even if the customer corrupts the data.

    No, downloading zip files doesn’t work either. I have tried that until I’m blue in the face… downloading zip files with huge amounts of data are corrupted and don’t work. That just created a lot of customer service problems and complaints.

    Way to go guys.. way to offer a nice solution and then totally screw up your service by missing the obvious. I get the feeling sharefile is just for people that are exchanging small amounts of data. They claim that you can synch a 10GB of data in their advertising, but thats not true… well, I suppose you can, provided that you don’t mind that every recipient of your Master folder has the ability to corrupt your Master folder with no recourse to fix it.

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