The best Google Drive alternative for growing businesses
Teams love how Razuna lets them search and share all their digital files in one place.
Get (a lot) more with Razuna
Google Drive is a powerful file-sharing program, but there may be better options for creative teams with specific needs. In addition, the growing privacy concerns surrounding Google should prompt professionals and companies to reconsider their data storage solutions.
The key difference between Google Drive and Razuna is that while Google Drive was primarily designed to store Google documents, Razuna was explicitly built to help manage digital assets.
As a Brand Asset Management solution, Razuna offers powerful features for sharing files, enhanced options for file collaboration, and white labeling for agencies.
Google Drive prices
| Razuna | Google Drive | ||
|---|---|---|---|
Price Example: 10 users & 2 TB storage | |||
| Price per month | $160 (unlimited users) | $120 | |
Price Example: 50 users & 2 TB storage | |||
| Price per month | $160 (unlimited users) | $600 | |
Price Example: 100 users & 5 TB storage | |||
| Price per month | $400 (unlimited users) | $1,800 ($18/user) | |
Features | |||
| Unlimited Users | |||
| White-Label / OEM | |||
| Private Cloud Servers | |||
| HIPAA Compliant Hosting | |||
| OEM & Reseller options |
Here's our detailed Google Drive comparison
Users and Online Storage
Managing the number of users and storage space is crucial for businesses in the creative industry. Flexibility is vital, as some companies may have many users who only require access to a few files. In contrast, others may have fewer users but work with large image libraries that can exceed 500GB in size. For instance, a boutique graphic design agency may have limited users but frequently have to work with extensive image libraries.
Many file-sharing services offer plans that lock users into a set number of users and storage space. However, a vendor that provides unlimited users or storage space offers greater flexibility and allows customers to pay more for unneeded users or storage.
Although Google Drive has several advanced features, it is not as flexible as Razuna regarding accommodating unlimited users or storage. Razuna is the only provider that permits unlimited users in all its plans, allowing customers to pay only for their storage space. A Digital Asset Management with unlimited users benefits companies with numerous users but relatively small storage requirements, as it helps them cut costs.
Custom Branding
Razuna offers personalized branding for individual folders across all plans, taking custom branding to the next level. This feature is handy for companies with multiple clients or organizations with multiple brands, as it allows them to create unique account interfaces and logins for each client or brand, represented by a separate folder. For example, an advertising agency can provide each client with a workspace that features their logo.
Razuna offers a unique feature that enables users to customize the URL and login screen of the file-sharing system. This means that the platform can be accessed on a subdomain under your main website, and when users log in, they will see your branding displayed. Doing this lets you present the platform as your technology, which can be offered to your customers at a fee, making it a more appealing and attractive option for potential customers.
Customize file sharing with your branding and color scheme for a seamless user experience while reducing the visibility of third-party providers.
Search
Finding media files is essential for file storage. Unfortunately, Google Drive lacks a full-text search for all files, including metadata.
Many creative businesses use non-textual files such as videos, graphic designs, and other media. Typically, these files are identified by their filenames, which most file-sharing services support. However, an advanced and more efficient way to search for these files would be to allow users to add tags such as PNG or WMV to the files and then search via these tags. This feature helps users to organize rich media files across folders by tagging them with visual attributes present in the file, categories, projects, or other relevant information.
A file storage system should support metadata indexing, especially for video storage.
Razuna has been supporting pre-existing metadata in uploaded files for over 15 years. Our platform fully complies with the Adobe XMP standard, ensuring that any metadata added to your Adobe Bridge or Lightroom files will be easily imported into Razuna and made searchable.
Razuna provides a seamless experience for users to organize their files by enabling them to add tags to their media files, making it easier to find and retrieve them later. Additionally, users can conduct a tag-based search to find specific files.
Collections
One helpful feature for creative businesses is the ability to organize and tag various types of media, including images, videos, audio files, and documents, into collections that can span across folders and workspaces. This makes managing and browsing extensive archives easier.
White Label
Users who want to enhance their branding can opt for white-labeling their DAM platform. White labeling allows them to display only their branding instead of the file-sharing provider's. White labeling can be particularly useful for creative businesses like advertising agencies or graphic designers, as it can create an impression that the Business is offering asset management technology alongside its innovative services. It can even generate additional revenue for such businesses if they charge for an "asset management service" on top of their primary services.
Google Drive is a costly option that does not provide the ability to customize the branding. In contrast, Razuna is a third-party file-sharing platform allowing users to remove the Razuna brand and present it as their own, which can be especially beneficial for creative businesses seeking to maintain a consistent brand identity.
Commenting/Proofing
Effective management of documents, images, videos, and sound files is vital for businesses that engage in creative work. These files undergo multiple revisions before being finalized and made ready for publication. Throughout this process, various individuals within and outside the organization must view different file versions, provide feedback and comments, and discuss them. They also need to receive subsequent versions and see the comments that have been incorporated. While this is traditionally done through phone calls or email exchanges, it is more beneficial to integrate commenting and collaboration features with the files.
Razuna offers an intuitive platform for users to add comments to their files easily. Additionally, users are notified via email when new comments are made. With Razuna, annotations can be added directly to graphic file formats, including PDF, AI, EPS, and PSD files. This feature enables users to open files and add comments, indicating any necessary changes to the image. This functionality merges file sharing with online proofing systems used by professional artists and photographers, making it a highly versatile tool.
Public Links
File-sharing solutions like Google Drive offer a helpful feature called "public links." Once you upload a file or folder, you can generate a public link that can be shared with anyone outside of your organization who doesn't have an account with the file-sharing service. Clicking on the link allows the recipient to access or download the file directly from the file-sharing service. Sharing files through public links is an easy and efficient alternative to sending large files via email attachments.
In creative businesses, receiving large files from external collaborators is common. However, sending large files through public links is not always feasible.
If you want to share files and folders hassle-free, using a "public upload link" can be a good option. You can easily share your files and folders with anyone by providing them with the link. They can then upload their files and folders to your file-sharing system through a web interface. However, it's important to note that Google Drive does not support this feature. The only alternative to Google Drive that allows this option is Razuna.
Conclusion
Google Drive is a great tool for creative business purposes, but better options for managing rich media content and collaborating with multiple individuals may exist. One of the limitations of Google Drive is that it does not provide limitless users or online storage, custom branding, commenting and proofing on files, lightboxes, tagging or search by tags, public upload URLs, or automatic conversion of downloads. Additionally, the advanced search options are limited to searching files by name only, without providing a full-text search or different criteria filter.
Razuna provides a complete set of features for Digital Asset Management. These features include the option to create collections, robust commenting and proofing functionalities, and tags with search capabilities. Regarding sharing, Razuna offers versatile public links and previews for various file formats. Regarding custom branding, Razuna stands out among Google Drive alternatives with its broad branding options. This includes custom branding for individual folders, the ability to use a personalized domain and a white label option.
Furthermore, Razuna plans include unlimited users, making it a highly cost-effective file-sharing service. Additionally, Razuna offers a fully managed DAM hosting solution that is HIPPA-compliant.
Do you want to see how Razuna works?
Create a free account now or schedule a personal demo.
One more thing...
Razuna is part of the Helpmonks stack. Helpmonks is a customer engagement platform with a shared inbox, knowledge base, live chat, and email marketing tools.
Using Razuna and Helpmonks together will automatically turn your cloud based media asset library into a central hub for customer support, sales, and marketing.
As a fact, if you have a Helpmonks account, you automatically get Razuna included.
