Service at UC Berkeley

bDrive vs. Box vs. CalShare vs. bCourses Projects: What's the best choice for online collaboration?

The chart below gives a high-level comparison of the four major campus-supported options for collaboration at UC Berkeley.

This chart is intended only as guidance for which tool is best suited to a particular purpose. Depending on what you're trying to do, each of the tools may be either a good or a bad choice for that purpose. There is no one tool that is the best choice for every person and project.

We strongly encourage you to experiment with multiple tools before making a selection, especially for larger or longer-term projects. You might want to also consider a hybrid approach, for example using CalShare for a project dashboard, and embedding a view of your Box file repository there.

The "updated" date of this knowledge base article, shown below, shows when this guidance was last updated. Please check back here for updated and expanded guidance.

Tools for hosting websites and for software developers are also available.

	bDrive	Box	CalShare	bCourses Project Sites
Best for	Collaborative authoring Personal file store with a limited number of collaborators (can be used in conjunction with CalNet Special Purpose Accounts)	Larger group file sharing Departmental or group owned files (with CalNet Special Purpose Accounts)	Complex sites and business needs Large, long-term projects Sensitive data (see below for details) Departmental collaboration Departmental intranet websites Low-volume P4 data storage and collaboration. Individuals seeking cloud storage should refer to Box or Google Shared Drives. Individuals storing P1-P3 research data should contact Research IT for a consultation.	Faculty, students already familiar with bCourses Instruction and training-related projects
Key capabilities	Collaboratively create, edit and share documents, spreadsheets and presentations	Store and share files Add tags, metadata Adding comments and tasks Edit files with desktop applications or with Microsoft Office Online	Project/site dashboards Large set of tools and capabilities Integration with Microsoft Office	Site dashboard Wiki Discussions
Other useful features	Can also store most other file types (office, images, videos, etc.) Polls, forms, surveys	Previews for many types of files, e.g. images, video, audio, office, etc. Fine-grained permissions, e.g. preview without download Supports Mac package (e.g. Keynote) files via BoxSync	New easier-to-use version, based on SharePoint Online Can show the contents of a Box folder within the Sharepoint interface Office Web Apps for online editing	Self-service creation of project sites for faculty and staff
Price	Currently funded through Productivity Suite Assessment	Currently funded through Productivity Suite Assessment	Currently funded through Productivity Suite Assessment	Free to all faculty and staff
Storage limits	See this KB article for the breakdown of Google storage limits	50 GB for individual accounts 500 GB for SPA accounts	1 TB/site	2GB
Off-campus collaboration	Easily collaborate with all other Google users, including people with free Google accounts. Can also make selected files viewable by anyone on the Internet.	Easily collaborate with all other Box users, including people with free Box accounts. Can also make selected files viewable by anyone on the Internet.	Available for Site Collections with non-sensitive (UC P4/UCB PL2) data upon request.	Requires CalNet Guest account.
Security	Hosted off campus Approved for MSSEI UC P3 data only Data is encrypted in transit and at rest	Hosted off campus Approved for MSSEI UC P3 data only Data is encrypted in transit and at rest	Hosted off campus Approved for MSSEI UC P4 data upon request Data is encrypted in transit	Hosted off campus Approved for MSSEI UC P3 data only Data is encrypted in transit
More questions?	Contact ITCS	Contact ITCS	Contact ITCS	Contact ITCS