pCloud Pricing, Features, Reviews & Comparison of Alternatives

Pros
The pCloud servers are fast. Uploading is fast, downloading is fast. That's one of the main prerequisites for a good online storage platform, isn't it? pCloud isn't a *backup* platform, it's a storage platform for selective storage and retrieval of files. You can have perfect end-to-end encryption via pCloud Vault. You pay extra for this, but when you have this, not even pCloud has access to whatever you put in the Vault. You can also share files from pCloud - and this is the feature that I use most often. I host video files in my pCloud Public area, presented through a video management service and then embedding them on my website. pCloud is fast, and I don't have to worry about how much storage space I'm using. Sure, you could use DropBox but you'd be paying more for the storage space you get. Finally, I also like the fact that pCloud is not an American company because of the legal & data access concerns that can come up for non-Americans like myself, my business, and some of my current clients.

Cons
If pCloud believes there is copyright infringement with any of your files that are not in the Vault - whether in your regular "mostly-private" area or the Public area - they'll block off your account and they won't tell you why. I had this happen with one of my pCloud accounts. I had a lot of anxiety from that experience, and thankfully after a very thoughtfully-worded letter (explaining why I didn't think there was any copyright infringement in my files) *faxed* to their legal representative, I got that account - and access to the files there - reinstated. Part of my frustration was in their inability and/or unwillingness to tell me what content was deemed problematic by either (a) their automatic "sniffing" algorithms or (b) someone's complaint. How do you defend yourself against an accusation when you aren't given any specifics at all about the accusation? So beware of that possibility.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
I'll be honest in this review. Positives, and some suggestions for improvements. First of all: my sincere compliments go to the development team that managed to create dazzling sync speeds. Great! Uploads via Safari browser are really fast. Way much better than DropBox, OneDrive, Google Drive and iCloud Drive. I tested the speeds of these cloud services intensively, having accounts on all of them, and cannot come to another conclusion: very good. The user interface (UI) in both macOS and iOS is OK. It is intuitive, fast, and does not go with the latest layout fashion of "much unused white space on the screen". The compact UI suits me very well. I wanna see information on the screen, not fancy white spaces :-). Good choice! I work with a lot of audio (productions and samples), video and graphics. Finding them on pCloud works good, and swapping through a list of pictures works really fast, on both macOS and iOS. The audio player on iOS is good and fast. Streaming audio and video works well, on both macOS and iOS. Good. The option to sync any folder on my Mac is just great. No longer the need to drag all folders and files into one sync folder (like in DropBox, OneDrive). I am an intensive user of DEVONthink Pro Office (http://www.devontechnologies.com), and I need speedy synchronization between several Macs in my working environment. I put a -so called- "syncstore" on pCloud Drive and did some severe testing. Conclusion: happy, very fast. To me this is important.

Cons
The iPad app may need some polishing. E.g.: from time to time, Pages documents cannot be previewed: an error message appears. When I edit that Pages document and save it back to pCloud, then the preview is OK. Another improvement that would suit me very well is full text search. Google Drive and OneDrive (and the business version of DropBox) have this feature. It would be great to be able to search for data within a document, and have a highlighted search result.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
I use it to document the preparing of my new house and the process of moving there. So I deal mainly with fotos. Upload via smartphone or PC works great ... and fast. I can create a folder structure of my liking and change it as often as necessary. Copying and moving within the folders is no problem, neither is selecting several items , once you get the hang of it. I, too, tried the backups of dropbox and my google account, but deactivated it again. It will take space I need for other things. Installing all apps was easy on computer and smartphone. After setting everything up, i.e. automatic upload from my smartphone, defining the filetypes etc. I was set and more or less forget about it. pCloud received my fotos, I distributed them to my folders and created new ones every time I was at the house. It will be the most important documentary of the process and I am confident, that the service will be available for many years to come. Just before writing this review I went through the pCloud-structure again and discovered some music I uploaded more than half a year ago. It is playing in the background now. Nice. Having tried several cloud systems before for uploading my stuff, I found pCloud very easy and comfortable to use and will use it for the time to come or until it folds - which I hope, never happens. By the way, I am a free user, having granted the 50 GB during an introduction campaign of the service.

Cons
There is not much to dislike. The interface is simple and easy to understand, the options menu structure has few - but important - things to configure. After that, it just runs and does its thing. When getting it the first time, I was asked, what could be improved. I wanted for connecting to more cloud systems. The big five are ok, but I hoped, that pCloud being a European company would target big European providers, too. I miss especially T-Online, web.de and GMX and the access to their media centers. Maybe it is possible to participate in the development of a standardised interface to access various cloud systems. If this is not possible, I would request pCloud to have its service added to suppliers of cloud connecting software. The German website show clearly, that it was translated from the English site with its share of expression and grammar mistakes. As pCloud is a swiss company, this is somewhat weird. But it is not unreadable or subject for misunderstandings of the service. You can't do anything wrong when following German instructions. The pricing is ok, the free account quite generous and options to upgrade are quite tempting.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
Customer support is excellent. It was good as a personal user. I get my own account manager as a business user. And they know what they are talking about, and offer useful advice, and make good on the very few times (only once, in fact, overnight) that the service has been down. I've received appalling customer service over the years from many other companies, not just file shares, and this alone has been a huge plus. There are also many clients available, and for the most part they work flawlessly. Integration is smooth, and the use (hooks into file managers etc.) are easy to install, and intuitive even for home use. Crypto is amazing, and puts the lock and key on the Swiss-based secure location of my data, which is covered by Swiss privacy laws anyway. This also is a huge plus, as we have years of acquired IP it would be a disaster to lose, or compromise the security of existing clients' data. Overall, this is a slick and secure and hassle-free solution. I have a few tiny quibbles (I'll detail in the Cons) but they are minor and I feel guilty for dropping any stars at all...

Cons
The Linux client support had gone from being outstanding to more than a little spotty. There were three flavours: Electron, CLI (for headless servers or remote SSH login) and a .deb. The .deb worked flawlessly with elementary Loki, but then suddenly disappeared. The Electron version was pretty woeful, but may or may not be sorted out now. Lack of Linux support infuriates me. I can't do my job without it. And there have been snippy emails from me to customer support about it on many occasions. I am always treated as a valued customer, though, so I feel slightly churlish about complaining. But there you go, still the best I've ever used (and I've used most of them).

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10

Pros
Simple to use, storage capacity, multilayered backup, team permisions...

Cons
As citizen of EU I would like that my data is stored outside US. More customization would be nice. Cloud encription is extra charged???For a server on US soil?

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10