What is Box used for?

Box is a business platform for storing, sharing and managing content in the cloud, combining collaboration, workflow automation, security controls and AI features. It is a good fit for sharing sensitive documents with external partners and automating document-based business processes.

No. Box is proprietary (closed-source) software and can't be self-hosted. Open-source alternatives to Box include Pydio Cells, LinShare and Nextcloud.

What are some alternatives to Box?

Box competes with Dropbox, Egnyte and ShareFile. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source Box alternatives.

Box: features, pricing and alternatives

About Box

Box is a commercial cloud content management platform that businesses use to store, share and work on files. It positions itself as an intelligent content management system, tying together secure collaboration inside and outside a company, workflow automation, e-signatures and tools that help protect sensitive data.

The product set includes security and compliance controls, collaboration features, workflow automation, no-code apps, Hubs for AI-powered content portals, Box AI and Box AI Agents, Box Extract for pulling structured data from documents, e-signature, thousands of integrations and content APIs for developers. Box Zones lets organizations choose where content is stored across multiple regions to meet data residency requirements.

Box is proprietary and delivered as a hosted service, with industry pages for banking, government, education, law firms, insurance, life sciences and more. Pricing is published on its pricing pages, and consulting services and events such as BoxWorks complement the product.

Key features

Secure cloud file storage and sharing
Workflow automation for business processes
No-code apps and content hubs
Box AI and AI agents
Built-in e-signature requests
Data residency through Box Zones

Good fit for

→Sharing sensitive documents with external partners
→Automating document-based business processes

Tags: file-sharing; content-management; collaboration; enterprise; workflow-automation; e-signature; ai

Box: questions and answers

What is Box used for?: Box is a business platform for storing, sharing and managing content in the cloud, combining collaboration, workflow automation, security controls and AI features. It is a good fit for sharing sensitive documents with external partners and automating document-based business processes.
Is Box free?: Yes. Box has a free plan.
Is Box open source?: No. Box is proprietary (closed-source) software and can't be self-hosted. Open-source alternatives to Box include Pydio Cells, LinShare and Nextcloud.
What are some alternatives to Box?: Box competes with Dropbox, Egnyte and ShareFile. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source Box alternatives.