Why Shade is a better fit for creative files and large media assets.
Key takeaways
Real-time access with multimodal support.
Shade makes your files searchable (facial recognition, neural search, transcription, etc.) and instantly accessible: work with your files across data locations whether you're offline, online, on-site, or remote. In contrast, Dropbox requires users to download large files, is internet-dependent, and offers limited search capabilities for exploring file contents.
Bring your own storage & hybrid optionality.
Shade leverages your existing infrastructure and offers hybrid solutions for those who wish to bundle local and cloud storage for optimal speed. In contrast, Dropbox is constrained to the cloud and cannot layer with your existing network-attached storage (NAS).
A file system designed for creatives.
Shade is specifically designed to search, access, and share large media assets whereas Dropbox lacks the specialized features essential to creative workflows.
Ready to switch from Dropbox to Shade?
File access optimized for speed.
Shade is a file system that’s built to be fast, smart and real-time and works across your infrastructure, not just the cloud. Remember, your goal isn’t to use the cloud, it is to have one shared way to work with your files. One of which is to use the cloud. Dropbox’s systems are slow and work well for documents and spreadsheets, and although they support preview of a variety of image and video formats, Dropbox provides no easy way to access that data, oftentimes waiting long hours just for files to upload and download.
Shade offers a fast smart real time way to work with your files. How? It offers real-time access to your files from anywhere, as if they were an SSD on your computer. We also offer a unified permission management infrastructure across all drives that can be located on your NAS or in our Shade cloud. With Shade, you will never have to wait for files to download and upload again, your data is fully searchable and accessible from anywhere and you can be darn sure that you know who has access to what.
Multimodal Neural Search v. Dropbox Dash
Dropbox Dash has support for file and distributed document search across a variety of different software applications, but it lacks the ability to search multimedia assets especially items such as images or videos. Dash also does not allow the ability to search local files and files across different destinations on-prem. Search is also all done in the cloud - how are you going to access those assets? Finally, if you want to search for faces, transcription, natural language, sub clips, or any other method of searching that could prove to be useful. Dropbox simply does not support it.
In contrast, Shade unifies your search for your files across all of your destinations and locations, across local, on-prem, and cloud (although it does not support third party software applications at this time). So, if you are working with large number of media assets and files on a daily basis, then Shade is the right choice for you.
Cloud-exclusive solutions are constraining.
As a creative team, your files are everywhere, and duly everywhere. Why? Because time to access is important and valuable to you. We shouldn’t need to download 1TB of files every time we need to access and use them. With Dropbox, we have no ability to leverage any existing hardware purchased and instead must opt to use their cloud in entirety. With Shade, you can leverage your existing hybrid infrastructure along with any existing storage providers you have and Shade will work with them - leveraging all your storage systems no matter where they are.
Jack of all trades, master of none.
Dropbox is designed for a multitude of use cases, markets, people, and centers itself around a file sharing platform. But that’s not what you need - as a creative team, you need something that understands your files, can help you retrieve those files as quickly as possible, and enable you to rapidly access and share those files as if your whole team is working off an SSD together. Why? Because working with big files is fundamentally different than working with documents and spreadsheets. When Dropbox tries to offer a multitude of tooling and solutions, they fail to provide a viable solution for every single use case. Especially for your creative assets that define your company, you should choose a solution that makes it easier to work with your files on a daily basis.
When to use Dropbox over Shade: eSignatures & Notarization
If you know that you will not be working with files all the time, or if you are predominantly working with documents, spreadsheets and require core Dropbox items like signatures, document sending, and notarization, then Shade might not be the best fit for you. Shade is currently designed for a creative audience who works with media asset files on a daily basis.
