Recently I decided to give the SkyDrive App a go. Is it better than Dropbox?

Before I tell you that answer, I’ll tell you what makes SkyDrive better than Dropbox up front: 7GB of storage, with a free upgrade to 25GB:

More free storage is good and all that, but how does the app compare to Dropbox?

Firstly, it has a nice icon that sits neatly in the tray just like Dropbox:

(The icon on far left is SkyDrive)

In the Windows 7 Explorer, it has a Favorite entry just like Dropbox for easy and quick access:

When it comes to sharing stuff however, this is where Dropbox still has the advantage.

Right-clicking anything in your Dropbox directly, be it a file or folder, allows you to enter the Dropbox menu and share it out easily:

On the SkyDrive side, I did not see any obvious way in the Windows interface to do this. The "Share with" context menu option is not applicable here because that doesn’t include SkyDrive specifically.

I was forced to go to skydrive.com, click a folder (or a file) and then click Share on the right side column in the browser:

…and from there choose the sharing option I want:

Note that there is "Get a link" if all you want is the link and nothing else, just like Dropbox; you don’t have to use the "Send email" function if you don’t want to. Also note the "Post to Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn" option, where you can send out links to files direct to those web services if you wish.

The SkyDrive app works in Windows, Windows Phone, iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android via Browser for SkyDrive or Cloud Explorer for Skydrive but not desktop-based Linux specifically. For some, that’s a deal-breaker right there because people who use Dropbox truly appreciate that their app works on just about any platform. This isn’t to say you can’t access SkyDrive at all in Linux as you could use the browser. But the whole point of the app is faster local access, and the desktop app isn’t an option for SkyDrive in Linux.

So, The Big Question: Is SkyDrive App better than Dropbox?

Feature-wise, no. Storage-wise, yes. And the only people who really lose out here are desktop Linux users.

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