What is Dropbox for?
Everyday file storage, sync and collaboration across teams and devices, with sharing links, shared folders and integrations.
Dropbox and Citadel do different jobs.
Dropbox is where you keep your files. Citadel is where you keep the files you cannot afford to lose.
What is Citadel for?
Protecting and archiving high-value information: board papers, IP, legal files, financial records, source code and private keys. It is a vault, not a workspace.
Do you need both?
Usually, yes. Most organisations keep Dropbox for everyday work and move their crown-jewel data into Citadel, where there is no sharing surface at all.
Every Citadel subscription protects more than storage.
Citadel is priced for the people who use it and the work they do. The service connects identity, networking, transport, protected data, recovery and business continuity in one architecture.
Identity
Quantum-Secure® authentication designed to reduce dependence on traditional key-based access.
Network
Quantum-Secure® private networking extends protection beyond the storage environment.
Transport
ParticleMesh™ protects data as it moves between people, applications, clouds and infrastructure.
Data
Secured2 protection is applied to the data itself, beyond conventional encryption at rest.
Resilience
Multi-location redundancy, recovery and business continuity reduce dependence on any single system.
Risk
Eligible deployments can include contractual cyber-risk indemnification backed by a Lloyd's of London insurance policy.*
* Insurance, indemnification, coverage limits, exclusions, eligibility and availability are subject to the applicable policy and contractual terms.
An honest comparison.
Dropbox is a capable product and we are not going to pretend otherwise. It is designed for productivity, and it is good at it.
Citadel is designed for containment. It has no sharing, no links, no guests and no sync client, because every one of those is a route out. Those absences would be flaws in a collaboration tool. In a vault they are the point.
Where the protection differs.
Mainstream platforms protect data with encryption and access controls: an algorithm, a key and a permission model. That is a reasonable design, and it rests on the key staying secret.
Citadel adds Secured2's physics-based Quantum-Secure® protection. Files are reduced, separated into fragments with no independent meaning, and distributed, so no single location holds a complete, readable file.
Dropbox and Citadel side by side
| How they compare | |
|---|---|
| Primary purpose | Dropbox: everyday collaboration and sync. Citadel: protecting and archiving high-value files. |
| Sharing | Dropbox: links, shared folders, guests. Citadel: none by design. |
| Desktop sync | Dropbox: yes. Citadel: no, which removes an attack path from your endpoints. |
| Data protection model | Dropbox: encryption with managed keys. Citadel: physics-based Quantum-Secure® reduction, separation and distribution. |
| Best used for | Dropbox: documents in motion. Citadel: documents that must not move. |
Questions people ask
- Is Citadel a Dropbox replacement?
- For most organisations, no. It is a secure Dropbox alternative for confidential documents specifically, while everyday work stays where it is.
- Can I move selected Dropbox folders into Citadel?
- Yes. Drag them in and the folder structure is preserved exactly.
- Why does Citadel not offer sharing?
- Because shared links and guest access are the most common way confidential files end up somewhere they should not be.
Keep reading
Keep working where you work. Vault what you cannot lose.
Citadel sits alongside the tools your teams already use, and takes responsibility for the files that must never leak.