What is OneDrive for?
Personal and team file storage inside Microsoft 365, with sync, sharing and deep Office integration.
OneDrive and Citadel do different jobs.
OneDrive keeps your Microsoft files in sync. Citadel keeps your most valuable files contained.
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 OneDrive 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.
OneDrive 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.
OneDrive and Citadel side by side
| How they compare | |
|---|---|
| Primary purpose | OneDrive: Microsoft 365 file storage and sync. Citadel: a vault for critical data. |
| Endpoint sync | OneDrive: yes, which is convenient and also an attack path. Citadel: no sync client. |
| Identity | OneDrive: tied to your Microsoft tenant. Citadel: a separate boundary with its own private code. |
| Data protection model | OneDrive: encryption and tenant policy. Citadel: reduction, separation and distribution. |
| Best used for | OneDrive: daily documents. Citadel: the files that would make the news. |
Questions people ask
- If our tenant is compromised, is Citadel affected?
- Citadel is a separate identity boundary with its own authentication, so tenant compromise does not automatically reach the vault.
- Can I sign in with Microsoft?
- Yes, with a private code as the second step.
- Does Citadel replace OneDrive?
- No. Keep it for everyday work and move crown-jewel data into the vault.
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.