The Best Cloud Storage Services of 2025

Cloud storage makes our digital lives easier: we can store files online, as well as collaborate and switch devices more easily. We’ve put together this list of the best cloud storage services to help you pick the best for you.

What to Look For in a Cloud Storage Service

Picking the best cloud storage can be tricky. At first glance, many of them are quite same-y, offering roughly the same functionality and features. Look again, though, and some massive differences will pop out at you.

First, the price can vary wildly. For many people, using free cloud storage may very well be enough. Right now, multiple services are offering multiple gigabytes for free (check out my overview of the best free cloud storage for more on that), and I would argue that only the most hardcore digital pack rats will need to pay for storage. However, some services are a lot cheaper than others.

Another issue is security, and its sibling privacy. While almost all services will do a decent job of protecting files from outside attack, that doesn’t necessarily mean the service itself isn’t peeking in on your files. Not all services are equally good at taking care of this, and I will note which do the best job.

Finally, all the services I picked are easy to use, with little to no fuss when uploading, downloading, or sharing files. After all, this is why we use cloud storage, right?

Best Cloud Storage Overall: Sync.com

If I had to pick one cloud storage above all, it’d be Sync.com. It’s easy to use, secure, and pretty affordable. What I like is that it’s one of the very few cloud storage providers that has end-to-end encryption (E2EE) built in, which means that your files are encrypted at all times; Sync.com will never be able to peek at your files.

I also like the Sync.com interface, which lays out everything you need right in front of you; no need to dig for a function or button. Sharing is also easy, without your recipient needing to sign up to the service.

Pricing is also reasonable: You get 5GB of space for free, which is pretty generous, and then pay $60 per year for 200GB of space, or just under $100 for 2TB—and plans go up from there. That jump is pretty big, and I’d like it if there was an intermediate step, but at those prices, you can’t complain too much.

Best Cloud Storage Overall

Sync.com

A great all-around cloud storage service which combines great value for money with an impressive list of sharing, collaboration, and syncing features.

Best Budget Cloud Storage: IceDrive

Next up is IceDrive, which I like for people looking to save a few bucks on cloud storage. That said, as is often the case, the better savings are when you sign up for larger allotments. In fact, the very best savings are on the service’s lifetime plans, which give you massive amounts of space for very reasonable one-time payments.

For example, you can get 1TB of storage for $70 per year, which is a decent price, or you could pay just under $500 for 2TB, which you get to keep forever—or at least while IceDrive is in business. Though it’s a risk, of course, at these prices it may be interesting to take the gamble and sign on for a lot of storage for the long term.

IceDrive has more going for it than just price, of course. It’s an accessible, easy-to-use service with a generous 10GB of storage for free. That said, I’m not crazy about the fact that you need to pay extra for E2EE, which is a strike against the service in my book.

Best Budget Cloud Storage

Icedrive

A great value cloud storage service that offers impressive security and an extremely easy-to-use desktop sync app.

Best Lifetime Cloud Storage: pCloud

Another service I like a lot is pCloud. It offers decent pricing, a simple, effective interface, and some nice sharing options. Like IceDrive, you need to pay extra for E2EE, which I’m not too fond of, but for non-sensitive files, it’s a good option.

pCloud’s biggest strength is its lifetime plans, which are cheaper than IceDrive’s. You can get 500GB for just over $200 or 2TB for just over $400, which is almost $100 cheaper than IceDrive. The two only tie when you want 10TB of space, when both are about $1200 for life.

If you want to go year-by-year, pCloud is still a decent option, costing $50 for 500GB and $100 for 2TB. The latter plan is the much better option, so generally, I would recommend pCloud for people who need a lot of storage.

Best Lifetime Cloud Storage

pCloud

pCloud is a cloud storage provider with some powerful backup capabilities.

Best Free Cloud Storage: Google Drive

If you want as much free storage as you can get, plus a decent productivity suite, Google Drive is the best pick. While some services offer more storage space, it’s often tied to certain conditions or can even evaporate. I like how Google Drive just offers 15GB right off the bat, no further action necessary.

Besides giving you a lot of space for free, you also get one of the better and most familiar interfaces out there. On top of that, you also get access to Google Docs, Google Sheets, and the rest of Google’s productivity suite, which is used by people and businesses worldwide, making collaboration very easy.

The downside is that Google Drive gets pretty pricey if you want more than 15GB and the data spying by Google. I wouldn’t recommend storing anything sensitive with the service, and mainly use it for projects where you need to work together with people.

Best Free Cloud Storage

Google Drive/One

A great cloud storage solution for anyone who needs collaboration and sharing tools, but who doesn’t need zero-knowledge encryption.

Best Cloud Storage with Backup: IDrive

Finally, we come to IDrive, one of the best online backup providers and a good storage service. I like the flexibility: You decide how much space goes to storage and how much you use to back up important files on your computer.

As you can read in my IDrive review, the interface is good, if a bit outdated, giving you plenty of options on how and when to back files up. Storing files is as easy as with any other entry on this list, just click and drag and that’s it.

I like IDrive’s pricing, too: you get up to 5GB for free, but the 100GB plan is just $3 per year. Being a backup service, you’re only allowed to run the program on just one computer, but three bucks is a steal for 100GB. Prices do climb rapidly after that point, but at no point does IDrive get too expensive.

Best Cloud Storage with Backup

IDrive

A unique mix of cloud storage and data backup, with some of the best value premium plans available right now.