Microsoft OneDrive vs Proton Drive

Proton Drive's end-to-end, zero-knowledge encryption means your files are encrypted before they ever leave your device — Proton's servers see only scrambled data they cannot read. OneDrive encrypts data too, but Microsoft holds the keys, meaning they can access your files if compelled by law enforcement or a court order. For most people storing vacation photos and spreadsheets, this distinction is academic. For anyone storing genuinely sensitive material, it's everything.

If you're already a Microsoft 365 subscriber, OneDrive's 1TB is bundled in at no extra cost — that's a genuinely hard deal to beat. Proton Drive's 1TB plan costs extra on top of any other Proton subscriptions, though bundling with Proton Mail and VPN softens the blow. The free tiers tell the same story: OneDrive gives you 5GB for free, Proton gives you a stingy 1GB. Privacy has a price, and Proton charges it.

Opening, editing, and co-authoring Word or Excel files directly from OneDrive in the browser or desktop app is seamless in a way no competitor has replicated. Proton Drive integrates well within the Proton ecosystem — Mail, Calendar, VPN — but that's a closed loop. If your workflow touches anything outside Proton's suite, you'll feel the lack of third-party integrations that OneDrive handles without thinking.

Reddit users and PCMag testing both flag Proton Drive's upload speeds as noticeably slower than the competition — a direct consequence of encrypting everything client-side before upload. For a few documents, you won't care. For backing up a 50GB photo library, you'll notice. OneDrive's upload performance is competitive with Google Drive and Dropbox. If you're moving large volumes of data regularly, this friction adds up fast.