Box vs Everything

Box is a cloud content-management platform focused on enterprise security, compliance, and workflow, rather than just consumer file sync. It emphasizes governance, permissions, and integrations for business.

Everything is a Windows desktop utility from voidtools that indexes file and folder names across NTFS and ReFS volumes to deliver search results in real time, often before you finish typing. Instead of scanning the disk on demand like Windows Explorer's built-in search, it reads the NTFS Master File Table (or ReFS equivalent) once to build a compact index, then uses the USN/Change Journal to keep that index updated live as files are created, renamed, or deleted.

• Strong enterprise security
• Good governance and compliance
• Wide integrations
• Workflow automation

• Index builds in seconds and search results appear instantly as you type, even across drives with hundreds of thousands of files
• Completely free with no malware, spyware, or adware bundled
• Very low memory and disk footprint compared to typical desktop search indexers
• Powerful query syntax (regex, boolean logic, size/date/type filters) suits power users and scripting via the SDK

• Overkill for individuals
• Pricier than consumer options
• Interface less consumer-polished

• Windows-only; there is no native macOS or Linux version
• By default it indexes file and folder names, not file contents, so contents searches are slow since content is not pre-indexed
• NTFS/ReFS real-time indexing requires the Everything service or running as administrator, which some locked-down environments restrict