MEGA vs Proton Drive
Two encrypted clouds with free tiers worth having: 20 GB of pragmatism against 5 GB of principle.
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MEGA
20 GB free, encrypted, on every platform you own.
Proton Drive
Swiss zero-knowledge storage from the Proton Mail people.
| Feature | MEGA | Proton Drive |
|---|---|---|
| Our score | 4.1 / 5 | 4.4 / 5 |
| Price | From $9.99/mo | From $9.99/mo |
| Free plan | ||
| Best for | Free encrypted storage | Privacy-first users |
| Category | Encrypted & private | Encrypted & private |
| Provider | MEGA Limited | Proton AG |
| Visit MEGA | Visit Proton Drive |
Our verdict
MEGA wins the free fight outright. 20 GB against 5 GB, with clients for every platform including Linux. On paid plans the choice sharpens. Proton Drive buys you into an ecosystem (Mail, VPN, Pass) with a privacy-first institutional reputation, while MEGA gives more raw encrypted storage per dollar with chat and meetings attached.
For a free encrypted dump of your documents folder, MEGA. For a paid, principled home for your digital life, Proton. Both keep your keys yours, which beats most of this market already.
“The most generous free tier in the business (20 GB) with end-to-end encryption as standard. Paid plans are fair, apps cover every platform including Linux, and the colorful history is exactly that: history.”Editorial team, on MEGA
“The privacy ecosystem play. Zero-knowledge encryption by default, Swiss jurisdiction, and it comes bundled with the best private email and a top-tier VPN. Still younger and leaner on features than the veterans, but maturing fast.”Editorial team, on Proton Drive
Frequently asked questions
Which is safer for private photos, MEGA or Proton Drive?
Proton Drive, by a narrow margin. Both encrypt your files on your own device, so neither company can open your photos, and that already separates them from Google Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox. Two things break the tie. Proton Drive's apps are open source and were audited by the security firm Securitum, and every share link can carry a password and an expiry date, on the free plan too. MEGA's cryptography needed two rounds of repairs after academic attacks in 2022 and 2023, and its standard share link carries the decryption key inside the link itself.
How secure is MEGA compared with Proton Drive?
Both are end-to-end encrypted by default. The difference is the track record. In 2022 researchers at ETH Zurich published five attacks on MEGA in a paper called "MEGA: Malleable Encryption Goes Awry", one of which recovered a user's private RSA key after 512 logins. MEGA confirmed the problem, patched its clients and paid the researchers a bug bounty. A follow-up paper at Eurocrypt 2023, "Caveat Implementor!", showed those patches could themselves be attacked, after which MEGA made larger changes to the system. Every one of those attacks required control of MEGA's own servers or an intercepted TLS connection, so none of it was something an outsider could do to your account. Proton Drive has no comparable public break.
What is the safest way to share a private photo from either service?
Put a password and an expiry date on the link, and never post the full link anywhere public. Proton Drive offers both on every plan, including the free one. MEGA lets you copy the file link and the decryption key separately, which is the safer route, because the standard full link contains the key after the # and anyone holding that link opens the file without logging in.
Can MEGA or Proton Drive recover my files if I lose my password?
No, and that is the point of end-to-end encryption. Neither company holds a key to your files, so neither can hand them back. Both give you a fallback when you sign up, a Recovery Key at MEGA and a recovery phrase or recovery file at Proton. Save it offline, on paper if you like. Losing that credential is what actually costs people their photos, far more often than any cryptographic attack does.
MEGA or Proton Drive: which one should I choose?
It depends on the plan. For a free encrypted place to park your documents folder, MEGA: 20 GB against 5 GB, with clients for every platform including Linux. For a paid, principled home for your digital life, Proton Drive, which adds Mail, VPN and Pass. For private photos, Proton Drive by a narrow margin.
Proton Drive 5 GB free vs MEGA 20 GB free: which is better?
MEGA, on space alone. 20 GB free against 5 GB at Proton Drive, and both encrypt your files on your device by default. Proton's smaller free plan counters with share links that carry a password and an expiry date, plus a Proton Mail address. Parking a large documents folder for free? MEGA. Sharing a few sensitive files carefully? Proton Drive.