81–90 of 129 posts
Best sync software in my view. The only downside is that there is no good iOS app. I think the developers made the right decision focusing the software on peer to peer sync (i.e., not expanding to nearby “cloud features”: backup, photos, videos, office, etc).
While SyncThjng might be encrypted, it’s yet another port or server that’s open. We need ubiquitous private networks, such as wire guard, zerotier, or the buggy back-to-my-mac.
Best sync software in my view. The only downside is that there is no good iOS app. I think the developers made the right decision focusing the software on peer to peer sync (i.e., not expanding to nearby “cloud features”: backup, photos, videos, office, etc).
"The only downside is that there is no good iOS app." That's a dealbreaker for iOS folks, though. I hate the mission creep Dropbox has embraced, and would definitely consider something else, but I need access to my stuff on Windows, MacOS, and iOS. Anything that doesn't hit all three notes isn't a contender.
Is there anything that is a dealbreaker for "iOS folks"? If usability would have been a dealbreaker they might not have been on iOS in the first place.
Let's just look at Syncthing not being on iOS - Apple makes sure things like Syncthing can't be on iOS. Mobius Sync does a trillion workarounds to give a semblance of being on iOS. So maybe "iOS folks" should reach out to Apple talking about why softwares like Syncthing (which is top notch!) is not on "iOS".
I mean for heaven's sake Apple keeps devices so limited and they themselves don't write softwares to fully utilise a device's capacities and features and don't let anyone else write them. I was reading Logic Pro on iPad comments a day ago and "iOS folks" instead of being enraged at Apple giving peanuts in terms of capability on a fully capable device (that too after years and then not opening it up for other devs), they were going crazy as if Jesus just made third appearance on the fruit company website.
Rock-solid, gracefully handles long periods of one or more machines going offline (eg personal use computers in a home network), partly configurable with text files. The way it can be set for one-way syncs also opens up new use cases.
I use it for syncing documents, video capture, certain config files - even my ROM collection to my Steam Deck.
The only place you really shouldn’t use it is on Git repos - something that is probably obvious to anyone who has used a git branch, but worth re-stating. For a simple repo with only a main branch you want on just two machines - eg dev desktop and laptop - you might get away with it for a little while but it’s extremely brittle and will eventually trip you up - through no fault of Syncthing or Git, I should add. Just fundamentally incompatible paradigms.
Best sync software in my view. The only downside is that there is no good iOS app. I think the developers made the right decision focusing the software on peer to peer sync (i.e., not expanding to nearby “cloud features”: backup, photos, videos, office, etc).
I've only come across a few hiccups:
- Sometimes MacOS updates "break" Syncthing (fairly easy to fix, just have to re-authorize permissions)
- Sometimes you end up with a (large) file/folder syncing that you don't want to sync.. Trying to sneak in an ignore rule after the fact and delete the file/folder from the device you don't want it on? That usually doesn't go over well.. I usually end up having to pause sync and fix the resulting conflict manually.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It also phones home by default unless you turn it off (via crash and usage reporting), and in the default vendor-provided state grants arbitrary remote code execution ability to the developer (via unattended auto update which is on by default). Fortunately most distro packages and docker containers disable this dangerous behavior
> in the default vendor-provided state grants arbitrary remote code execution ability to the developer (via unattended auto update which is on by default) I find this a curious, borderline alarmist framing of the automatic update mechanism. Many pieces of software have automatic updates. What you say is no less true for common programs like Firefox or Google Chrome. Obviously you have to consider your threat model, b…
Anyone who can compromise the syncthing release process can run code on thousands of devices.
If you had 10's thousands or millions of files, and several terabytes, is syncthing a good option for this? I haven't seen a ton of great options unfortunately :/
It works... pretty well. I won't lie and say it works perfectly with all of our other file utilities and scripts we run, but 95-97% of the time I never think about it.
I use it with SyncTrazor on Windows Server deployments as well as Debian servers and yeah, I could be happier, but I highly doubt there's anything out there that can beat SyncThing overall.
Just know that with that many files the initial scans and DB building will be brutal, and the periodic syncs and rescans will be taxing. Highly recommend getting cheap 1-2U servers with dual sockets and lots of cores/threads - multiprocessing goes a long way in doing the file hashing.
EDIT: I will add that I only use it on servers and not on any client/desktop machines, so I can't vouch for its use there.