For those interested in open source alternatives, syncthing, NextCloud (fork of ownCloud), and Seafile are some of the big names in this space, as others have mentioned. Personally I'm on syncthing. It's one of the best pieces of software I've ever used. My only complaint is it's not really instantaneous for me. In theory it works with inotify, but I've never quite been able to get it to work. I'm confident it will eventually, though. It's a fairly new feature if I'm not mistaken. For now, if I really just need to get a file from point A to point B right now, I used File Pizza.
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I'd definitely throw Keybase in there as well. To me it has the easiest experience being cross platform, integrated with the filesystem, end-to-end encrypted, and having solved the identity proof piece.
Keybase is nice, but it isn't a Dropbox replacement. Your files aren't accessible offline; that's kind of a core part of a file sync instead of a file store.
I take your point that they use different mechanisms to provide access to files which are not fully interchangeable. With that said, I think many people probably don't really care or have a need for offline access, since nowadays people almost always have connectivity. Given this I would say in many (maybe most?) instances Keybase could replace Dropbox in practice.
Also, when you consider that being offline for an extended period of time means that your files are not being synced, then the purpose of Dropbox is somewhat defeated. Basically Dropbox can't sync without connectivity and if you have connectivity then you would have access to the Keybase "file store" anyway.
> I take your point that they use different mechanisms to provide access to files which are not fully interchangeable. With that said, I think many people probably don't really care or have a need for offline access, since nowadays people almost always have connectivity. Given this I would say in many (maybe most?) instances Keybase could replace Dropbox in practice.
Yeah, no, I don't think so. If my bus or train goes through a tunnel, losing my dotfiles or my OneNote notebooks or whatever else is pretty bad.
Forget first world problems--"people almost always have connectivity" is some...like...zeroth world stuff.
Really? If you lose access to your dotfiles and OneNote notebooks for 5 or 10 minutes (that would be one long tunnel) that's completely unacceptable? This also sounds like a daily commute that could have easily been planned around if that time is really that important. Besides, when I work with Keybase I copy the files to my machine ahead of time to a local directory, so I likely would never notice such a drop in connectivity.
I really doubt that in most modern environments (i.e. where smartphones are pervasive) that you are going to go very long without connectivity in an unplanned scenario.
When OneNote freaks out because it can't access its drive during an auto-save and hard-locks? When zsh can't start because it can't find files sourced in .zshrc? Yeah, that's kind of important and that should nev-er happen.
"I copy files out of it to get around that it's not good at what I'm trying to use it for" is not a super winning argument, either.
KBFS is fine. I use it for stuff like SSH keys. It's fine. It's not Dropbox and it isn't substitutable and it doesn't need capes.
You use the tool as it is intended. With Keybase if you are opening and working directly from the Keybase folder that is mounted then you are using it wrong, so your scenario wouldn't happen if you are using Keybase correctly.
The point I was trying to make is that for many people being able to copy back and forth between a local folder and a mounted directory is no different than what they do everyday at work with networked folders. Many people are just moving the occasional document, picture, or folder. For those people Keybase could definitely work as a Dropbox replacement. I don't think the typical Dropbox user is expecting their ZSH profile to be omnipresent on their multiple computers/laptops/tablets.
Airplanes are a common case where people have long stretches without connectivity, either due to not paying for wifi or any if the other reasons it might be unavailable or unusable.
Being on a NYC subway train is an even more interesting case, because depending on the precise client setup there's often intermittent or bad connectivity but rarely a good sustained connection between stations.
As in most of the world, smartphones are pervasive in both of these contexts.
Mobile and computer apps used to support these cases a lot better. As Bay Area connectivity has gotten better in those areas where well-off techies congregate (e.g. not underground Muni Metro), apps have gotten much worse at this except for apps targeting developing countries like India and Africa.
Agreed, but these are planned events where you won't have connectivity, so you can copy the files to a local folder prior to the trip. I recognize that might not be as convenient as having the system perform a push to your machine to sync it. I think in those cases I'd probably just run rsync against the keybase folder.
Offtopic but Africa is not a country.
I used to use ownCloud. Just curious - why is it not in your list of alternatives? Did the project die?
Nextcloud is a fork of Owncloud that's led by the original Owncloud developer, and it seems to be more popular with the free software and Linux community. It looks like both are still active.
Nextcloud is the successor of ownCloud.
I'm still running OwnCloud. I've tried twice to move to nextcloud but run into syncing issues from my clients with the same data (and same basic setup) that Owncloud is currently handling fine.
Long term I do still plan on moving to NextCloud, the core dev team from owncloud moved over and I've always been happy with OC, but I need the time to actually figure out why I'm getting sync errors with the suggested setup after following all the suggested fixes.
I haven't run it, but previous HN threads often have comments of ownCloud randomly deleting files, along with other weird bugs.
Owncloud still exists, but most original developers moved to its fork Nextcloud.
If you just want to get a file or files from A to B you can use rsync. It works great (although I don't know if it works on Windows)
rsync is a great tool, but I'm talking about cases involving NATs and smartphones (although I'm sure there's a reasonable android version of rsync available).
Syncthing is a great piece of software. I configured it on three of my machines in March and I've had zero issues since. In fact, it has worked so well that I don't even think about it.
One of the machines even runs an old version found in Debian stable repos, but there has been no issues syncing with machines running newer versions.
Only downside for me is that there's no iOS client.
There's a (closed source?) iOS client: fsync
Is Syncthing here to stay or will it morph into a nextcloud or a btsync or that ubuntu thing or be abandonner in 6 months ?
My impression is it's here to stay. I think I've been using it for about 2 years now. The protocol is completely open as well.
Cool, are there third-party apps beside the official ones ? That would be a strong indicator.
I've been meaning to try git-annex as well. Anyone have any experience/opinions on it?