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Comment by hectormalot | Hacker News Reader

Not exactly the same feature set, but I’ve replaced Dropbox with Syncthing (open source) and it has been very reliable for my intended use (sync files across my devices).

I also run it on my home server for a central sync point. Don’t use it much on mobile, but works well enough if I do need a file. Not a good solution for sharing with others though.

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I spent a couple days with Syncthing. The UX and general process of setup / adding devices is one of the most inscrutable things I’ve ever done. I have been using computers since the early 90s, and I have not had an experience like that since maybe setting up networking in the early nineties with no internet to help.

It’s open source, and it purports to sync resource forks which is very important to me - but they should really sit down and figure out how to make the process easier for newcomers.

I ended up back on Dropbox which also syncs resource forks. One of the few services that does.

The dialog is complex but the documentation is informative and I think all the options are important. You can setup default values in the settings section. It's more an expert tool like ffmpeg. Every folder synchronization endpoint configuration is different especially as it's distributed instead of the default clients/server.

I agree the UX for adding devices is not very intuitive, but once it's set up it works great.

Also it has many options for syncing, which is something I like so I can set it up in any way I like.

I also am a happy syncthing user.

I have one “server” that contains all my synced folders, is always online and gets backed up to the cloud. Every other device syncs a subset of those folders using syncthing. It is fast and reliable. I had to set up some stignore files to exclude platform-specific files like node_modules, but other than that it has been smooth sailing.

Syncthing for the win. Has worked fantastic for me for many years across just about an OS you want to use.

I have looked into Syncthing and I found that their E2E setup is too daunting. In contrast in Resilio Sync one can share read/write key and be settled with it easally. If security is of concern one simply puts an expiration time on the key.

> I have looked into Syncthing and I found that their E2E setup is too daunting.

Are you referring to untrusted devices? That is different than e2e encryption. Synching is e2e encrypted by default. Synching relays are only used when a direct connection with a peer is not possible. When a relay is used the data is encrypted. The relay cannot read it.

https://docs.syncthing.net/users/relaying.html#security

When I last checked and started the Syncthing setup wizard, I got the impression that to set up the synchronisation between devices A and B; I would have to paste the public key of B in A and the public key of A in B, which is more complex than initialising this step with a token key as Resilio sync does it.

Furthermore, it prevents its use as a public bulletin board where the server can share a read key and allow anyone to keep a copy of the data. I am developing an E2E evoting app where that would have been useful.

No, to setup two devices you have to add the id of A into B (you can even scan the qr code), wait for B to be contacted, and from B accept the invitation. Repeat for each folder (there's a setting where you cao automatically accept all folders from a given peer, off by default).

You can also define that one folder on a given device (say a server) never accepts remote changes from anyone else, or never propagates local changes to anyone else. Combine this with encryption (provided by syncthing if you so desire, or your own) and versioning (also provided by syncthing if you want) and you have a pretty good backup endpoint.

I invite you to try out syncthing deeper, the doc really doesn't do it justice. However keep in mind that it's supposed to be used on devices that will be manually deployed. It's not made for large scale deployments.

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