by okket on 3/13/17, 12:27 PM
by jcoffland on 3/13/17, 5:35 PM
I have one suggestion for the authors. Make it clear on the front page exactly what Syncthing does. There's lots of information about Syncthing's qualities but if you don't already know what the software does, it's not obvious.
by Nutomic on 3/13/17, 3:20 PM
Note that usage reporting is disabled by default, and has to be enabled manually. The Android app alone has around 30.000 active installs according to Google Play statistics. Usage reporting only shows about 2.000 of those. Based on this data, I would estimate that there are between 100.000 and 300.000 active installations of Syncthing.
Source: I'm the maintainer of the Syncthing Android app.
by dragly on 3/13/17, 12:04 PM
It amazes me that Syncthing handles rapidly-changing files better for me than Dropbox. Where Dropbox has left different versions of files on different computers even after they have changed multiple times, Syncthing happily synchronizes them without issues. And the fact that Syncthing is open source and allows me to keep files on my own machines is a big plus. However, I would love to see a paid option for easy backup of selected files to a machine in the cloud. Some people want their files backed up and accessible through a web service and I wish I could recommend Syncthing to them as well.
by canton7 on 3/13/17, 3:37 PM
One of the common complaints about Syncthing is the lack of native UI (you use your web browser), and the difficulty in setting it up for non-technical users (copying an executable into a directory, running it directly, setting it to automatically start on login aren't something you'd ask your parents / grandparents to do).
The homepage recommends Syncnthing-GTK (https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing-gtk) (Cross-Platform) and SyncTrayzor (https://github.com/canton7/SyncTrayzor) (Windows only) to help with these pain points. The provide installers, more native-feeling UIs, tray icons, etc.
There are also a large number of other Community Contributions (https://docs.syncthing.net/users/contrib.html).
by mduerksen on 3/13/17, 2:31 PM
Syncthing is sorely missing iOS support. I know they have their reasons not to implement it[0], but I feel that feature might be worth the hassle.
Photo sync on iOS without iCloud is a huge pain atm.
My backup strategy involves a NAS folder that stays up to date (i.e. also deletes photos that I delete on my phone), and which I occasionally sort into final location. After that I can free the space on my phone.
All other options (including Resilio Sync) are a add-only "sync"[1], which makes it annoying to sift through all the photos including those I already weeded out a week ago.
[0] https://docs.syncthing.net/users/faq.html#why-is-there-no-io...
[1] In theory, Resilio has a real sync, but for some reason, not for the iOS camera roll.
by vocatus_gate on 3/13/17, 1:01 PM
As a heavy user of Syncthing for the Tron project (
https://reddit.com/r/TronScript ) I'm excited to see how well Syncthing is doing, and really appreciate the hard work from the devs. We spun up a Syncthing node to distribute the project after Resilio Sync (formerly "BT Sync") put a hard cap on the number of nodes that were allowed to connect.
Keep up the great work, team!
by jepper on 3/13/17, 12:34 PM
Brilliant piece of software. Perfect to gather data from different devices to backup in the cloud or to sync documents or a massive music collection.
The only thing missing is an encrypted external sync node so I can put it on a VPS somewhere
by darrmit on 3/13/17, 2:11 PM
Syncthing is awesome. It is more difficult to setup than something like Dropbox (though, scanning QR codes is pretty easy IMO), but that has gotten exponentially better over the last year or so via the community and it seems to only be getting better.
by mouldysammich on 3/13/17, 12:29 PM
syncthing honestly is one of the best pieces of software i use. It manages a fairly often changing music library, a lossy copy of it, and my phones photos really handily all on a raspberry pi 1. One of my favourite programs i use daily.
by fiatjaf on 3/13/17, 12:46 PM
Since no one is complaining: I find Syncthing too complicated to set up. You must create a folder, then get a number for a computer (which you end up writing in a pastepad or something like that because the two computers don't communicate), then go to the other computer and place the number in, then do the same for the second computer to the first.
Repeat it for 5 or 6 machines.
If any machine is switched what do you do? Start over again establishing the link with all other machines.
by thewhitetulip on 3/13/17, 12:31 PM
I have been a happy user of syncthing, it is brilliant Piece of software, I no longer have to run around looking for data cable, I just open my laptop, and it syncs the complete file system!
by gravypod on 3/13/17, 2:22 PM
Is there something like Syncthing that works like a RAID system? I'd like to use multiple computers in different locations and use them to backup and expand my storage size.
Basically redundant but distributed storage with N node fail tolerance. Preferably interfaceable via a "/mnt/cloud" directory so I can use it from my laptop and easily write backup scripts and store data into it.
If this existed I'd have something big to work on setting up next week.
by odabaxok on 3/13/17, 12:48 PM
Can anyone share their experiences with Syncthing compared to Resilio Sync (aka Bit Torrent Sync)?
I am using Resilio Sync since its beta version, but they have added a lot of restrictions since then and made some functions only available for paying users.
I am concerned about ease of use (setup and everyday usage) on Windows and Android.
by Nux on 3/13/17, 4:58 PM
I'm using Syncthing to distribute files in a web cluster of a few servers instead of using shared storage - thus avoiding the spof.
Works quite well, with a few gotchas (ie make sure you don't sync cache files, session files etc).
Good software!
by pedrocr on 3/13/17, 1:50 PM
Has anyone been able to sync large folders with syncthing? Last time I tried when syncing 500GB you'd end up using >500MB of memory which made it unusable for home NAS setups. Hopefully it has since improved?
by ohnoesjmr on 3/13/17, 9:07 PM
by aerique on 3/13/17, 12:45 PM
This goes against one of the points of Syncthing (but I'm more interested in its other features): are there any good 3rd-party hosts so I don't have the hassle of maintaining on myself?
by problems on 3/13/17, 2:05 PM
Interesting that the mobile usage seems to be so low from this, I sync my desktop, NAS and phone using Syncthing constantly.
I also reject any sort of statistics though, so I'm probably not helping.
by therealmarv on 3/13/17, 2:31 PM
I loved the concept and hated the battery consumption on Android devices. Well it works totally different than a normal cloud storage so there is nobody really to blame but I cannot afford that much battery on my small 5" phone. Also did not liked that dates are not correctly on Android (but again this is not Syncthing fault). Why we cannot have date correction on external storage (without root) like on desktop file systems on Android? :(
by baldfat on 3/13/17, 12:26 PM
I would love to use Synchthing but Bit Torrent Sync, now known as Resilio Sync, works behind firewalls so much better. Hope to one day come back to syncthing.
by phaemon on 3/13/17, 3:59 PM
This looks pretty cool, and I'll definitely look at it as a Dropbox replacement.
On the negative side, your stats page doesn't have a link back to your main page, so you won't even know how many folk had a look based on this HN post. It's a good idea to ensure that all your pages have a link back to your main page.
by interfixus on 3/13/17, 4:57 PM
Nicely, nicely crafted software, and getting better by each bump.
I have been running it like forever between various Android devices, day to day PC, backup server, and whichever relevant devices have been passing through the household. Just works, can't recommend it enough. The GTK gui is a handy extra.
by ferongr on 3/13/17, 8:50 PM
Hopefully some day an implementation in something other than Go will emerge. The current Go implementation is mind-numbingly slow and uses huge amounts of memory.
by ymhuang0808 on 3/14/17, 1:15 AM
Thanks the authors and contributors. I use Syncthing for sync my photos on Android with my desktop. It works perfectly.
by robinson-wall on 3/13/17, 3:39 PM
Interesting drop in the numbers when version 0.12 was released. Does anyone know what that was about?
by j3097736 on 3/13/17, 9:24 PM
It's pretty impressive to see more arm64 than i386
by sneak on 3/13/17, 4:27 PM
I had to stop using syncthing on my MacBook and MacBook Air because it was using far too much ram/cpu.
I wish it could be made more efficient somehow.