Okay, there’s this software project called Syncthing. At its core, what it does is synchronize files among multiple devices. This is the kind of thing that I’m currently using Dropbox and Box and, to a much lesser extent, Google Drive for.
Why do I use Dropbox? Because, a long time ago, it was a way to keep all my website passwords in a file that I could edit on my computer and still have access to on my phone. Eventually, our family started using a password manager that supports sharing vaults and synchronizing them through its own cloud service rather than relying on synchronizing some part of the local filesystem, so that use case doesn’t apply any more. Still, there’s some inertia. I’ve got it, there are a bunch of files there, and I can get at them on my laptop, my phone, or my iPad. Oh, also, I can share a single file with someone via a link rather than trying to email a whole attachment that may be huuuuuuuuge, which is really an abuse of email.
Why do I use Box? Because the pipe band uses Box to host all the band documents, including recordings, photos, logos, score sheets, sheet music, reference books, etc. There are access controls, and it’s easily mapped into our automated build system for our music. So, collaboration, access control, automatic synchronization.
Google Drive? Well, once upon a time our family used all the Google office tools for everything. It made life a lot easier when both kids were in school and the adults were both working full time. Put photos, scheduled events, documents, spreadsheets, all of it into Google Drive and that way whoever was available to deal with whatever situation had whatever they needed right there. Nowadays, we have a lot less of that kind of collaboration to do, so we use the calendar and that’s about it.
Now, Syncthing doesn’t have some huge RAID in a data center somewhere, holding all the files you’re synchronizing between devices. All it has is a couple of servers that advertise the current IP address of various running clients. The copying of files happens directly between clients, so there’s no question of using it as some kind of cloud backup. This is different from how other people seem to use Dropbox, if all the marketing is to be believed. The other big difference, I guess, is that since Dropbox actually stores the files on their servers as well as on the client devices, one has space limits with Dropbox, while Syncthing would just be limited by disk space on the devices. So…maybe?