Peer-to-peer file sharing
Conclusions
Sending and receiving data on the LAN is a task that can be handled quickly and efficiently using any of the solutions here. The only differences are in the feature scope, operation, and security aspects (see Table 1). In heterogeneous environments, where many users are only familiar with their GUI, command-line applications may be daunting, not least because of the codes to be entered in each case for data encryption. For occasional file transfers, even across operating system boundaries, programs with a graphical front end will tend to be the best choice. Syncthing occupies a special slot here; while it does not support single transfers, it keeps complete folders or directory hierarchies on the participating machines in sync.
Table 1
Peer-to-Peer Data Transfer Programs
|
| Croc | NitroShare | Syncthing | Warpinator | Magic Wormhole |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| License |
MIT |
MIT |
MPL 2.0 |
GPLv3 |
MIT |
| Command line |
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
| GUI |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
| Cross-platform |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
| End-to-end encryption |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Resumption after interruption |
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
No |
| Integration in file manager |
No |
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
| Transfer individual files |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
| Transfer complete directories |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
| Data synchronization |
No |
No |
Yes |
No |
No |
Infos
- croc: https://github.com/schollz/croc
- PAKE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Password-authenticated_key_agreement
- NitroShare: https://nitroshare.net/
- Syncthing: https://syncthing.net/
- Warpinator: https://github.com/linuxmint/warpinator
- Magic Wormhole: https://github.com/warner/magic-wormhole
- Dukto: https://sourceforge.net/projects/dukto/
- D-LAN: https://www.d-lan.net/
- BaShare (archived): https://code.google.com/archive/p/bashare/
- p300: http://p300.eu
- Transfer on LAN (archived): https://code.google.com/archive/p/transfer-on-lan/
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