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Add to SafariWhen comparing BitTorrent Sync vs Microsoft OneDrive, the Slant community recommends BitTorrent Sync for most people. In the question“What are the best personal file-syncing solutions?” BitTorrent Sync is ranked 14th while Microsoft OneDrive is ranked 26th. The most important reason people chose BitTorrent Sync is:
Since BitTorrent Sync uses P2P technology and does not require an external server from a third party, the only limitation if what is available to the user.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro No service cost, storage limits, perfomance limits or privacy concerns
Since BitTorrent Sync uses P2P technology and does not require an external server from a third party, the only limitation if what is available to the user.
Pro Clients on most platforms available
BitTorrent Sync is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, Windows Phone and BSD.
Pro Self hosted
If user opens a malicious website that website may create users to access your data ("When registering, http traffic for creating new user on loopback http://127.0.0.1:8888"). Being self hosted one does not need to open a site to get to their files.
Pro Integrates with Microsoft Office software
It integrates with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc as if you were using OneDrive locally.
Pro Share files and folders easily
You can choose what files and folders to share with other people then send them a link.
Pro No setup for Windows 8/8.1/10
If you use Windows 8 or later, OneDrive is already built in your system and can be accessed via file explorer.
Pro Collaboration via Office 365
If you use Office 365 with OneDrive, you can share a file to edit collaboratively in real time.
Pro Photos taken with a smartphone can be set to automatically upload to OneDrive
When Android, iOS and Windows Phone users take a photo with their phone it can be set to automatically upload to OneDrive via app.
Pro Offers 15GB of storage for free
Pro Unlimited storage for Office 365 users
Cons
Con Proprietary
Being proprietary, it's harder to audit.
Con Has some risky attack vectors
The only really good thing it has is that data is self-hosted (i.e. hosted on a server running on your machine with data that are on your machine).
- If user opens a malicious website that website may create users to access your data ("When registering, http traffic for creating new user on loopback http://127.0.0.1:8888")
- GetSync.com server receives many (all?) hashes in cleartext when sharing the directory.
Con Pro version for a fee
Selective Sync only available in Pro version. Business use is not allowed with free and Pro versions.
Con One peer of your network always has to be online to propagate changes to the other peers
Con Android app drains battery fast
Con No client for Linux
No client for Linux.
Con Old versions and deleted files aren't available online, just on one computer.
On some other services you can see previous versions and deleted files for a time, but with OneDrive, these are only available on the computer the edit was made. So if someone who has write permission on your shared folder deletes your stuff you just have to ask them to go in their recycle bin (and hope they didn't empty it!), which makes it less useful for teams.
Con Online OneDrive are slow
Compared to other cloud storage, the web interface of Onedrive is slow. It got a slight delay on every action like opening a folder, delete, etc.
Con Recycle bin doesn't support replace
Imagine you have 100 folders to be restored, and they cannot be restored because existing folder is already in your main folder and you intend to overwrite them but they don't support it.
Con Time limit for inactivity
Based on OneDrive's terms of service, no account login within one year will be automatically terminated.
Con Strictest code of conduct
Terms of Service forbid any kind of nudity, or that incites, advocates, or expresses pornography or racism among other things.
