When comparing rsync vs FreeFileSync, the Slant community recommends rsync for most people. In the question“What are the best personal file-syncing solutions?” rsync is ranked 2nd while FreeFileSync is ranked 9th. The most important reason people chose rsync is:
Only the changed parts of files are synced. For instance, if a long log file increases by just a few lines of text, a small diff will be sent to and saved in the archive. Rsync also compresses data in transit.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Fast and bandwidth efficient
Only the changed parts of files are synced. For instance, if a long log file increases by just a few lines of text, a small diff will be sent to and saved in the archive. Rsync also compresses data in transit.
Pro Works over SSH
SSH support allows sending files securely over the network by encrypting all communcation.
Pro Pre-installed on OSX and most Linux distributions
Many *nix systems bundle rsync so there's nothing to install. All you need to do is open up the terminal and start using rsync.
Pro Free and open source
Licensed under GNU.
Pro It supports multiple protocols
It will work with MTP, FTP, SFTP, FTPS, and more.
Pro It can copy locked files
It supports Volume Shadow Copy Service, meaning that it can copy files even if they are in use or otherwise locked.
Pro Cross-platform
It runs on Windows, Linux and MacOS.
Pro Portable version available
Pro It is quite performant
Pro Google Drive support
FreeFileSync provides direct access to Google Drive, no additional software is needed.
Pro Completely free
Source code releases are provided under GPLv2.
Pro It supports realtime sync
It can be configured to constantly monitor two folders for changes and sync them instantly when a change is detected.
Pro It lets you program batch scripts
You can program your own jobs for execution as a script.
Pro It supports case sensitive synchronization
For Unix-like systems.
Pro It supports long file paths
It can copy files and folders with more than 260 characters in their paths.
Pro It supports versioning
Versioning is keeping multiple instances of the modifications of your files.
Pro It can sync both local disks and network shares
Cons
Con No official GUI
To use rsync, you have to know your way around the command line.
Con Complicated, and you can accidentally overwrite the wrong files
Con Does not preserve folder timestamps when copying
Con Memory hog
It runs a little slow on computers who don't have much RAM available.
Con Limited built in history
The program only remembers the latest set of folders you synced, so you have to save your syncs or create batch files.
Con A little intimidating for novices
If you never ran a file syncing software, this can be a little tricky to configure as your first one.
Con No backup encryption
Con It doesn't run on older Linux systems
It's dependencies don't allow it to run on older systems.