When comparing rsync vs SpiderOak, the Slant community recommends rsync for most people. In the question“What are the best personal file-syncing solutions?” rsync is ranked 2nd while SpiderOak is ranked 8th. 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
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
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 Combines cloud syncing, storage service and backup client
Thus you have a single service for all of the things.
Pro Available for many platforms
The Spideroak client is available for Linux, MacOS, Windows, Android and iOS.
Pro Incrementals
SpiderOak updates only that part of the file that has changed, saving bandwidth and time.
Pro Zero knowledge
Data is locally encrypted before uploading to Spideroak. They cannot recover your data even if they wanted to since it is stored in encrypted state on their servers.
Pro Unintrusive
Cons
Con No official GUI
To use rsync, you have to know your way around the command line.