When comparing aria2 vs Folx, the Slant community recommends aria2 for most people. In the question“What are the best Torrent clients?” aria2 is ranked 5th while Folx is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose aria2 is:
Due to aria2 being a CLI only tool it uses very little memory.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Small memory footprint
Due to aria2 being a CLI only tool it uses very little memory.
Pro Supports multiple download protocols
Has support for lots of download protocols including BitTorrent, Metalink, HTTP, HTTPS and FTP.
Pro Remote control over simple standartized RPC
XML or JSON-based RPCs can be used to control aria2 remotely with both APIs completely documented. Simplest client that uploads torrent to be downloaded is 3 Python lines long (no 3rd-party libraries, only stdlib).
Run aria2c --help=#rpc
to see more.
Pro Third parties offer a clean web interface
Some web interfaces consist of pure HTML+JS, no server-side needed (except aria2c of course). It uses the same RPC that can work even over WebSockets.
Pro Free and open source
Pro Remember login and password for websites
Pro Speed control
You can set up speed control in different ways.
Pro Allows torrent search
PRO version of Folx enables torrent search directly from the application.
Pro Splitting of downloads in up to 20 threads
Download can be split into up to 20 separate simultaneous downloads - threads. When the server supports multiple connections this can greatly improve download speed.
Pro Scheduling of downloads
You can choose the time for starting the download.
Cons
Con No native graphical user interface
While there is a web-based GUI, there is no native interface.
Con No HTTP/2 support
While the developer of aria2 is developing nghttp2 library, aria2 has no support for http2.
Con Ugly interface
Con Confusing to use
Con Customer support is terrible, do not send them money
Customer support refuses to be helpful. DRM must phone home and support blames you when their website goes down.
Con Does not quickly close after download completes
It takes 24 seconds before folx will close when a download has completed, and this window pops up and grabs focus interupting whatever it is you're doing. Very intrusive.
Con Sometimes it doesn't complete the schedule
Con Sometimes downloads start automatically
Con Difficult to uninstall browser addons
You will need to uninstall the addon and then clear the browser's cache. With Safari you will need to enable the developer menu before you can do this.
Con Useless
Can't download anything without upgrading to Pro paid version.