When comparing Enso Portable vs FreeFileSync, the Slant community recommends Enso Portable for most people. In the question“What are the best power user tools for Windows?” Enso Portable is ranked 50th while FreeFileSync is ranked 55th. The most important reason people chose Enso Portable is:
GChristensen recently upgraded Enso to Python 3.7, a great improvement over the original v2.5. You can write custom Enso commands in Python through its new web interface (or your favorite editor once you know where to put the files.) There's even an install command to pip install any Python package you need from PyPI. The sky's the limit.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Extensible in Python
GChristensen recently upgraded Enso to Python 3.7, a great improvement over the original v2.5. You can write custom Enso commands in Python through its new web interface (or your favorite editor once you know where to put the files.) There's even an install command to pip install any Python package you need from PyPI. The sky's the limit.
Pro Optional quasimode
Letting go of CapsLock just feels faster than hitting enter (sometimes too fast: be sure to disable the reboot command before turning this on!) Even with quasimode enabled, you can make it modal for that command by tapping Alt.
Pro Easily teach the app to open specific apps and sites
There is a learning function to the app that allows the user to teach the app to open specific items by typing "learn as open" and then clicking on the item one wants it to learn to open.
Pro Can go to existing open windows
By using the "go" command users can switch to their already open windows making this a bit of a window navigator as well as a launcher.
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 Comes with a reboot command
And a shutdown command too. Installing these is optional, and I recommend that you don't, especially if you use the quasimode. Unless you like losing your work.
Con No message log
According to Raskin's philosophy which inspired Enso, a pop up "dialog" is a bad design. The OK button is a useless input that interrupts your flow. Enso's pop up messages, therefore, are transparent and quickly fade away on their own (like Android Toast messages). Unfortunately, this also means you can easily miss them if you're not paying attention. Raskin's solution was to keep a message log you can refer back to, but Humanized never got around to implementing that for Enso.
Con Usage tends to be slowed by the caps lock
Function of the app relies on the caps lock key being pressed to enter commands, which can slow some people down by having to hold that key down when they are typing commands.
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.