Comments on: Sparkleshare – A Great Open Source Alternative To Dropbox [Linux & Mac]

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 23:28:00 +0000

That is interesting about the local storage as *.git. I have not really played with git for any reason (I am forced to use CVS…shudder!!!). I have a central server it will be running on but the flexibility of Sparkleshare and the ability to some day not run it centrally may make the difference. I do not need it yet so I will probably wait a bit anyway.

Thanks for the great reply though.

By: Danny Stieben

Danny Stieben — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 22:58:00 +0000

First off, apologies for the delay. I was on a trip where I didn’t have any guarantee to an Internet connection.

iFolder is another great choice, and you are welcome to use it if you wish. Sparkleshare is client-only, as you’re only running a GIT repository on the server side to host your files. iFolder seems to have its own server part as well. Therefore, iFolder may have more configurability, especially when it comes to sharing the same folder to multiple people. However, you can achieve the same thing with Sparkleshare easily. If you want to know which one is better, you should just try them both out and see for yourself.

Actually, SFTP access would not let you have access to the files. Since Sparkleshare operates on a GIT repository, the files will not all be plainly available in a folder. Instead they are inserted into the GIT repository, which is simply a .git file on the folder. Therefore, with SFTP you’ll only see the .git file, and not what’s inside it without using Sparkleshare.

I hope that answered your questions! :)

By: Conrad Carter

Conrad Carter — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 06:13:00 +0000

Having a hard time getting past all the ads in the text and over the images. I appreciate it’s free, but I the excess advertising makes me skittish. Dropbox is free for my data size. Good luck.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 18:43:00 +0000

How does this compare to iFolder which also seems like an open-source dropbox clone?

Also, as a side note, if you have these running on your own centralized server, and depending on the config, you kinda already have a iOS and Android access. Just use any SFTP capable application to get on the central server and there you go, mobile access.