Syncthing can work. You don't get the centralized server though. Well you can run it on an always on system. I'd like this to be a VPS, but the files sit on the VPS in clear text. I like syncthing as it syncs file mode bits as well.
Resilio Sync is decentralized as well. And lets you setup encrypted folders, so only peers with the password can decrypt them, but other peers can take part in the syncing. So I can run an instance on a VPS and not worry too much if it gets compromised. I find its Linux support lacking and wasn't as reliable as Syncthing for me. I'm going to try it again sometime.
Seafile. Centralized server, can do encrypted folders. I'm going to look at this one again, but found the sync took a real long time, and I don't think it synced file mode bits.
Nextcloud. Centralized server. Can do encrypted folders. Seemed OK, but didn't do mode bits.
Currently I'm using Syncthing, where my central always on machine is my home server which would be running anyways. I like the idea of having a 'central' server in the cloud, but need that to be secured in a way that Syncthing can't do. So I'm not sure its my permanent solution yet.
I also use Unison for much larger folders, like my code directories.
Thanks for the tip! I will look into it. I am curious to find out how it syncs without servers. (I assume this is not an incredibly hard problem but we are just not used to doing things without "the cloud" these days)
I've bounced between a number of cloud drives/sync folder services over time.
I'm currently happy with Resilio Sync, fka BitTorrent Sync. It uses peer-to-peer sync ala BitTorrent, where the only "cloud" shares are peers you build/authorize. It supports encrypted shares where some of your peer devices, such as your "cloud" share, may participate in syncing the swarm without being able to directly decrypt its contents.
Using resilio (which is NOT open source, of course and is actually kinda abandoned) until they implement selective sync (also "cloud" files browser). This is THE feature that is the deal breaker for me to switch. No, I don't sync hundreds of gigabytes from my personal cloud to my fokken phone, or even laptop, or even work PC. Still want access to all of them on demand.
Worth mentioning that Syncthing doesn't have a cloud part, while DB does. That said, I've been running it since the very beginning, even before it became public/known, and it had never failed me so far.
Please don't use OwnCloud. It eats your files and cost us loads of time and effort, in addition to sowing FUD among my office coworkers, who thought someone was deleting files from the shared/sync drive. Plus it doesn't support delta sync [0], so if (for example) you're syncing large files like (for example) True/VeraCrypt volumes, you're going to be pushing a lot of data around. This is especially awful since you're not doing this on a LAN but to S3, which means your raw cost in dollars for operating this software will be much much larger than with another solution like SyncThing or Seafile which does support delta sync.
Supposing anyone wants to hear, the single most important feature to me is self-hosting sync. Nothing else matters... not a big believer in "the cloud". It would be better if the sync use WebDAV, then the server software is just Nextcloud. But even that last point's not so important.
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