Duplicati
Open Sourceby Duplicati Team
Encrypted, incremental backup to any cloud storage.
- AES-256 encryption before upload
- Works with most cloud storage providers
- Incremental deduplicated backups
Free alternatives to Syncthing
3 backup & recovery programs worth considering instead of — or alongside — Syncthing.
Alternatives to Syncthing
Clonezilla
Open Sourceby NCHC, Taiwan
Bare-metal disk and partition imaging.
- Full disk and partition imaging
- Boots from its own live USB or CD
- Mass deployment across many machines
by Veeam Software
Enterprise-grade backup technology, free for a single machine.
- Full image-level machine backup
- Bare-metal recovery media
- File and folder level restore
About Syncthing
Syncthing keeps folders synchronised directly between your own devices over encrypted peer-to-peer connections, with no third-party server ever holding your files. A genuine private alternative to Dropbox-style sync.
It is open source and runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android. Below are 3 backup & recovery programs that cover the same ground — some open-source, some cross-platform, each free to use.
Syncthing alternatives compared
| Program | Licence | Platforms | Best known for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duplicati | Open Source | Windows, macOS, Linux | AES-256 encryption before upload |
| Clonezilla | Open Source | Windows, Linux | Full disk and partition imaging |
| Veeam Agent for Windows FREE | Free | Windows | Full image-level machine backup |
The alternatives in detail
Duplicati Open Source
Duplicati backs up to almost any cloud destination — S3, Backblaze B2, Google Drive, OneDrive, FTP and more — with strong client-side encryption applied before anything leaves your machine, plus incremental, deduplicated storage. Notable for aes-256 encryption before upload and works with most cloud storage providers. Runs on Windows, macOS, Linux.
Clonezilla Open Source
Clonezilla creates complete disk and partition images for bare-metal restore or mass deployment, booting from its own live media so it can image a system drive safely. Notable for full disk and partition imaging and boots from its own live usb or cd. Runs on Windows, Linux.
Veeam Agent for Windows FREE Free
Veeam Agent brings backup technology developed for enterprise data centres to individual Windows machines at no cost, supporting full image-level backup and bare-metal recovery via its own recovery media. Notable for full image-level machine backup and bare-metal recovery media. Runs on Windows.
How to choose
2 are fully open source (Duplicati, Clonezilla) — pick one of these if you value auditable code you can self-host. For the widest platform coverage, Duplicati run on three or more operating systems. On a Mac, Duplicati support macOS natively.
All 3 are free to download from the publisher's own website, so installing two or three and testing them on your own files is the fastest way to decide — it costs nothing but a few minutes.