AlterSend vs rclone
AlterSend
altersend.comrclone
rclone.orgSide by side
| Figure | AlterSend | rclone |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $32.50/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 5 | 1 |
| Spec score · File transfer services | 8.4 (#38) | 8.9 (#11) |
| Encryption | The privacy policy says transfers use the Noise protocol with Curve25519 key exchange and ChaCha20-Poly1305 encryption. | The crypt remote provides client-side encryption, encrypts files before upload and decrypts them after download, and leaves data encrypted at rest in the wrapped remote. |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Integrations | The privacy policy names Sentry for crash reporting, Hyperswarm DHT for peer discovery, Stripe for card payments, Apple and Google for app purchases, RevenueCat for receipt validation, and Cloudflare and Supabase for subscription services. | The site lists more than 70 cloud storage products, including Amazon S3, Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, and Backblaze B2. |
| Support | The self-hosted Personal plan includes community support on Discord, while the Business plan includes priority support. | The project describes a friendly support community and says business sponsorship can include support contracts, advertising deals, and consultancy. |
Plans
AlterSend
- Personal self-hosted relayFree
- Business self-hosted relay$390 a year
- Free AlterSendFree
- AlterSend ProPrice not published
- AlterSend ProPrice not published
In their own words
rclone
Rclone is a free command-line program for managing files on cloud storage. It can back up and restore files, mirror or migrate data, mount storage as a disk, and combine file systems. The project lists more than 70 cloud storage products, including Amazon S3, Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, and Backblaze B2. Sync options include copying changed files, one-way sync, and two-way bisync. Rclone checks MD5 and SHA1 hashes, preserves timestamps, and can restart operations. Where supported, it transfers between providers without using local disk. It can mount local, cloud, or virtual file systems and serve files over SFTP, HTTP, WebDAV, FTP, and DLNA. Rclone is also available through scripts and an API. Its crypt remote encrypts files before upload and decrypts them after download, but leaves file length and modification time unencrypted. The crypt password in the configuration file is only lightly obscured unless configuration encryption is enabled. The web-based GUI is described as experimental, and Android builds are not yet first-class builds.