--- title: "Against other direct-transfer tools · Privatta" description: "Peer-to-peer tools: private, but with little say over who gets in." url: "https://royalsoftworks.com/products/privatta/compare/direct-transfer/" source: "https://royalsoftworks.com" format: "markdown" note: "Markdown rendering of the HTML page at `url`. Same content, same canonical URL." --- Competitive comparison · 2 of 5 # Against other direct-transfer tools. Peer-to-peer tools: private, but with little say over who gets in. | Product | No copy | E2E enc. | LAN mode | Internet | Air-gap | Per-user ACL | Groups | Audit log | Device auth | Desktop | Pricing | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Privatta★ This product · tick = every edition | Yes | Yes | Yes | Pro | Yes | Pro | Pro | Enterprise | Pro | Yes | Free · Pro €19/mo · Enterprise: ask us | | P2P & Direct Transfer | | | | | | | | | | | | | Resilio Sync | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Free / $60/yr | | Syncthing | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | No | No | Partial | Partial | Free | | LocalSend | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | Free | | OnionShare | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Partial | No | No | No | Yes | Free | | Magic Wormhole | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | Free (CLI) | | Pairdrop / Snapdrop | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Free (browser) | | Croc | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | Free (CLI) | | Keybase Files | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | Partial | Yes | No | No | Yes | Free | Yes / full support~Partial / via plugin No Data as of June 2026 — verify current product capabilities before purchasing decisions. Contents 1. 01P2P & Direct Transfer Tools — Privacy without enterprise governance 01 ## P2P & Direct Transfer Tools — Privacy without enterprise governance Resilio Sync, Syncthing, LocalSend, OnionShare, Magic Wormhole, Pairdrop, and Croc all solve the cloud problem correctly: files move directly between machines. No third party ever holds a copy. For technically confident users sharing files with other technically confident users, they work well. What these tools are not designed for is enterprise access governance. Syncthing and Resilio Sync are synchronisation tools — they maintain a live, bidirectional mirror of a folder between two or more machines. This is a different model from controlled sharing: once someone is in your sync group, they get everything in the folder as it changes. There is no per-file permission, no machine whitelist, no audit log of who downloaded what, and no way to grant read-only access to one document without giving access to all of them. LocalSend is the closest to Privatta's LAN use case: it is beautiful, it is fast, and it is end-to-end encrypted. But it has no access control at all — anyone on the same network can receive any file you send, there is no persistent user database, and it has no internet mode. Magic Wormhole and Croc are one-shot command-line tools: perfectly good for a developer sharing a file once, but there is no recurring share, no access list, no log, and no GUI. OnionShare works over Tor and genuinely anonymises the transfer, which is valuable in specific threat models. But it requires the recipient to have Tor Browser, is significantly slower than direct transfer, and has no persistent access control model. It solves a different problem from the one most organisations face. - Syncthing and Resilio Sync are sync tools, not share tools — folder membership is all-or-nothing - LocalSend has no user accounts, no access control, no internet mode, and no audit log - Magic Wormhole and Croc are single-transfer CLI tools — no persistent sharing model - OnionShare addresses anonymity, not governance — requires Tor and is impractical for recurring use - None of the P2P tools combine a one-time connection key, per-user ACL, group permissions, and a local audit log [Previous Against cloud file sharing.](https://royalsoftworks.com/products/privatta/compare/cloud-sharing/) [Next Against managed file transfer.](https://royalsoftworks.com/products/privatta/compare/managed-transfer/) [All of Privatta compare](https://royalsoftworks.com/products/privatta/compare/)