Storage and sync features
It’s their, so how do these services achieve these goals?
Seafile enables you to share libraries and folders with users or groups, with read-only or read-write permissions. You can also share files with external users via links and these can be protected by passwords as well as an expiration date. Once a library has been downloaded to a client, after any changes, the latest version will be uploaded to the server and then be synced with everyone’s computers. In Pydio, files are divided in folders between workspaces that can be kept private or shared. To share a file you can generate a link and even invite collaborators to work on the document. Nextcloud too works pretty much like Pydio and Seafile, in that files and folders can be shared with other users on the system or publically via URLs. The server ensures that changes made to shared files are synced to all users. Additionally, with Nextcloud you can also share files with users on other Nextcloud installations and even with users on ownCloud or Pydio servers. Nextcloud can also access files stored on a wide variety of cloud services such as Amazon, Google and Dropbox. For Syncthing to be able to sync files with another device, it must be paired with that devices by exchanging device IDs that are unique cryptographically secure identifiers. Adding files to the shared directory on either device will synchronise those files to the other side. But you can instruct Syncthing to not change files on the original folder when they’re changed on a remote computer. If you enable this, only changes made to the files in the original computer will be sent to the remote shares, but not the other way round. You can use Syncthing to share a folder with specified computers. It also makes it possible to exclude certain files in a shared directory from syncing.
Similarly, with SparkleShare you create shared folders on the host and all files added to project folders on the client are automatically shared with the server and all other connected clients. SparkleShare also enables you to make the clients aware of these shared folders. So for example, all computers on the network can connect to a FamilyShare folder, while only the work laptop and your personal laptop share the contents of the Work folder.