Cloud storage products are hot services these days and while there is now an abundance of them, only a handful have really built something versatile and simple enough for the masses. Dropbox is one massively popular example, which we’ve reviewed before and even listed some really creative uses for. I recently asked my Twitter following which they preferred; Dropbox or SugarSync? Without question, the majority of my followers recommended Dropbox.
The two services are very similar, however, I prefer SugarSync. While similar to Dropbox, SugarSync offers a few features not found in Dropbox. Today we’ll take a look at SugarSync and a few of the features it provides, which Dropbox doesn’t.
Sync Tour
SugarSync is a data storage, syncing and sharing tool compatible with Mac and PC as well as offering iPhone, BlackBerry, Android and Windows Mobile clients. It’s an easy way, like Dropbox, to keep access to your files only a click away — no matter where you are.
Overview
SugarSync offers several pricing plans, including a free one. The free plan gives you 2GB of storage space and most of the features of paid plans.
Price Plans
Their free plan has a few limitations though.
- You’re limited to syncing two computers.
- Only the last two versions of a file is saved.
Free plans don’t get priority upload speeds.
Update: SugarSync’s VP of Product Management (Drew Garcia) has informed us that the upload speed limit has been removed for free accounts. They’re now able to upload at the same rate as paid plans. Thanks Drew!
This shouldn’t really be an issue as I would imagine most people would sign up for a paid plan once they had a little time to test it out. It’s also important to note that SugarSync offers business plans which include additional administrative tools and features. This is something Dropbox doesn’t offer.
Features
SugarSync has a lot to offer when it comes to features. Personally, I like lots of features, but it’s important to maintain a balance between features and simplicity. Overcomplicating things will lead to a confusing and difficult to use application. This is perhaps, one of the reasons Dropbox is more popular in some groups. SugarSync isn’t overly complicated, but it isn’t quite as straight forward and simple as Dropbox.
SugarSync Features
The main features of SugarSync are basically the same as Dropbox.
- Files and data connection are encrypted and secured.
- You get full web access to manage your files.
- All files get file versioning up to five previous versions, with only the most recent version counting towards your storage quota.
- Multi-platform mobile apps.
Getting Started
Once you’ve signed up for the service, you’ll download the desktop application and setup your file syncing preferences. It’s all pretty straight forward and the software does a pretty good job of walking you through the necessary steps to get things customized as you’d like.
File Syncing
Once the software is installed, you don’t need to configure anything in order to start using SugarSync. Your Magic Briefcase syncs files between your computers, just like Dropbox.
In my opinion, SugarSync’s desktop software is one part of its feature set that I prefer over Dropbox. With the desktop software, you’re able to specify the files and folders you want synced to the web and/or to other computers. SugarSync uses what they call a “Magic Briefcase”, as a drag and drop directory that syncs between the web and all your computers running the software. This is the same idea as Dropbox.
Once you have the software setup and have customized your preferences, you’ll hardly ever use it. It will continue running in the background while you interact more often with its web application counterpart.
The Web Interface
The web interface is pretty straight forward, just like the desktop software. It’s not as minimalistic as Dropbox but that’s partially because it offers some additional features and capabilities.
Web Interface
You’ll notice that you have access to everything on the web that you’ve setup via the desktop application. One feature you may have noticed here, is the web archive. This is an important feature I couldn’t seem to find in Dropbox.
Web Archive
When searching for a data storage, sharing and syncing service, I expect to be able to upload files and store them via the web only. To the best of my knowledge, Dropbox can’t do this — but SugarSync can. With this feature, I’m able to upload files I don’t need desktop access to and save desktop hard drive space. Because SugarSync has a much better price per GB than Dropbox, long term storage of large amounts of data via the web only is cheap and feasible.
Another feature I really enjoy, is Mobile Photos via SugarSync’s web interface. If you own an iPhone, BlackBerry, Android or Windows Mobile running device, you’re able to upload your mobile photos to their own location. I’m always snapping photos with my iPhone and while it has plenty of storage, I’d rather not leave all those photos on the phone. Instead, I upload the majority of them to SugarSync and access them later when needed. It’s quick, easy and saves me a tremendous amount of time.
Sharing
Most of us are constantly sending files and images around the world. File sharing features can and will make or break services like SugarSync. While SugarSync doesn’t have the best implementation of file or folder sharing, it does a pretty good job. File sharing via cloud services has changed quite a bit over the last year so SugarSync has some catching up to do in the ease of use and simplicity departments.
File Sharing
Options to share folders and files are standard but also included is some additional options for better control of how folders are to be accessed.
Folder Sharing
Data Safety and Security
If you have a system meltdown, you’ll want to have peace of mind that you haven’t just lost the photos from your sibling or children’s wedding. It’s safe to say that your data isn’t going to suddenly disappear from SugarSync’s servers, so just reinstall the software and re-sync your files and you’re good to go.
Data Secrity
As with Dropbox, SugarSync encrypts the data connection between your computer and their servers. Also encrypted, is your data. It’s not as strong encryption as Dropbox touts, but 128-bit AES is used by banks and other financial institutions, other major online services and even government organizations. Your data will be secure leaving your computer and sitting on SugarSync’s servers.
Final Thoughts
Having used both SugarSync and Dropbox for awhile, both are top notch choices. In the end, I prefer SugarSync for a few features I need, which Dropbox doesn’t offer yet.
If you’re looking for cloud storage and data syncing between computers and mobiles with powerful web application access including sharing and collaboration features — SugarSync is going to be a great choice. It includes web archival, better mobile support, and lower price per GB plans with larger storage options.
This isn’t to say SugarSync doesn’t have a few drawbacks. It doesn’t offer as high encryption or linux support, where Dropbox does. As these are two of the major data syncing and storage service titans, I’m curious as to your thoughts, questions or creative uses — so please do leave a comment below!
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Summary
SugarSync is a cloud storage and data syncing service for desktops and mobile devices, providing a powerful web application counterpart with many additional features.
- SugarSync |
- Free / $4.99 / $9.99 / $14.99 / $24.99 per month |
- Sharpcast, Inc.
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I still think Dropbox is much better. At least at the free level.
Jarel,
Great post! Just wanted to let you know that we removed the upload speed limit for free accounts a few weeks ago. Now our free users have the same upload speeds as our paid users.
http://www.sugarsync.com/blog/2009/12/14/free-just-got-faster/
Drew Garcia
VP of Product Management @ SugarSync
Thanks Drew! I’ve updated the article with the new information.
Really. Files I updated last night still aren’t synced 13 hours later. IS this the normal upload speed?
I have been using Syncplicity (www.syncplicity.com) for quite sometime now and I think it is the best service. I tried Sugarsync but my head started spinning because there were a lot of things which I needed to configure with lot of options. Syncplicity is plug and play. I mean literally play. No complex setups and quite fast.
The only downfall for syncplicity is that it is quite expensive in comparison to sugarsync but since I have a 5GB storage on free version, I am not complaining.
Thank you for the nice review. Having used Dropbox for quite a while and tried out SugarSync earlier, I am currently struggling to find the right service for my situation:
I’d love to collect the photos all my friends have taken throughout the last 2.5 years. Because usually everything is only uploaded to facebook which has two major drawbacks:
a) Poor quality (due to downscaled quality)
b) Risk of losing all photos if a friend closes his/her account or deletes the album
Years ago one “simply” passed along the physical photos and everyone interested could order his/her copies.
Has anyone come up with a good idea how to circulate digital photos in HQ among friends?
Picasa web – http://picasaweb.google.com or Flickr – http://www.flickr.com would be services best suited to something like that.
Dropbox all the way! From the standard program functions to just the beautiful simplicity of being another folder on your computer, I think it wins the game. They also seem to be a more well established company. They have a stronger brand in design and interface, and also in security.
Dropbox didn’t set out to make a desktop application, so in that regard, it can’t really be compared to SugarSync. Dropbox set out to make a simple file sharing folder that could easily sync files between multiple computers/devices… so, each one may have it’s advantages in their own way, but overall, I think Dropbox wins the day.
Thank you for the thorough review. I have been using SugarSync for about 2 years and love it! I was involved with SharpCast’s beta photo sharing trials way back and stuck with them when SugarSync came out. It works seamlessly, and it just works. It is my choice for cloud storage, sharing, and file backups.
After comparing both, SugarSync still stands out for me. I’m on the free plan btw. A person just needs to ask himself what does he want from such a service, rather than blankly following what others are recommending. How many folders does a person have in his computers and frankly, why would anyone want to sync stuff using just a pathetic single DropBox folder? Don’t get me wrong – I think DropBox is very good but syncing with just a folder, or using the “hard links hack” in Windows is just not elegant. Do you want to backup or sync your Favorites? SugarSync allows you to do that but DropBox’s hack is to install some 3rd party utilities so that you can back it up. Rather than making my files and folders to accomodate to a single Dropbox folder, I want the service to accomodate me, which is what SugarSync does.
To be honest, unless a person is using Linux or just want a single folder to sync everything, I still don’t understand why so many people still recommend DropBox. Until the time it has multiple folders support, DropBox will not be in my computer.
Keep posting stuff like this i really like it
I am quite the fan of SugarSync… what I never understand is the arguments that DropBox is simpler. Using effectively the same install process, SugarSync gave me the DropBox feature set (a folder which I can drag anything into to synchronize) and, if I choose not to do anything more, I would have the DropBox functionality without any fuss.
What SugarSync does beyond that is offer additional capabilities, if you choose to crack open the desktop software. But you would be free to leave it as is.
Unfortunately my experience with SugarSync hasn’t been bliss. Coming from Dropbox I found SugarSync to be slow. If it matters I did sign up for a paid account which I think I will be canceling and returning to my ol’ trusty Dropbox “Hard link hack”. Does anyone have an alternative?
I have previously tried SugarSync and was disappointed with the amount of memory it was using and the general slowness of the program. I was really hoping to utilize it to sync my laptop and PC especially since it had the ability to share files through the web.
However, let me just say that the last time I tried SugarSync was middle last year so new version iterations might have improved its performance.
I really like SugarSync, but it has some major bugs. The SugarSync on-line forum is full of messages about lost data and stuck downloads. It’s a pity, since the feature set is good.
WARNING DO NOT USE SUGARSYNC! SUGARSYNC lost all of my data and could not retrieve it from their own server. This company is a joke, they held my company hostage for 2 weeks trying to find my files that Sugarsync some how deleted from my desktop! Their horribly inept techs could not figure out where my data went so they just decided not to call me back. I finally got in touch with Debbie, Sr. Director, SugarSync Customer Care and she tried to make me feel stupid and that the whole thing was my fault. Sugarsync does not care about small businesses and their customer service is horrible.
That’s unfortunate to hear Jay. I’ve fortunately had great experiences with them so it’s odd to hear something so troubling. Have you decided on another service to start using in place of SugarSync?
Do some research you will find that other users have had problems and data lost.
I decided to try SugarSync but have been unable to get it to consistenyl work. I’ve rebuilt my database (Ctrl-Shift-r) multiple times now. The initial sync failed to copy all of the files and folders under the folder I marked to sync. Now changes seem to sync sometimes, and not other times. I tried to download the user guide (PDF) from sugarsync.com and get the error message “Invalid deptID in URL. Please make sure you have the entire, correct URL.” when I select the link to download the manual on their Web site help center. When I use their “Knowledge Base” on the their support portal, I get the error message: “Your support portal session has expired due to inactivity…”
Basically, it doesn’t seem to work and the help/support portal on their web site doesn’t seem to work either.
Wow SugarSync does look pretty cool. Personally, though, I think I’ll stick with Dropbox
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