I'd go for syncthing over nextcloud for your specific usecase. Nextcloud isn't good for unreliable connections and they're sticking with the annoying decision of not supporting server to server synchronization.
this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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Not sure if this works for you but I didnt see it mentioned. I use plex for my media server, so I would just put whatever it is on there and then someone else can log in remotely and download it through the app on their mobile, and I think also via the website too.
I know this works if the person is downloading from android but haven't tested otherwise.
That should work for media files at least, but I believe they'll also need Plex pass to be able to download anything.
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Reminds me I had been needing to find something for this too. Looks like I had thought about using Croc.
I've used:
But for slower connections bittorrent is the best option by far because it doesn't care about interruptions, and verifies the data as it goes. Just gotta make sure you're port forwarding the client.
Just share the folder on soulseek. Probably not advisable for any sensitive information though xD
Super easy. Spin up an OpenVPN server, forwarding the right ports to your server. Now spin up an Apache server with the folder your file’s in as server root. Send the client config for your VPN to your friend, along with the local address of your HTTP server. Now they can install the OpenVPN client on their PC and download the file from your HTTP server. Once you’re done, tear down all your servers, and don’t forget to unforward the ports. Couldn’t be easier.
/s
Okay can you explain why thats a sarcastic answer? Is one of those first three steps way harder than I think it is?
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Wormhole.app, can't recall if they have a limit atm
I use wormhole, but when I've wanted to use that website for receiving, I can never tell how to do it.
Can you actually use that site to receive files?
Whoever uploaded them has to send you a link to them. It does have a limit of 10gb, but it's pretty reliable in my experience.
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I have a minio instance that I use to distribute files
If they are local, you can just put it on a thumb drive and physically transfer it.
Absolutely, that is definitely preferred when possible!
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My use case is a bit different than yours but still worth mentioning, I think; I have Sharry running in Docker and it makes sharing and receiving files super easy. All downloads and uploads are resumable so they work well even in unstable networks.
I tell them to start their Nextcloud client. Or if they don't have it, give them the share link.
I host pingvin for people to send stuff to me. To send, usually I'll just move the file into a folder that exposed to Nginx with indexing and send that link. Otherwise I'll also just use my pingvin instance.
You could try wormhole. It makes a direct connection.
Syncthing
Er, wait, are you using Syncthing for its intended purpose of syncing files across devices on your local network? And then exposing that infrastructure to the internet? Or are you isolating Syncthing instances?
Syncthing is designed to be used over the internet, it's why it supports NAT hole punching, relay servers, and discovery servers.
Syncthing is not just for LAN use. Even their homepage mentions transmitting data over the internet
I've been using it to sync devices over the internet for years. It's also how people use it to sync from say their desktop to their phones, remote server, etc.
If you watch your network firewall Syncthing does reach out to servers on the internet to help it find other devices so e.g. if you enter the other device's ID (example ABCDEFG-ABCDEFG-ABCDEFG-ABCDEFG-ABCDEFG-ABCDEFG-ABCDEFG-ABCDEFG) it can reach out over the internet to find that specific ID to pair with. I think Syncthing uses a sort of DHT resolver to find other devices, I know on my firewall I had to whitelist Syncthing's servers to make it work.
I was going to try to link you some references but their forums seem to have connection issues at the moment, you may want to search around later if you're interested how Syncthing works over the internet.
Syncthing is not limited to local network. It's hole punching is one of the major features
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You can use syncthing to transfer files across the internet? How? I thought it was only for local networks
By default out of the box it will transfer over the internet if it needs to.
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