Haven't tried iroh-ssh but since Synchi just uses standard SSH under the hood, it should work transparently with any ProxyCommand setup. Cool project, though!
Thanks! If you just need backup, with Synchi you set the 'force=root_a' in config, otherwise its bidirectional sync. If you need pure backups, rsync or similar might still be the better fit as they have some backup specific features.
I used Syncthing for years, it's great (if you use it and you are happy, then you dont need to switch), but they are quite different. Syncthing requires daemons on all devices and can't sync two local folders on the same machine. Synchi is on-demand, runs only on one side, and doesn't care where the two root folders are.
I wrote a more detailed comparison here: https://jakobkreft.github.io/synchi/why.html
Thanks for correcting me! Honestly, I haven't used rclone bisync myself so thanks for sharing it. I have to give it a try now. rclone definitely looks a lot more compex feature-rich tool. Synchi I think would be alot simpler to setup and works great for my specific use case of syncing notes and files between my devices. Perhaps, targeted users is the distinction? Anyways I need to try it and see what good things I can learn from it.
You are correct! no sub-file sync / binary diffing at the moment. It was my deliberate choice to keep complexity down. In practice, text files where diffing helps are tiny and transfer instantly anyway, and large files like images and videos almost never change partially. The main case where it would matter is something like large database files or VM images. That said, it's not off the table for the future!
rclone bisync can do two-way sync, yes, great tool, especially for cloud backends and more automated syncs. Synchi is a lot simpler and more focused: works over SSH, nothing needed on the remote side. The key difference is that Synchi shows you exactly what it's about to do (copy A→B, copy B→A, delete in A, delete in B) and asks before changing anything. Conflicts get an interactive UI. No surprises.
This is exactly how I use Synchi! Same idea but I use Logseq instead of Obsidian (very similar open-source alternative, worth checking out). Works great for syncing markdown notes between computers and my phone on demand. Of course I need to remember to sync before switching devices, but I prefer this then constant running in the background.
Haven't thought about an Obsidian/Logseq plugin but honestly that sounds like a great idea... For now it's CLI only, but I can definitely see the value.
Great question! Let me sum it up here for others:
rsync is one-way only and has no memory between runs, every execution starts from scratch. Synchi is two-way, stateful (knows what changed since last sync), and content-aware (uses hashes, so no false positives from timestamp changes). It also handles conflicts explicitly instead of silently overwriting.
That said, rsync is still the better tool for backups and one-way mirroring. Synchi is for when you need true bidirectional sync.
Here is also a comparison with unison and syncthing: https://jakobkreft.github.io/synchi/why.html
Yes, you do need SSH set up on your phone. I'm using the same setup (Linux + Android). I wrote a short tutorial for it here: https://jakobkreft.github.io/synchi/termux.html
Also I use it with Tailscale so I can sync from anywhere not just local network.
Many sync tools like rsync are actually one-way (yes, only a mirror/backup). Two-way means changes on either side get synced to the other (Synchi helps you resolve conflicts). That said, Synchi can also do one-way mirroring if you set force=root_a in the config.
Yes! On android with Termux terminal.
(note: If you sync between computer and phone you don't need to install it on your phone. One side only is enough.)
Nothing wrong with that at all! You can set up a cron job to run Synchi every 5 minutes and it would work just fine. The only minor downside is some wasted compute since it rescans and hashes everything each run, even if nothing changed. For most files like text it's negligible though.
In the future I might look into a lightweight daemon that uses Linux filesystem notifications (inotify) to trigger a sync when something changes.