Sync.com Cloud Storage Review

Sync.com, founded in 2011 and claiming over 750,000 registered users (source), is a significant player in the cloud storage industry. In this review I’ll test their service and compare it to its competition, and finally advise whether I recommend actually using Sync.com (you can skip to my verdict here if interested).

Signing up to Sync.com

Getting started with Sync.com is very easy. Use the form on the homepage to create an account:

Then, you have the option of using the desktop app or using the web panel:

Personally, I don’t like installing any software on my machine unless it’s necessary, so stuck mainly to the web panel. Sync.com advises to use the desktop software if you’re uploading a lot of data, though, so if you’re storing many GB of data you’ll probably want to download the software.

Here’s what the web panel looks like (super simple):

For testing purposes I’ve just uploaded a 150MB file, which took a few minutes on my internet connection. Then these are the options you have with each file:

Again, super simple. That’s practically all there is to the web panel (the “Vault” menu item is the same as the “Files” screen as above, except files in the Vault don’t get synced to your other devices).

Sync.com alternatives & competitors

Cloud storage is a competitive space, and there’s no shortage of great cloud storage services offered by major tech companies. The main competitors to Sync.com that I’ve identified are these:

  • Dropbox
  • Google Drive
  • SpiderOak
  • pCloud
  • Tresorit

Sync.com vs Dropbox: The main advantage of Sync.com over Dropbox is security and privacy, as Dropbox is known to have numerous security and privacy issues (e.g. see this Wikipedia article) and is able to access, scan and share your files if they wanted to. If this is important to you, you should go with Sync.com over Dropbox.

Sync.com vs Google Drive: Google Drive is way better than Sync.com when it comes to third-party integrations, and is perfect for collaboration when working with another person since it comes with the Google Docs suite. But like with Dropbox, Sync.com beats Google Drive when it comes to data protection, since it doesn’t retain your encryption key and will never be able to decrypt your content. Google Drive, on the other hand, would be able to decrypt your content if they were forced to. So again — go for Sync.com if your data privacy is important to you.

Sync.com vs SpiderOak: SpiderOak is primarily marketed as an online backup service, whereas Sync.com is marketed as cloud storage. The difference between these — while they’re basically the same thing — is that with online backup you’re replicating what’s already on your harddrive, whereas with cloud storage you’re storing files in the cloud to save harddrive space. Sync.com is priced marginally better and gets your more space than SpiderOak, so I see it as slightly better value. SpiderOak also requires an annual commitment, whereas with Sync.com you can pay month-to-month.

Sync.com vs pCloud: Very similar services. pCloud is priced similarly to Sync.com and has very similar features, and you can definitely count on it to work reliably. However, Sync.com does not make you pay extra for zero-knowledge encryption and it encrypts all your files automatically, so again may be somewhat preferred over pCloud when it comes to data privacy.

Sync.com vs Tresorit: Tresorit is also a good service that provides most of the features of Sync.com, but at a significantly higher price.

Are there any discount, coupon or promo codes for Sync.com?

I do not believe there are any discount, coupon or promo codes for Sync.com, since when going to the checkout page on Sync.com, there was no field to enter anything like that.

Does Sync.com work on Linux?

There is no Linux software for Sync.com at the time of writing, so if you’re using Linux, you’ll have to use the web panel.

How does Sync.com pricing work?

Sync.com pricing is separated into teams and individuals, with pricing for individuals ranging from a very reasonable $8 to $15 per month (for between 2 to 4TB of storage), and $5 to $15 per month per user for teams. This is similar or slightly better than pricing for its competitors.

Do I recommend Sync.com?

I definitely recommend Sync.com if you care about your data privacy and don’t want to ever have to worry about your files being accessed by your cloud service provider or anyone else. In this respect, it is definitely the best cloud storage service today. However, if you aren’t bothered too much about the remote possibility of your data potentially being leaked, there are other cloud storage services that may be better fit for your needs, such as Google Drive which offers some advantages over Sync.com as listed above (better for collaborations and third-party integrations).

Summary
Review Date
Reviewed Item
Sync.com
Author Rating
51star1star1star1star1star
Software Name
Sync.com Cloud Storage
Software Name
NA
Software Category
NA