ExpanDrive vs Cyberduck

Cyberduck opens a window and you move files through it. ExpanDrive puts the server in Finder or Explorer and every app on the machine opens the files directly. Both are free. Cyberduck is open source and runs on Mac and Windows; ExpanDrive is free for personal use and runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux. The choice is transfer versus mount.

Mount every major cloud as a native drive.

ExpanDrive is a desktop app that maps Amazon S3, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, SharePoint, Box, Backblaze B2, Wasabi, Nextcloud, SFTP, and WebDAV to a drive letter on macOS, Windows, and Linux. Stream files on demand, edit them in any application, and save back to the cloud. Free for personal use; $29/month for teams up to 10.

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Pick Cyberduck if…

You move files occasionally and want a transfer window

Cyberduck is a browser: connect, drag files in or out, disconnect. For an upload a week to a partner FTP server, that is the whole job, and it costs nothing.

You want open source with no paid tier at all

Cyberduck is GPL-licensed and free on every platform it runs on. ExpanDrive is free for personal use and has a paid license for teams.

You need Cryptomator vaults in the client

Cyberduck opens Cryptomator-encrypted vaults so the cloud provider only ever sees ciphertext. ExpanDrive doesn't; end-to-end encryption lives on the Files.com platform, not in the desktop tool.

Pick ExpanDrive if…

You work in the files, not just move them

ExpanDrive mounts the server as a drive. Photoshop, Excel, VS Code, the terminal, and every other app open remote files in place and save back. Cyberduck downloads a copy, opens it in an external editor, and re-uploads on save.

You have a Linux desktop on the team

ExpanDrive runs natively on macOS, Windows, and Linux with .deb and .rpm packages. Cyberduck ships its desktop app for Mac and Windows; on Linux it offers the duck command line for transfers.

You deploy to a fleet or a server

ExpanDrive ships a signed MSI with silent-install flags, a Web Management Console for pushing connections, managed connections users cannot alter, an exfs command line for mount and unmount, and a Server Edition that runs as a system service. Cyberduck is a per-user desktop app.

What none of these other tools can offer.

The drive letter is the part you see. The platform behind it, and the server-side companion, are the parts that decide whether the tool holds up at work.

The #1-ranked MFT platform, behind every connector.

ExpanDrive’s connectors are the same ones running across Files.com — the platform ranked #1 on Gartner Peer Insights for Managed File Transfer and the #1 scoring application for MFT on G2, with 4,000+ enterprise customers including Equifax, Rag & Bone, Cognizant, and Michelin. Fifteen-plus years of building cloud connectors, SOC 2 and HIPAA posture, SSO and audit logging when you grow into it.

  • #1 on Gartner Peer Insights for MFT
  • #1 scoring application for MFT on G2
  • 4,000+ enterprise customers
  • Equifax, Rag & Bone, Cognizant, Michelin, and thousands more
  • SOC 2 audited, HIPAA-ready, GDPR posture
  • Backed by Files.com's Five Star Support — direct to a trained engineer, no triage queue

Mount every cloud on the server too.

ExpanDrive Server Edition runs as a system service on Windows Server and Linux, making every cloud available as a network filesystem to every user and every process on the machine. Re-share cloud storage as an SMB mount on your network. Multi-user file locking for Office documents. Headless installs, parallel transfers, and a multi-threaded engine built for the server.

  • Mounts as a network filesystem on Windows Server and Linux
  • Runs headless as a system service
  • Re-shares cloud storage via SMB
  • Multi-user file locking on shared Office docs
  • Included in Business at $29/month
Learn about Server Edition

Questions about ExpanDrive vs Cyberduck.

Transfer window or mounted drive, open source or free tier, and whether you can run both.

Cyberduck is a file transfer client: it opens a window onto an FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, S3, or cloud-storage account, and you upload and download through that window. ExpanDrive is a drive: it mounts the same servers and clouds as a volume in Finder or a drive letter in Explorer, so every application reads and writes the remote files directly, streamed on demand. Same protocols, different relationship with the rest of your software.

The platform behind the drive letter.

The cloud connectors mounting your drive on macOS, Windows, and Linux are the same ones that run on Files.com's high-performance cloud File Orchestration Platform — used by 4,000+ businesses including Equifax, Rag & Bone, Cognizant, and Michelin. None of the tools you might compare ExpanDrive against have anything like our team behind them.

Visit Files.com

Try ExpanDrive. Free.

Mount every server and cloud Cyberduck browses, as a drive, on macOS, Windows, and Linux.

Download for MacDownload for Windows