Commandeer vs Transmit and CyberDuck Comparison

Having a desktop app to provide for file transfers between servers and your local machine and the cloud are essential for the professional programmer. Commandeer provides all of the services that other software offerings offer and also provides a bonus with an efficient integration of your LocalStack environment and the AWS cloud.

Overview

Alright, so here we are. In the right corner, we have the OG apps for cloud file management like Transmit or CyberDuck. In the left corner, we have a newcomer app called Commandeer. Let's see who wins the fight!

Commandeer and S3 Integration

Commandeer is a desktop app tightly integrated with AWS S3. It allows you to preview files, download them on your computer, has some syntax highlighting for the common text files in different programming languages. In addition to cloud file management features, Commandeer seamlessly integrates with LocalStack, allowing you to manage your S3 files locally in the exact same way you would manage it on AWS.

What are Transmit and CyberDuck

Transmit and CyberDuck are also native desktop apps for dealing with file transfers between different servers. Each app also supports file transfers between your local machine and the cloud. The main selling point of both of these apps is a variety of connection options. They support connections to an FTP or WebDAV server, Backblaze B2, as well as AWS S3, Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft Azure & One Drive, and more. So wherever you want to get your files transferred, both apps got you covered.

Feature Comparison

Let's go over the features for each app

Features	Commandeer	Transmit and CyberDuck
LocalStack Integration for S3	✅	❌
Full blown text editor	✅	❌
Code syntax highlighting	✅	❌
Previewing text files	✅	✅
Previewing images, gifs, movies, and audio files	✅	❌
Editing text files directly in the cloud	✅	✅
Variety of connection options	❌	✅
Transferring files between servers	❌	✅
Mount a cloud drive locally	❌	✅

Conclusion

Commandeer, Transmit, and CyberDuck are native desktop apps allowing you to work with your files in the cloud. While Commandeer only supports S3 at the moment, it's main focus is mostly on the cloud development side of things. It helps developers and everyone involved in the software development lifecycle work with AWS S3 files efficiently. So if you're developing for the cloud and dealing with some files on S3, Commandeer is for you.

Whereas Transmit and Cyberduck are geared towards uploading and downloading a large number of files between different servers and/or your local machine. Transmit and CyberDuck support a variety of file storage options like FTP, WebDAV, and cloud storage providers like AWS S3, Google Drive, etc. If you're dealing with a large number of file transfers across different destinations and providers, you should consider using Transmit and Cyberduck instead.