Dev tools · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Capsule – E2E encrypted file sharing
Capsule started as a basic HTTP server to teach myself Rust. Then I kept going, and it turned into the first full-stack thing I've fully shipped: a Rust/Axum server, a Rust CLI, an Android app (my first, same story as the Rust one), and a fully featured web UI. It quickly grew as I realized I could solve my file transfer problem by turning a basic webserver into an actual daily use tool. Entire project is open source, code can be found at: https://github.com/withcapsule/ Would love to hear anyone's thoughts on this.
Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Prices are shown for the 1 we have checked on their own sites, 1 of them free or with a free tier.
- 1
Capsule packages your entire app — UI, data, and assets — into a single portable file. No cloud. No accounts. Just share it.
Sep 2026 · withcapsule.app · its alternatives →
- 2
A year ago, my co-founder launched Desktop Docs here on HN. It's a Mac app we built with Electron that uses CLIP embeddings to search photos and videos locally with natural language. We got positive feedback from HN and our first paying customers, but the app was almost 1GB and clunky to use. TLDR; rebuilding in Rust was the right move. So we rewrote the app with Rust and Tauri and here are the results: - App size is 83% smaller: 1GB → 172MB - DMG Installer is 70% smaller: 232MB → 69.5MB - Indexing files is faster: A 38-minute video now indexes in ~3 minutes instead of 10-14 minutes -…
2025 · desktopdocs.com · its alternatives →
- 3FI
Sharing files with file.io is convenient, anonymous and secure. Just upload files and share the links via email, SMS, Slack, Discord, etc. Easy-to-use REST API.
2015 · file.io · its alternatives →
- 4
"Game" is a stretch, but I put together this repo containing a pure Rust app which uses SDL2 and compiles to WASM (and can be run in a browser). Older resources were a bit out of date and a bit too verbose for my purposes, so here's a minimal working example.
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 5
Hi HN. I built Payload to make file transfers easy for less-technical users who need large/fast transfers, so I have focused on auto-discovery, drag-and-drop, visually distinct device icons. It's using Tauri (an "Electron alternative" built on Rust) which keeps my binaries small and bundles to .msi, .dmg, .deb and .appimage. No CLI, iOS or Android support (yet). The network stack is a separate binary written in Go. It uses mDNS for local network discovery and TLS over TCP or Quic, with a public Ed25519 keypair for each device. The protocol is ad-hoc and symmetrical control stream using…
2022 · payload.app · its alternatives →
- 6CM
2020 · capsule.click · its alternatives →
- 7PF
Pantry is a free, API based JSON storage solution for small projects. We help developers build projects quickly
2020 · getpantry.cloud · its alternatives →
- 8
Drivebase▲98Unified file manager for all your cloud storage with E2EE
Feb 2026 · drivebase.io · its alternatives →
- 9
- 10
Encrypted filesharing through the IPFS network
2021 · sedo.com · its alternatives →
- 11
Personal Cloud Storage and File Management Solution with Privacy and Security - doshareme/desktop
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 12
ProjectSend▲75Securely share files with your team and clients
2023 · projectsend.org · its alternatives →
- 13
Last week Cloudflare released Cap'n Web [1], a schema-free capability-based RPC protocol. I built capn-rs this week - a Rust implementation with full wire protocol compatibility. Links: GitHub: https://github.com/currentspace/capn-rs Crates: https://crates.io/crates/capnweb-server API docs: https://docs.rs/capnweb-server What's working: Wire compatibility verified via integration tests against TypeScript reference Multi-transport: HTTP batch, WebSocket, WebTransport (HTTP/3) Complete IL (intermediate language) expression evaluator…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 14
Hey HN, I'm a C++ algorithms engineer, and today I'd like to share my first full-stack web project: PrivyDrop. This project was born from two ideas: First, I wanted to solve a daily annoyance of mine: I needed a simple, AirDrop-like way to send text, links, or screenshots between my phone and PC. I tried many tools, but they either required me to sign up, had various limitations, or uploaded my data to their servers, which I was never comfortable with. Second, this was a personal experiment. Last year, with all the talk about "AI replacing programmers," I got curious. As a developer with no…
2025 · privydrop.app · its alternatives →
- 15
A Positively Charged JavaScript Runtime . Contribute to alshdavid-public/ion development by creating an account on GitHub.
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 16
Dead-Simple Packaging and Deployment for JVM Apps. Contribute to puniverse/capsule development by creating an account on GitHub.
2014 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 17
I reposted, since i forgot the Show HN prefix. When I looked at self-hosted options, true E2EE turned out to be surprisingly rare. Most solutions rely on disk encryption, which only protects against physical theft, not server compromise or admin access. So I built Agam Space, my attempt at a self-hosted alternative to Mega or Proton Drive. It uses proper zero-knowledge encryption. Files are encrypted in the browser, and the server only stores encrypted blobs. Admins literally cannot access the files. It’s still in early beta, with very basic functionality and no professional security audit…
Jan 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 18
Introducing Sphere - A lightweight, sandboxed compute runtime written in Rust. - introducing-sphere.md
2025 · gist.github.com · its alternatives →
- 19
Hey everyone, English is not my native language. This post was polished with AI, but the content is mine. I run a small dev agency in Germany. Every week someone shares database credentials, API keys, or a .env file via Slack or email. Not because they don’t care: because there’s no frictionless alternative. Vault setups are heavy. Enterprise tools are expensive. I just needed: upload → share link → done. But encrypted before leaving the browser. So I built SecretDrop.dev. What it does Files encrypted client-side (AES-256-GCM, PBKDF2 600k iterations) Built entirely on WebCrypto No…
Feb 2026 · secretdrop.dev · its alternatives →
- 20
I built this because I am perpetually drowning in file transfer hell. As a systems engineer, I am constantly moving massive files. Whether it's getting new releases of custom ISOs to clients, downloading entire filesystems to spin up clones, or uploading massive support packages to L3. I always have to get something to somebody. Usually, it's something large that lives on a headless server. I can't tell you how many times I've modified my 'clone' script to tar most of a filesystem over ssh ("hello --exclude, my old friend...") just to get 10GB that someone will need for two days. Tedious is…
Jan 2026 · bucketlabs.org · its alternatives →
- 21
Hi HN! A few months ago, EntICOnc shared a blog post I wrote about using Rust from the perspective of a Python developer [0] which was well received, with some positive as well as mixed feedback. One thing I didn’t foresee would happen, is this little post getting a lot of attention, especially from the data engineering crowd which I consider myself a part of. Looking at the feedback, it was clear that there are some resources missing for a specific use case for which I think Rust is a perfect candidate: Data Engineering. Currently, Data Engineering is dominated by languages like Java, Scala…
2023 · datawithrust.com · its alternatives →
- 22
Check out our web and mobile apps http://trycapsule.com Capsule is a private group and event based sharing platform built on the premise that most real-life networks are born and die around shared experiences.
2012 · trycapsule.com · its alternatives →
- 23
Over the past few months, as we scaled our internal AI Agents, we hit a dead end: Running LLM-generated arbitrary code in Docker is basically running naked on security due to container escape risks. But using full traditional VMs takes minutes to boot and eats too much memory to support high-density concurrency. We loved the developer experience of SaaS sandboxes on the market, but they are closed-source, expensive, and have too high a barrier to entry for self-hosting. So, our team decided to build our own. After months of grinding, using RustVMM and KVM, we built a blazing-fast,…
Apr 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 24
Hey HN, We’ve built new.space, a privacy-focused, end-to-end encrypted platform for secure collaboration and sharing. Key features: * E2EE: Files, notes, and links are encrypted before leaving your device. We have no access to decryption keys. * No sign-up: Use anonymously or create an account. * Real-time collaboration: Instant updates on web and iOS. Check it out at https://new.space or try our iOS app (https://new.space/app). We’d love your feedback and are happy to answer any questions you might have. -- Nathan P.S. Use code HACKTHENEWS for an extra 4GB storage.…
2024 · new.space · its alternatives →
Also compare
- Capsule – Single-file web apps that save their data into SQLite alternatives
- I rewrote my Mac Electron app in Rust alternatives
- File.io – Ephemeral file sharing alternatives
- A minimal working Rust / SDL2 / WASM browser game alternatives
- Payload – Cross-platform desktop app for LAN file transfers alternatives
- Capsule – Make “video” recordings of any website, but as pure HTML/JS alternatives
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →