BucketPilot vs Cyberduck
A free desktop transfer client vs a browser-based storage management platform — different tools for different jobs.
Last verified 18 September 2026 against the sources below. Tell us if something here is out of date and we will check it.
The short version
Cyberduck is a free, open-source desktop client (macOS/Windows) that speaks S3, SFTP, Azure, GCS and more — great for browsing and hand-driven transfers from your own machine. BucketPilot is a browser-based platform: jobs run on servers on a schedule whether your laptop is open or not, objects are indexed for search, and a team shares one console with roles. The honest framing: Cyberduck is a client, BucketPilot is a service.
Side by side
| Cyberduck | BucketPilot | |
|---|---|---|
| Intended use | Connecting to servers and cloud storage from your own machine, and moving files by hand | Managing and copying buckets for a team, on a schedule, without a machine of yours being involved |
| Sources and destinations | FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, SMB, OpenStack Swift, S3, Azure, Google Cloud Storage, Backblaze B2, Box, Nextcloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive and more | S3, Cloudflare R2, Google Cloud Storage and BucketPilot Cloud buckets; SFTP/SSH servers, Windows servers and Azure Blob as sources |
| Scheduled operations | Not a documented feature — transfers are started by a person | Hourly, daily, weekly or monthly jobs on managed workers |
| Search / indexing | Browse and filter what is on screen | Every object indexed; filename search across millions, with an API |
| Backup vs synchronisation | Synchronise is an explicit action you run on a folder | Backup jobs never delete at the destination; a mirror is a separate, clearly-labelled choice |
| Restoration | Download the file you are looking at | Versioned destination, restore any version or a whole folder back to where it came from |
| Team roles | Each person installs it and holds their own credentials | One workspace, per-bucket and per-folder grants, roles |
| Audit history | Local transfer log on that machine | Workspace-wide activity log: who did what, to which bucket, when |
| Deployment model | Desktop app for macOS and Windows | Browser; jobs run on our workers (or BucketPilot Cloud storage if you want us to hold the bytes) |
| Pricing basis | Free software. A donation (from $10) gets a registration key that disables the donation prompt; also sold in the Mac and Windows stores | Per-workspace subscription with a 14-day trial |
Which should you use?
Use Cyberduck for occasional, hands-on file work from your own machine. Its protocol range is wider than BucketPilot's — SMB, Swift, Box, Dropbox, OneDrive and Google Drive are all things we do not do.
Use BucketPilot when transfers need to happen on a schedule without a human, when several people need governed access to the same buckets, or when finding objects matters as much as moving them. Many teams keep both: Cyberduck for ad-hoc personal use, BucketPilot for the shared, automated layer.
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