Syncthing for Dotfiles: Sync vs. Manage

13 days ago

Syncthing is a peer-to-peer, block-level file sync engine that replicates bytes continuously, not a dotfile management strategy.
chezmoi treats your home directory as a build target, using templates to render per-machine configurations, handling differences like work vs. personal settings.
Using Syncthing for dotfiles can propagate mistakes quickly, lacks per-machine customization, and syncs secrets in plaintext without redaction.
Dotfile managers like chezmoi offer better safety with version control (e.g., git history) and bootstrapping new machines with one command.
Syncthing excels for continuous, frictionless sync of large or non-config files (e.g., tool state, plugin directories) and identical environments without third parties.
A combined setup is recommended: use chezmoi for templated, per-host configs and Syncthing for host-agnostic tool-state, avoiding conflicts with tools like .stignore.

Hasty Briefsbeta