2 months 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.