Comparisons / rclone
Cloud Combo vs rclone
rclone is a beloved free, open-source command-line tool that supports a huge number of storage backends. It is extremely powerful — sync, mount, encryption, scripting — but it runs on your own machine, is configured in a terminal, and has a real learning curve.
At a glance
| Cloud Combo | rclone | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Manager free; migrations a one-time $7-$49 by size | Free, open source |
| Interface | Web app | Command line (community GUIs exist) |
| Runs on | Our servers — nothing to install | Your machine (or a server you manage) |
| Uses your bandwidth | No | Yes, unless self-hosted on a server |
| Supported providers | Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, pCloud, and any WebDAV storage (Nextcloud, ownCloud, Synology NAS, Koofr) | Dozens of backends, including S3/SFTP |
| Sync, mount, encryption | No — transfers and file management | Yes |
Where rclone shines
- Supports far more backends than any web service, including S3, SFTP, B2, and dozens more.
- Open source, scriptable, and infinitely flexible — sync, mount drives, client-side encryption.
- Runs entirely under your control; nothing passes through a third-party service.
Where Cloud Combo shines
- No installation, terminal, or config files — connect accounts in a browser and click transfer.
- Transfers run server-side in the cloud: they do not use your bandwidth and continue after you close the laptop. rclone routes traffic through the machine it runs on unless you rent a server for it.
- Live visual progress, automatic retries, checksum verification on every file, and a file browser — no flags to memorize.
Which one should you use?
Pick rclone if
- You are comfortable in a terminal and want scripting, cron jobs and flags that do exactly what you specify.
- You need a backend we do not support — rclone speaks to an enormous number of storage systems, including S3-compatible object storage and encrypted remotes.
- You want the tool to be free and open source, auditable, with no account anywhere and no third party in the path.
Pick Cloud Combo if
- You do not want to install anything, edit a config file, or learn a flag set to move your own files once.
- The move is large and you do not want it tied to your own machine and connection — rclone runs where you run it, so the laptop has to stay awake and the bandwidth is yours. Cloud Combo runs server-side.
- You want failures surfaced for you: per-file retries, and a report naming what did not make it, without reading through log output to find out.
How a Cloud Combo transfer actually runs
- Transfers run on our servers, not in your browser or on your machine. Your own bandwidth is not used and nothing needs to stay switched on — start a 500 GB migration from a laptop, close it, and the transfer keeps going.
- Every file is checked on arrival rather than assumed: Dropbox returns its content_hash, OneDrive and pCloud return a hash we compare, WebDAV servers are checked on size because the protocol offers nothing better. Anything that does not match is transferred again.
- Files are retried individually. One unreadable file never stops the other 200,000, and you get a report naming what failed and why instead of a silent partial copy.
- Names that a destination would reject are repaired rather than skipped — OneDrive refuses " * : < > ? / \ | and any name starting or ending with a space or dot, so those characters are replaced and the file still lands.
- Nothing is overwritten. Where a name already exists the file is written alongside, so re-running a transfer to fill gaps can never destroy what arrived the first time.
- It is built for runs that take days. The largest single migration routed so far was 2 TB, and a 510 GB move of 222,844 files completed in full — that scale is the normal case, not the edge case.
Verdict
If you are comfortable in a terminal and need advanced features like sync, mounts, or exotic backends, rclone is unbeatable. If you just want your files moved between the major clouds without installing anything or burning your own bandwidth, Cloud Combo is the two-minute answer.
Common questions
Is rclone better than Cloud Combo?
For a technical user with time to configure it, rclone is more powerful and costs nothing — it supports far more backends, scripts cleanly and is open source. Cloud Combo is for the person who wants a migration done in a browser without learning a tool. Both verify what they copy; the real difference is where the work runs and how much setup you do first.
Does rclone verify files like Cloud Combo does?
Yes. rclone compares hashes where both sides expose a compatible one, and its check command verifies a destination against a source. Verification is not the distinction between the two tools — the distinction is that rclone runs on your machine, using your bandwidth and staying up for the duration, while Cloud Combo runs server-side and retries and reports failures for you.
Do I need to install anything to use Cloud Combo?
No. It runs in a browser: connect both drives with OAuth (or a WebDAV app password), pick what to move, and start. There is nothing to install, no config file, and nothing to keep running on your own computer.
Can I use rclone for free instead of paying for Cloud Combo?
Yes, and for many people that is the right answer. rclone is free and excellent. You are paying us for the parts that are not the copying: no setup, server-side execution so your machine is not involved, and per-file verification and reporting handled for you.
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