AnyBucket vs Cyberduck, side by side

At a glance

Cyberduck's column comes from its own pages: cyberduck.io, docs.cyberduck.io and its Mac App Store listing, checked November 4, 2026.

The full comparison has every row, with Transmit, ForkLift, Commander One, FileZilla and the Finder too.

Price

AnyBucket costs $9.99, once. One license covers two Macs, and there's no account to create.

Cyberduck is a free download from its website, licensed under the GPL, with a link to donate. The Mac App Store edition costs $23.99 (US listing, checked November 4, 2026).

Two panes instead of two windows

Cyberduck works in browser windows: one server per window, and you drag files from one browser to another to move them between servers. Its pages describe tabs through the macOS tab bar.

In AnyBucket, each tab holds one or two panes, and each pane shows This Mac or any server. The tab title reads Staging ⇄ Assets, so you always see the pair you're working on. To copy, mark files with Space and press F5; F6 moves them. That is the same gesture whether the files go Mac to server, server to server or server to Mac. See dual panes and tabs.

Server to server

Both apps copy between servers without you downloading anything by hand. Cyberduck describes server-side copies for S3, WebDAV and several cloud services.

AnyBucket copies on the server whenever both panes are on the same one: S3 CopyObject, WebDAV COPY, and cp over SSH when the SFTP account has a shell. Between two different servers, files stream through a small, bounded spool on your Mac, with no temporary files to manage. A move copies, verifies, then deletes. See server to server.

The keyboard and ⌘K

AnyBucket follows the two-pane commanders: F2 renames, F3 opens Quick Look, F4 edits, F5 copies, F6 moves, F7 makes a folder and F8 deletes. Space marks, ⇥ switches panes, and + marks every file that matches a pattern. Every key is also in the menus, and an optional function-key bar shows them under the panes.

Press ⌘K to go to a bookmark, a recent folder or an open tab by a few letters of its name, or paste an sftp:// or s3:// address to connect. ⌘G copies the marked files to any place you pick. Cyberduck's pages don't describe a function-key scheme or a palette. See all shortcuts.

Transfers and sync

Cyberduck keeps its transfers in a Transfers window and retains the queue when you quit, so you can resume later. Its sync runs between a local and a remote folder, with a preview and a checkbox for each file.

AnyBucket's queue retries transient failures by itself, on a fresh connection, after 1, 3 and 8 seconds. It is saved as it runs and comes back after a relaunch, and checksums are verified where the protocol allows. Pause, resume, retry or cancel each transfer, from the window or the menu bar.

Compare & Sync works on whatever the two panes show, This Mac and a server or two servers. Mirror either way or sync both ways, and change any row's action before anything moves.

SSH

Both read your ~/.ssh/config and support jump hosts. Cyberduck lists the options it reads, such as IdentityFile and ProxyJump.

AnyBucket runs the ssh that comes with macOS, so whatever works with ssh user@host in Terminal works in AnyBucket: your keys, your agent, your config and your security keys. Host keys are checked against your own ~/.ssh/known_hosts. See SSH keys and jump hosts.

Where Cyberduck shines

Cyberduck is free and open source, and it runs on Windows as well as the Mac. It also connects to a long list of storage services beyond the ones both apps share.

Switching to AnyBucket

1. Open AnyBucket and press ⇧⌘K to add each server, or paste its address into the palette (⌘K) and press ⌥↩ to save it as a bookmark.
2. For SFTP, nothing to copy over: AnyBucket reads the same ~/.ssh/config and keys, so your host names work as they are.
3. Press ⌘\ for a second pane, pick another server and press F5.

You can try it live in your browser first.