Peer-to-peer document vault<br>Your documents. Your editor. Every machine you own.<br>ByteFerret keeps every note, doc, and file in sync across all the computers you<br>own — directly, machine-to-machine, with no account and no cloud in the middle. Write in your own editor; it’s just there, everywhere.<br>Install on Linux<br>$ curl -fsSL https://byteferret.com/install.sh | sh Copy
Downloads a prebuilt binary to ~/.local/bin/byteferret.<br>Read it first? View the script.
Get started → See how it works<br>Single ~1.5 MB binary No account Encrypted in transit Open source Linux
Hi, I’m Docby! I keep your docs together. 👋
The problem<br>Your documents are never where you are.<br>You have a favorite editor. You have more than one computer. So you email files to<br>yourself, dig through half-synced cloud folders, and give up editing in some web<br>textbox that isn’t your editor. It should just be there — on this machine, in your<br>editor, right now.<br>With ByteFerret, it is.
What you get<br>Sync that keeps up with you — and stays yours.<br>⌨️ Edit in the editor you love<br>Your vault is just a folder of Markdown, images, and PDFs. Open it in neovim, VS Code, anything — the same files, always current, on every machine.
🔗 Peer-to-peer sync<br>Changes replicate directly between your computers, machine to machine. No account, no server in the middle holding your files hostage.
🔒 Encrypted in transit<br>Every sync connection is mutually authenticated and TLS-encrypted. Nothing crosses the wire in the clear.
✋ Only your devices<br>Every machine is identified by a cryptographic key and must be explicitly approved before it can join. No unknown device ever syncs your files.
📦 One tiny binary<br>Ships as a single, statically linked ~1.5 MB musl binary. It bundles and drives a pinned Syncthing for you — you just run one small CLI.
🔎 Open source<br>The core is AGPL-licensed and open for anyone to inspect and self-host. Security you can read, not just trust.
How it works<br>Four steps to a private mesh.<br>1 Install<br>One command drops a single binary on each of your machines.
2 Init a vault<br>Pick a folder. It becomes your synced document vault.
3 Pair<br>Show one machine’s ID, request from another, approve. Done.
4 Write<br>Edit anything in the vault — it syncs to your peers automatically.
Under the hood, ByteFerret downloads a pinned, private Syncthing v1.30.0, generates<br>its keys, runs it bound to localhost, and drives it entirely over its local REST<br>API. You never touch a config file.
Get started<br>Up and syncing in a few commands.<br>1 · Install<br>Both machines<br>$ curl -fsSL https://byteferret.com/install.sh | sh Copy
Prefer options? BYTEFERRET_ENABLE_SERVICE=1 also installs the systemd<br>user service; BYTEFERRET_FROM_SOURCE=1 builds with cargo instead of<br>downloading. If ~/.local/bin isn’t on your PATH, the<br>installer tells you how to add it.<br>2 · Create a vault, pair, and sync<br>byteferret init ~/vault # create a vault<br>byteferret service install --now # auto-start on login (optional)
# On machine A — print this machine's device ID:<br>byteferret pair --show
# On machine B — request to pair with A:<br>byteferret pair --with
# Back on machine A — approve the request:<br>byteferret pair --accept
byteferret status # peers, sync state, conflicts Edit anything in ~/vault and it syncs to your paired machines<br>automatically — text, PDFs, images, and more. Every command also accepts --json for scripting.
Docby’s tip: run byteferret doctor any time<br>things look off — it checks your setup and can fix common problems with --fix.
Read the docs on GitHub →
Coming next<br>The peer-to-peer core works today.<br>ByteFerret is a Phase-1 MVP: installing, initializing a vault, pairing machines,<br>and automatic peer-to-peer sync all work now. These are on the roadmap:<br>Soon Always-on hub<br>A device you control that keeps a canonical copy online, so your vault is reachable even when your desktops are asleep.
Soon Read on mobile<br>Your entire vault, one tap away on your phone, served over HTTPS from your own hub.
Soon Share in one move<br>Turn any doc into a revocable view-only link or a polished PDF — attach it to an email straight from your desktop.