Launching today
Altersend
File transfer with no cloud storage, no account, no limits
71 followers
File transfer with no cloud storage, no account, no limits
71 followers
AlterSend sends files directly between devices - P2P, E2EE, no cloud storage, no account, no size limits. Open source and cross-platform: mobile + desktop. Share a code or scan a QR, and files stream straight across.
Altersend
Hey Product Hunt! 👋
I'm Denis. I built AlterSend because sending a big file to someone is still way harder than it should be. You upload it to WeTransfer or Google Drive, wait, hit a size limit, send a link, and your file ends up on a server that isn't yours. It's slow, it's capped, and it's not private.
AlterSend sends files straight from your device to the other person's. No upload step, no account, no size limit, end-to-end encrypted. Works anywhere - same room or another country.
We released a month ago and it's going better than I hoped: 7,000+ downloads, almost 1,000 GitHub stars, and a lot of great feedback from users that's helping me decide what to build next.
How it works:
• Each transfer creates a random 32-byte key - that's the join code you share with the receiver
• Devices find each other through a public DHT using a hash of that key - the key itself never leaves your devices
• The connection is encrypted end to end. If a direct connection isn't possible, a relay passes the encrypted stream along - it can't read your files and doesn't store anything
• When you disconnect, everything is wiped — nothing is stored anywhere
It's open source (Apache-2.0), free, and there are no accounts.
I'd love honest feedback - especially: what would it take for you to stop using WeTransfer, Drive links, or USB sticks? I'll be in the comments all day. 🙌
the "your files never touch the cloud" pitch is solid on paper but real P2P is never that clean once both sides are behind restrictive NAT/CGNAT - like on separate corporate wifis. what happens then, does it fall back to a relay server (still E2EE, just not direct), or does the transfer just fail and you're back to a USB drive?
Altersend
@galdayan yes, if hole punching fails (CGNAT/NAT), it falls back to a relay server. But the relay has no idea what your file is, it just forwards encrypted bytes.
How do you handle firewall and NAT traversal in the peer-to-peer file transfer process?
Altersend
@aymnart
We use Hyperswarm for discovery and NAT traversal, public bootstrap nodes help get the first peers introduced, then the DHT helps them hole-punch a direct UDX connection to each other, and only when that can't work (symmetric CGNAT, VPNs) do we fall back to an opt-in blind relay that blindly forwards encrypted bytes.
@denisdev The way you've implemented Hyperswarm for peer discovery is really impressive.
Connecting devices is near-instant! and file transfer is fast!
I just Downloaded it for my linux and android devices and decided to keep it.
Good luck! looking forward to more UX improvements.
Altersend
@aymnart thanks for it ! Will definitely keep improving it
This looks really clean, love that there's no account or size limit involved. One thing that would make it way more usable for me is the ability to resume an interrupted transfer if someone drops off wifi for a second, since flaky connections mid-download are the worst.
Direct transfer usually means both devices need to be online at once. How do you handle sending something to someone who isn't around until later, or is that out of scope by design?
Love the no-account, P2P approach - feels way cleaner than the usual cloud shuffle. One thing I'd want though: a quick way to pause or throttle transfers, since big video dumps tend to saturate my whole connection and wreck whatever else I'm doing online. Even a simple slider would do the job.
Sent a video between my phone and laptop in seconds, no signup or upload wait was genuinely refreshing. The QR code pairing feels way cleaner than emailing myself a link.