--- title: "BetterFileTransfer vs Wormhole" description: "Wormhole is properly end-to-end encrypted, free, and beautifully made. It also keeps files for 24 hours, has never shipped a paid tier, and above 5 GB it needs your browser tab left open." competitor: "Wormhole" checked_on: "2026-08-22" updated: "2026-08-22T07:56:37.080Z" canonical: "https://betterfiletransfer.com/compare/wormhole" --- # BetterFileTransfer vs Wormhole > Wormhole is properly end-to-end encrypted, free, and beautifully made. It also keeps files for 24 hours, has never shipped a paid tier, and above 5 GB it needs your browser tab left open. _Figures for Wormhole last checked on 2026-08-22._ ## At a glance | | BetterFileTransfer | Wormhole | | --- | --- | --- | | Send without an account | Yes, up to 100 MB | Yes | | Free transfer size | 1 GB | 5 GB stored; larger goes peer to peer | | Free link lifetime | Up to 30 days | 24 hours | | End-to-end encrypted | Yes. End to end, on by default, sealed in your browser before upload | Yes. End to end; the key travels in the link fragment | | Cheapest paid plan | $10 / month, or $100 / year | No paid tier | | Paid transfer size | 10 GB | Not applicable | | Storage included | 10 GB free, 1 TB on Pro | None; transfers only | Wormhole is the other genuinely end-to-end encrypted option in this comparison, alongside [Tresorit Send](https://betterfiletransfer.com/compare/tresorit-send). Their own words: only you hold the keys, we cannot see your Wormhole files. AES-GCM, key in the URL fragment, no account, no advertising. It is also the fastest thing here for a small send. Drop a file, get a link before the upload has finished, close the tab. ## What Wormhole does well The design. Sharing begins before the upload completes, which makes a 200 MB send feel instant in a way nothing else on this page manages. The interface is stripped to nothing and there is no signup, no plan chooser and no advertising anywhere in it. The encryption is real and the key never leaves your browser, which puts it in a category of two or three on this entire page. ## Where the two differ - **24 hours.** Server-stored files are kept for a day. That is the shortest window in this comparison, and for a lot of ordinary sending it is simply too short. - **The 10 GB headline needs an asterisk.** Up to 5 GB is stored on their servers. Above that it becomes a peer-to-peer transfer that requires your tab to stay open while the other person downloads, which works and is clever, and is not the same product as a link you can send and forget. - **No password protection.** The link is the whole security model. - **No paid tier, ever.** Wormhole Pro has been listed as a future plan for years. A free service with no revenue is a service whose future is a question, and it is worth weighing that before you build a workflow on it. - **No record of anything.** No dashboard, no download counts, no revoking early. ## The encryption question There is no argument here. Both services seal files in the browser, both put the key in the link fragment so it never reaches a server, and both are unable to recover a lost key. Wormhole uses 128-bit AES-GCM; we stretch a typed or generated secret with PBKDF2 and seal each chunk under AES-256-GCM with the chunk index mixed in, so parts cannot be reordered. The differences that remain are about what happens around the encryption: whether you can choose the secret yourself, whether the filenames are sealed as well as the files, and how long any of it lasts. ## What it costs Nothing, and that is both the appeal and the caveat. ## Which one to use Wormhole for a fast, private, throwaway send that will be collected today. This for anything where a day is not enough, where the recipient might be asleep in another timezone, or where you need to know whether they actually downloaded it. ## When Wormhole is the better choice Wormhole is the better choice for a quick encrypted send to somebody who is going to open it within the day. Sharing starts before the upload finishes, so it feels faster than anything else in this comparison, and the encryption is genuinely end to end. It costs nothing and asks for nothing. If the file will be collected today, there is very little reason to use anything else. --- Canonical HTML version: https://betterfiletransfer.com/compare/wormhole BetterFileTransfer ยท https://betterfiletransfer.com