Perkoon vs SupaSidebar

Side-by-side comparison to help you choose the right tool.

Perkoon offers free, unlimited peer-to-peer file transfers with no signup required.

Last updated: March 4, 2026

SupaSidebar is my favorite Mac menubar app for instantly saving and accessing links, files, and folders.

Last updated: February 28, 2026

Visual Comparison

Perkoon

Perkoon screenshot

SupaSidebar

SupaSidebar screenshot

Feature Comparison

Perkoon

Truly Free Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Transfers

This is Perkoon's killer feature and the hill they've chosen to die on. When both sender and recipient are online, files travel directly from one browser to another. This means there are absolutely no file size limits, no mandatory sign-ups, and because the data never touches Perkoon's servers, it's inherently private. The best part? It's free forever, because this direct streaming genuinely costs them almost nothing to provide. It's file sharing in its purest, most efficient form.

Honest Encrypted Cloud Storage

For when your recipient isn't online, Perkoon offers cloud storage. This is their paid feature, and they are refreshingly upfront about why: storing data on their servers incurs real costs. Files are encrypted, and they don't scan or sell your data. You pay for a straightforward service—holding a file until your friend is ready to grab it—without the creepy surveillance or data monetization schemes endemic to "free" cloud services.

Native AI & Automation Integration

Perkoon is built for the future. Instead of forcing AI agents to awkwardly scrape a website like a common bot, Perkoon provides a direct API pathway via window.__perkoon. This means your AI assistants and automation scripts can interact with the transfer service programmatically, sending and managing files without human intervention. It's a small detail that shows immense foresight.

Simple CLI & Referral Rewards

Power users and developers will love the command-line interface tool, bringing Perkoon's simplicity to the terminal. Furthermore, their affiliate program is ingeniously user-centric. Share your link, and when someone signs up and starts transferring files, you both get bonus cloud storage. It's a community-driven growth model that actually rewards the users, not just the company.

SupaSidebar

Universal Capture with Global Shortcuts

This is the killer feature that makes SupaSidebar indispensable. No more tedious right-clicking or dragging. From any browser—Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Brave, or Arc—you can instantly save or copy the current webpage's URL using configurable global keyboard shortcuts (like Cmd+Ctrl+S to save). It works system-wide, meaning you're never more than a keystroke away from capturing important information without breaking your flow. This seamless integration is what transforms SupaSidebar from a passive storage app into an active productivity powerhouse.

SupaSidebar brilliantly keeps track of your activity. The "Recents" section automatically logs every website you've visited in the last 48 hours, acting as a perfect short-term memory for when you inevitably close a tab too soon. More impressive is the universal search (triggered by Cmd+Ctrl+K). This isn't just for your saved items; it's a blazing-fast conduit to find any file, folder, website, or application on your Mac instantly. It eliminates the friction of switching between Finder and your browser, centralizing access in one focused command palette.

Spaces for Organizational Freedom

Moving beyond a simple list, SupaSidebar introduces "Spaces"—separate, organized lists to categorize your work. The free plan includes 3, which is perfect for dividing personal, work, and research tasks. The Pro plan unlocks unlimited Spaces, allowing for meticulous organization by project, client, or topic. This structure ensures your sidebar remains clean and relevant to the task at hand, preventing it from becoming a digital junk drawer. It’s the organizational layer that makes the tool scalable for power users.

Native Mac Design & Privacy-First

SupaSidebar feels like a natural part of macOS. It's not a clunky port or a web wrapper; it's built specifically for the Mac ecosystem, with smooth animations and intuitive interactions like natural swipe gestures. Crucially, it operates on a staunch privacy-first principle: all your data—links, files, metadata—stays locally on your Mac. Nothing is sent to external servers. You get the convenience of cloud-like organization with the absolute security and privacy of local storage, which is a rare and commendable combination.

Use Cases

Perkoon

Sending Massive Project Files to Clients

Freelancers, videographers, and designers constantly hit walls with services like WeTransfer or Google Drive that impose strict size limits. With Perkoon's P2P transfer, you can send a 100GB video edit or design portfolio in one go, for free, directly to your client's browser. No compression, no splitting files, no upgrade prompts—just seamless, professional delivery.

Private Document Exchange

For lawyers, journalists, or anyone handling sensitive information, privacy is non-negotiable. Perkoon's P2P channel ensures confidential contracts, reports, or source materials travel directly to the recipient without ever being stored on or scanned by a third-party server. It's the digital equivalent of handing someone a sealed envelope.

Automated Backup & AI Agent Workflows

Imagine setting up a script that automatically backs up your server logs to a colleague's machine via Perkoon's CLI every night. Or an AI agent that processes user-uploaded files and uses Perkoon's native API to send back the results. This use case unlocks automated, machine-to-machine file transfer pipelines that are both powerful and private.

Collaborative Team Work Without Account Chaos

Getting a temporary contractor or a one-time collaborator up to speed often means managing guest accounts on shared drives. With Perkoon, you can instantly send the necessary datasets, assets, or documents via a simple link. They download directly, no account required, streamlining collaboration and reducing administrative overhead dramatically.

SupaSidebar

The Academic Researcher

For anyone writing a paper or thesis, SupaSidebar is a game-changer. You can instantly save source articles from various databases and browsers into a dedicated "Research" Space. Use the Recents feature to jump back to a statistical tool or journal website you used yesterday. Keep PDFs and data folders pinned for quick access. It turns the chaotic process of literature review and source management into a streamlined, centralized operation, saving hours of tab-hopping.

The Content Creator & Digital Marketer

Creators constantly collect inspiration, draft social posts, manage assets, and track analytics. SupaSidebar allows you to pin your Canva dashboard, YouTube Studio, and brand assets folder. Save competitor links or inspiration from around the web with a single shortcut. Use different Spaces for different clients or platforms (e.g., "Client A - Instagram," "Blog Ideas"). The universal search lets you pull up a brand logo or a draft document mid-task without ever leaving your creative flow.

The Multi-Browser Power User

Many of us use different browsers for different purposes—Chrome for work, Safari for personal, Firefox for testing. SupaSidebar eliminates the friction between them. No matter which browser you're in, your universal sidebar remains constant. You can save a link from your work browser and access it instantly while browsing personally in another. It creates a cohesive layer above your browser choice, making your workflow browser-agnostic and far more efficient.

The Project Manager or Consultant

Juggling multiple clients or projects means context switching is a major productivity killer. With unlimited Spaces (on Pro), you can have a dedicated Space for each client or project, containing all relevant links to project management tools (Asana, Trello), shared drives, communication apps (Slack, Teams), and key documents. Switching mental contexts becomes as simple as clicking a different Space in your sidebar, keeping everything you need neatly compartmentalized and instantly accessible.

Overview

About Perkoon

Perkoon is the file transfer service that finally gets it. In a digital landscape cluttered with services that nickel-and-dime you, force you into accounts, and treat your private data as their product, Perkoon is a breath of fresh, honest air. It’s built for anyone who’s tired of the corporate nonsense—creators sending large project files, teams collaborating, or just you trying to get a video to a friend without hitting an artificial size limit. Its core value proposition is radical simplicity and integrity: moving files from point A to point B with maximum privacy and minimum fuss. It achieves this through two brilliantly straightforward methods. First, its flagship free P2P transfer beams files directly between browsers with no size limits and no accounts, costing Perkoon nothing so it costs you nothing. Second, for offline recipients, it offers encrypted, paid cloud storage—a feature they transparently charge for because, well, servers cost money. What truly cements Perkoon as a forward-thinking tool is its native design for automation and AI agents, allowing machines to interact with it directly. This isn't just another transfer tool; it's a principled, powerful solution for real people and the AI era.

About SupaSidebar

Let's be honest: the modern digital workflow is a mess of scattered tabs, buried bookmarks, and forgotten files. If you've ever felt a pang of envy for the sleek, integrated sidebar in the Arc browser but aren't ready to switch your entire browsing life, SupaSidebar is the answer you've been waiting for. This isn't just another menubar utility; it's a fundamental rethinking of how you access your digital workspace on a Mac. SupaSidebar elegantly solves the core problem of context switching by becoming a universal hub for everything you use daily—links from any browser, local files, folders, and applications. It lives discreetly in your menu bar, ready to deploy with a click or, better yet, a lightning-fast keyboard shortcut. The philosophy is clear: your data stays on your Mac, your privacy is respected, and your workflow becomes effortlessly streamlined. Whether you're a researcher juggling dozens of academic papers, a creator managing inspiration and assets, or a professional who simply hates wasting time hunting for that one link you had open yesterday, SupaSidebar is designed to bring order to the chaos. It's the digital companion that finally makes your Mac feel truly organized.

Frequently Asked Questions

Perkoon FAQ

Is the P2P transfer really free with no limits?

Yes, absolutely. The peer-to-peer transfer is completely free, with no file size limits and no requirement to create an account. It works by establishing a direct connection between the sender's and recipient's browsers. Since the data never passes through Perkoon's infrastructure, it doesn't cost them to operate, so they don't charge you for it. It's free forever.

What happens if the person I'm sending to is offline?

If the recipient is not online to receive the direct P2P transfer, Perkoon offers encrypted cloud storage as a fallback. This is a paid feature because storing files on their servers incurs real costs. The file is held securely until your recipient is available to download it. You can check the pricing page for details on cloud storage plans.

How does Perkoon protect my privacy?

Privacy is a core principle. For P2P transfers, your files never touch Perkoon's servers—they go directly browser-to-browser, so Perkoon literally cannot see your data. For cloud transfers, files are encrypted on their servers. They have a strict policy of no scanning, no selling, and no "corporate nonsense" with your data.

Can I use Perkoon with automation scripts or AI agents?

Definitely. Perkoon is designed for the age of automation. They provide a direct JavaScript object (window.__perkoon) on their web interface, allowing AI agents and scripts to interact with the service programmatically without the need for inefficient screen-scraping. There's also a CLI tool available for terminal-based automation and integration.

SupaSidebar FAQ

Is SupaSidebar a browser extension?

No, and that's part of its genius. SupaSidebar is a standalone macOS application that lives in your menu bar. It works independently of your browser, which is how it achieves universal compatibility with Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Brave, Arc, and others. It uses system-level accessibility features to capture the active browser tab's URL, meaning you don't need to install a separate extension for each browser you use.

Which browsers does SupaSidebar work with?

SupaSidebar is designed to work seamlessly with all major browsers on macOS. This includes Safari, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Brave, and Arc. The application detects the frontmost window, so as long as you're using one of these browsers (or most other modern browsers), the global keyboard shortcuts will capture the current page's URL correctly.

Where is my data stored?

All your data is stored locally on your Mac. SupaSidebar operates on a strict privacy-first model. Your saved links, files, folders, and organizational structures never leave your computer and are not synced to any cloud server unless you choose to use iCloud or another service to sync the application's data folder yourself. This ensures complete privacy and security.

Is there a free trial?

Yes, absolutely. You can download and use SupaSidebar for free forever with a feature-rich free plan that includes 3 Spaces. Furthermore, the "Pro" features are available to everyone on a full, no-credit-card-required 7-day trial. This lets you test drive unlimited Spaces and all premium capabilities to see if the upgrade is right for your workflow before making any financial commitment.

Alternatives

Perkoon Alternatives

Perkoon is a standout in the file transfer and productivity space, built on a foundation of privacy and simplicity. It bypasses the usual model of free-with-limits by using peer-to-peer tech for direct transfers, only charging for optional cloud storage. This honest approach is a breath of fresh air, but it naturally leads users to explore the landscape. People look for alternatives for all sorts of reasons. Maybe they need guaranteed delivery when the recipient is offline but don't want to pay. Perhaps they require deep integration with other business apps, or they simply prefer a more traditional, account-based service for tracking transfers. The "right" tool depends entirely on your workflow. When evaluating options, you need to weigh what matters most to you. Is it absolute cost, with a true free tier? Is it transfer speed and reliability for huge files? Or is it advanced features like automation, team management, or specific security certifications? Knowing your non-negotiables will guide you past the marketing fluff to a service that actually fits.

SupaSidebar Alternatives

SupaSidebar is a Mac-focused productivity tool designed as a sleek sidebar for instantly saving and accessing links, files, and folders. It falls squarely into the category of workflow and tab management software, aiming to reduce digital clutter and streamline your daily computer use. Even the best tools aren't a perfect fit for everyone. Users often seek alternatives for reasons like cost, needing a cross-platform solution that works on Windows or Linux, or desiring a different set of core features beyond link management. Some may prefer a more minimalist approach or a tool deeply integrated into a specific browser. When evaluating alternatives, consider your primary pain points. Are you drowning in browser tabs, or do you need a powerful search across all your saved content? Prioritize features that solve your specific workflow hiccups, check for compatibility with your operating system and browsers, and decide if a one-time purchase or a subscription model aligns with your budget.

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