The short version.
SyncShot and Hedge both copy media off cards and drives with checksum verification on every byte. The difference is what else each one reaches.
SyncShot is a macOS app that treats iPhone and Android as first-class sources alongside cameras, cards, and drives, and fans out to NAS, S3, Google Drive, SFTP, and FTP at once — verified end to end with BLAKE3 checksums. Pro is $49/year, one Mac, every destination included.
Hedge is the entrenched verified-offload tool for DIT and film workflows. It runs on macOS and Windows, writes industry-standard MHL sidecars, and integrates with its own Connect and Postal products for team and cloud transfers. Cards and drives are the first-class citizens; phones are not.
Side by side.
What each one supports out of the box, on Mac, without add-ons.
| Axis | SyncShot | Hedge |
|---|---|---|
| Platform | macOS 13+ | macOS and Windows |
| Camera cards (SD, CFexpress, CFast) | Yes | Yes |
| Cameras over PTP/MTP | Yes | Yes |
| iPhone camera roll | Yes (AFC) | Not first-class |
| Android DCIM | Yes (ADB + MTP) | Not first-class |
| Local SSD / HDD destination | Yes | Yes |
| NAS over SMB destination | Yes | Yes |
| SFTP / FTP destination | Yes (base tier) | Add-on or external |
| S3 + S3-compatible destination | Yes (base tier) | Add-on (Postal) |
| Google Drive destination | Yes (base tier) | Add-on (Postal) |
| Multi-destination, one pass | Unlimited | Yes (tier-limited) |
| Verification | BLAKE3, single-pass | xxHash / MD5 / C4 |
| MHL sidecar output | No | Yes |
| Byte-accurate resume on disconnect | Yes | Yes |
| Saved workflows | Yes (Workflow Builder) | Yes (Triggers) |
| Base price | $49 / year | Subscription, separate add-ons |
Where SyncShot pulls ahead.
Three axes where SyncShot does something Hedge does not.
- Phones as first-class sources
- iPhone connects after the Trust prompt and exposes the camera roll over AFC. Android connects over ADB (USB debugging) or MTP and exposes DCIM directly. Selection, organize-by, and verification work identically to cards. Hedge's focus is cards and drives — phones aren't a first-class source.
- Bring-your-own cloud and network destinations
- S3 (AWS, Backblaze B2, Cloudflare R2, Wasabi, MinIO), Google Drive, SFTP, FTP, and any NAS over SMB are destinations at the Pro tier — no add-on, no separate product, no per-destination pricing. The credentials live in macOS Keychain; the bytes go directly from your Mac to your bucket or server.
- $49/year, one bundle
- Pro is $49/year. One Mac, unlimited jobs, unlimited workflows, every destination included. No cloud add-on tier, no team-transfer add-on, no per-seat bump until you outgrow a single Mac.
Where Hedge is stronger.
Hedge has years of muscle memory in production workflows that SyncShot doesn't pretend to replace.
- Windows parity
- Hedge ships on macOS and Windows with feature parity. SyncShot is macOS-only (13 Ventura and up). If half the team is on Windows or a DIT cart runs Windows, Hedge is the right answer.
- MHL output for DIT handoff
- Hedge writes ASC MHL (Media Hash List) sidecars — the de-facto handoff format between DIT, post, and archive. SyncShot does not emit MHL sidecars today; if the downstream pipeline requires MHL, Hedge stays in the chain.
- Connect and Postal for teams and cloud transfer
- Hedge's Connect (team transfer) and Postal (cloud delivery) are mature, separate products with their own workflows. SyncShot covers cloud destinations from the base app but doesn't (yet) offer a teammate-to-teammate handoff layer.
- DIT pedigree
- Hedge is the default in many production environments because it has been there for years. If a script supervisor, post house, or archive vendor expects Hedge reports, the path of least resistance is Hedge.
When to pick which.
Honest matchups by workflow.
- Stills photographer, Mac-only, iPhone in the bag
- SyncShot. The iPhone camera roll, the CFexpress card from the mirrorless body, and the working SSD all run on one job — verified, fanned out to NAS and S3, and saved as a one-click workflow.
- Wedding / event shooter offloading on-site
- SyncShot. Multi-destination on the same pass means the laptop SSD and the field NAS fill in parallel, not sequentially; BLAKE3 catches a bad SD card before it ships. Saved workflows make the second card go faster than the first.
- DIT on a film set
- Hedge. MHL handoff, Windows parity for the cart, and years of pipeline integration with Codex/Silverstack/etc. SyncShot isn't aimed at this seat.
- Post house ingesting drives from multiple shoots
- Hedge if MHL is required by archive. SyncShot if the team is Mac-only and the destinations are cloud / NAS / SFTP — the bring-your-own-destination model is simpler and the price is meaningfully lower.
- Cross-platform team (Mac + Windows)
- Hedge. SyncShot has no Windows client and no plans for one in v1.
- Solo creator who wants 'plug card in, it works'
- SyncShot. The Welcome standby console shows the device on connect, the workflow runs end-to-end without configuration, and the price is $49/year.
Questions photographers ask.
The short answers, lifted from the FAQ.
- Is SyncShot a Hedge alternative on Mac?
- Yes. SyncShot is a macOS app for photographers that automatically backs up photos and videos from cameras, cards, and phones to multiple destinations you control — NAS, S3, Google Drive, SFTP, and FTP — verified end to end with BLAKE3 checksums. Hedge is the same category for cards and drives; SyncShot adds iPhone and Android as native sources, plus cloud and network destinations without an add-on.
- Does SyncShot verify copies the way Hedge does?
- SyncShot computes a BLAKE3 hash as the file streams through, in a single pass with no extra read of the source. Every destination is checked against that hash before the file is marked complete. Hedge supports multiple hash algorithms (including xxHash and MD5) and writes MHL sidecars for DIT workflows. The verification guarantee is the same shape; the algorithms differ and SyncShot does not (yet) emit ASC MHL sidecar files.
- Can SyncShot copy to multiple destinations at once?
- Yes — one read of the source, parallel writes to every destination on the job. Local SSD, NAS, SFTP, FTP, S3, and Google Drive can all run on the same job; local destinations finish first while cloud uploads continue in the background. Per-destination paths and organize-by layouts are configured independently.
- Does SyncShot work for iPhone and Android sources?
- Yes. iPhone connects over AFC after the Trust prompt; Android works over ADB (USB debugging) and MTP. Both expose the camera roll / DCIM tree directly in SyncShot with the same selection, organize-by, and verification flow as cards and drives. Hedge focuses on cards and drives — phones are not a first-class source.
- Does SyncShot run on Windows?
- No — SyncShot is macOS only (13 Ventura and up). If the team needs the same tool on Windows as well, Hedge is the better fit; it ships on both platforms with parity.
- How does pricing compare?
- SyncShot Pro is $49/year for one Mac with unlimited jobs, workflows, and destinations. Studio (per-seat, contact-sales) is in pre-launch. Hedge is sold as a paid subscription with cloud and team features priced as separate add-ons. SyncShot's bundle includes S3, Google Drive, SFTP, and FTP destinations at the base tier.
- Does SyncShot resume on disconnect like Hedge?
- Yes, and at the byte level. Pull the cable mid-copy, kill the laptop, lose Wi-Fi during an S3 upload — the next run picks up from the last completed chunk, not from zero. A 20 GB video that died at 18 GB resumes at 18 GB. Multipart S3 uploads resume at the part boundary; Drive uploads resume via the resumable-upload session URI.
Curious about how the verification actually works? See verified with BLAKE3. Ready to put a card in? Download SyncShot.