// the find
SnapDrop/snapdrop
A Progressive Web App for local file sharing
Snapdrop is a browser-based local file transfer tool using WebRTC — point your phone and laptop at the same WiFi network and drop files between them, no app install required. It's AirDrop for everyone. The project has been acquired by LimeWire and is now effectively archived, with the repo left as a reference for self-hosters.
The WebRTC peer-to-peer approach means files never touch the server once signaling is done — bandwidth is direct device-to-device. The stack is deliberately minimal: vanilla JS, no framework, one Node server file for signaling. Docker self-hosting is straightforward with the included compose setup. As a PWA it installs on both Android and iOS without an app store.
The project is abandoned — last real development stopped years ago and it's now a LimeWire redirect. The WebSocket signaling server is a single point of failure with no clustering or persistence support. File transfer reliability on flaky networks degrades silently because there's no chunked transfer retry logic in the client. Cross-network transfers (different subnets, VPNs) simply don't work without a TURN server, which is not included or documented.