FTP clients are often the unsung heroes of web development. Nobody gets too excited over them. They just do the job. But without them, well, you have a set of documents on your hard drive but no way of getting them to the server. There are a good number of FTP clients available for the Mac; Transmit and Fetch are synonymous with FTP on the Macintosh. Somewhere amongst these is a little app called Cyberduck, a cuddly FTP client with a funky name. Despite some annoyances and bugs, Cyberduck is a worthwhile product and you sure can’t beat the price. Mote that this review covers Cyberduck 2.4.6, the most recent stable version. Version 2.5 is currently in public beta; it is not covered by this review as it is an unfinished product. When version 2.5 is finished, we will post an updated review.

Generally speaking, Cyberduck is an easy, affordable way to upload files to a server. Much of the Deep Thought staff uses it as their FTP client of choice. So let’s start with the interface.

When you first launch Cyberduck, you encounter a largely empty Finder-like window with a drawer for bookmarked servers. To open a connection, click the “new connection” button and fill out the fields in the subsequent sheet. CyberDuck is a good example of the Apple Human Interface Guidelines, though perhaps not the most creative application of them.

Cyberduck is pretty straightforward to use. to upload items, either click the “upload” button to be presented with an Open dialog or simply drag the items to the window. Downloading is as easy as double-clicking files Alternately you can edit the file while it’s on the server by clicking the “Edit” button. This opens the file in your text editor of choice. I use SubEthaEdit 2.1. Navigating, adding directories, changing permissions, and such are a snap with Cyberduck. Each behaves more or less how one would expect from a Mac application.

Like other FTP clients, Cyberduck allows you to synchronize files on the server with those on your hard drive. The process is quick and easy. Unfortunately, you can not set Cyberduck to, say, synchronize with the server every hour. It’s a shame, too, because this is a useful feature which should be further developed. Cyberduck allows you to connect to other computers on your network using Bonjour (formerly Rendezvous), making Cyberduck an easy way to transfer and synchronize files between multiple Macs.

Cyberduck has a few rather annoying bugs. Most notable is the bug that somehow prevents me from being able to click the “stop” button in the transfer queue window, thereby making it impossible for me to stop an upload or download unless I close the window. This is a major irritant and it surprises me it still exists in Cyberduck at version 2.4.6. Also, there is an issue that may cause the file listing in Cyberduck to show up blank (refreshing the contents corrects this). Also, Cyberduck has the tendency to be a little gratuitous with the beachball on occasion.

Bottom line: is CyberDuck worth the download? If it was a $30 US product, my answer would be no, as there are better products out there at that price point which have more features and a somewhat more polished interface (like Transmit). At a $30 price point, Cyberduck would probably be rated as a 3 or 3.5 (out of 5). However Cyberduck is a very good free application. Since it is free, the score is a solid 4. Cyberduck will satisfy most people’s FTP needs quite well. Despite some bugs, Cyberduck is a solid addition to any web designer’s toolbox.