Wormhole alternative.

Wormhole — commonly known as Magic Wormhole — is a tool for sending files and text directly from one computer to another. Both sides run the client and share a short code, and the data is transferred peer-to-peer with end-to-end encryption. It requires no account and no long-lived server storage.

Who uses it: Technical users, developers, and sysadmins who are comfortable with a command line and want to move files or text between their own devices or to a colleague without uploading to a server.

You run a command like `wormhole send <file>`, which prints a short code such as `7-guitarist-revenge`. The recipient runs `wormhole receive 7-guitarist-revenge` on their machine. The two clients exchange keys and stream the data directly (or relayed), encrypted end-to-end.

• End-to-end encrypted by design (using a PAKE key exchange).
• Peer-to-peer — data is streamed, not stored on a server.
• No account and no file-size limits imposed by a storage backend.
• Open source with a variety of clients (CLI and web variants).

• Both sides generally need to install and run a client.
• The command-line workflow is a barrier for non-technical users.
• Web-based variants may still route traffic through a relay, depending on the implementation.
• Not a &ldquo;paste a link&rdquo; service — it requires the recipient to run a command with the code.

Privacy model

Strong. Wormhole encrypts data end-to-end and streams it between peers, so there is no server-side copy of the file contents. The rendezvous server only brokers the connection and sees metadata, not the transferred data.

Signup requirements

No account required.

Expiration behavior

Transfers are live only while both sides are connected; codes are typically single-use. There is no long-term storage or retention.

File & text support

Files and text are both supported, transferred directly between peers.

Wormhole is the stronger privacy and engineering choice — end-to-end encryption and no server storage — but it requires a client on both ends. Khamli is a web tool: no installation, works from a browser, and hands you a 4-character code anyone can use. Khamli stores files temporarily server-side (S3) and expires them on a timer, so it trades Wormhole&apos;s peer-to-peer model for convenience.

Choose Khamli when you want a zero-install, browser-based handoff that works for non-technical recipients — or when both sides can&apos;t run a client.

Wormhole may be better when you need end-to-end encryption with no server storage, are comfortable with the command line, or are transferring between your own devices.