Put.io vs Bitport.io

Put.io and Bitport.io are both cloud services that allow users to retrieve and save torrents in the cloud without having to download any software, while also allowing streaming of the content without downloading it.

I’ve been using Put.io for just under a year. I’m on their cheapest plan of $99 per year for 100GB of storage. I realized that I don’t use anywhere near the 100GB I’m paying for, so I decided to look for another service like Put.io that offers the same services at a more affordable price with less storage. This is when I discovered Bitport.io

Bitport.io is currently still growing, but they seem to be rapidly adding features, making it look like a viable alternative to Put.io. After doing some research, I decided to pay $7 for a month of service from Bitport.io and give it a trail run for a month.

I’ve now been using Bitport.io as my Put.io replacement for a little under two weeks, and have not been impressed.

Before we begin, let me answer a question that I see a lot online…

Are Put.io/Bitport.io seedbox services?

No.

They are not a viable replacement for what a seedbox is intended to be used for, which is to seed torrents.

If you don’t have to seed/keep a seeding ratio and your main goal is to just obtain media/files through torrents, then these two services might be for you.

While both of these services do seed (amount of seeding varies on the plan/service), the services themselves don’t recommend it as a seedbox, as it seems to be a hit or miss.

From Put.io’s FAQ:

“I would not recommend using put.io as a seedbox just yet, because it might produce hit and runs. Sometimes we count 2.0 but the tracker counts less. We don’t know why.”

From Bitport.io’s FAQ:

“We must inform you, that we do not suggest to use Bitport as seedbox and therefore we do not support upload ratio checkers of some private trackers.”

The Comparison

Bitport.io
Where it excels:

  • Antivirus
    A lot of torrents can contain files that have some bad intentions for your computer. Bitport.io has a niffty Antivirus “check” that should protect you if you choose to download files to your computer by letting you know if the file is clean.
  • (More) Affordable
    Unlike Put.io’s service, which starts at $99 per year, Bitport.io has a plan that starts at $60 per year. Granted, it does come with less storage and a lot less features.

Where it falls short:
(hint, everywhere else)

  • Long loading time for magnet links and torrent files
    When adding a torrent to the download queue, it seems to take an awful long time for it to recognize the torrent and give the status “ready” (at least compared to Put.io).
  • No audio streaming
    Contrary to what they posted on their Facebook page back in 2014, there doesn’t seem to be an audio streaming feature through the web browser or local media player such as VLC (I tested on both .mp3 and .m4a). While this may not be a huge deal as most people probably won’t be streaming their torrented music through Bitport.io, it seems pretty standard feature they should support.
  • Can’t convert and stream at the same time
    If you asked Bitport.io to convert a video file to stream it, while its converting, it seems, you can’t stream an already converted video.
  • No RSS feed support
    If you’re looking for a service that automatically grabs the latest episode of your favourite TV show and downloads it to your account automatically via RSS, Bitport.io is not for you (Put.io on the other hand does).
  • No TLS FTP support
    Bitport.io recently (July 2015), adding FTP support to download your files, which is great. What’s not so great is that they don’t support TLS FTP, which means the FTP is insecure.
  • Miscellaneous
    1. Full screen video playback in Chrome has a scroll bar for no apparent reason, but doesn’t appear in other browsers like Firefox.

2. Support response time is pretty slow. It took them 4 days to reply to my support ticket vs the 2 day maximum that Put.io took to respond to me.

Put.io
Where it excels:

  • Community and 3rd Party Apps/Developers
    As Put.io is more popular than Bitport.io, there is a thriving community behind the service. Third-party developers have created great apps and integration thanks to Put.io’s public API.
  • Extensive Integration
    Like I mentioned above, Put.io has been integrated into a lot of existing devices and platofrms. Here are just a few examples:
    1. AppleTV
    2. Chromecast
    3. Amazon Fire TV
    4. Roku
    5. Boxee
    6. Plex Media Server
    7. XBMC
  • Upload own files
    Have some media files that aren’t available online, but want to access them anywhere? Put.io allows users to upload there own files to their cloud storage.
  • RSS feed support
    Follow your favourite TV shows by having Put.io grab them automotically after they air via RSS feeds.
  • Sharing within Put.io
    Have friends or famliy that use Put.io? You can share files with them easily via their usernames or emails.
  • Optimal Servers based on location
    To provide you the fastest streaming, Put.io has servers around the world to route traffic through. It even has a built in speedtest tool to determine which server provides you the best speeds.
  • Fetch/Download Media from other sites
    Have a song on SoundCloud you want to download? How about a YouTube video?
    Besides torrents, Put.io allows you to download media from other sites. Check out the full list of sites they support here.

Where it falls short:

  • Price (kinda)
    The only thing that’s worse about Put.io is that it’s starting price for plans is ~$40 more. They don’t offer anything less than 100GBs.

Download Test Results

I did my test downloads via both services respective FTP servers. The test file was Ubuntu 14.04.3 Desktop 64bit iso and I recorded each average download speeds for the file.
Keep in mind that Put.io’s server are located in the Netherlands and Bitport.io’s servers are located in the Czech Republic, so downloading, to say the U.S., is not going to be too blazing fast.

Here are the results I got.
Put.io: 2.3Mbps
Bitport.io: 204.8Kbps

Conclusion

Put.io is superior. The extra $40 per year is worth every penny. The features of Put.io outweigh the cost savings of Bitport.io. Bitport.io is growing rapidly, but it’s no where near the level that Put.io is on.

My advice, spend the extra money for Put.io. It’s worth it, trust me.