Like most developers who do web stuff, I sometimes need to edit files on a remote server. It turns out that this is a pain in the patookus. Or, at least, it was.

After the thirty day trial, I gave in to the power of ExpanDrive. Those thirty days convinced me that $40 was well worth the price of admission. It’s nifty to be able to mount your remote filesystems via SSH as if they were just network disks.

And yes, before I spent my bucks, I carefully evaluated using emacs tramp-mode, remote emacs via terminal, CyberDuck, Transmit, MacFuse with SSHFS, and MacFusion. I even looked at improving my source control policies and using Capistrano (yuck!) or Fabric (too immature!)

ExpanDrive is based on MacFuse, but not SSHFS; this makes all the difference. Whatever caching magic they do makes ExpanDrive scream when working with lots of small files in nested directories. Perhaps the SSHFS folks will catch up sometime soon, but at the moment the distance between the two is vast enough to justify the cost.

And I can’t wait for ExpanDrive’s planned S3 disk feature. Hot!