I tried 6 WebDAV clients in 2026, here's what stuck

WebDAV never quite went mainstream, but for self-hosters and people drowning in cloud storage silos, it remains the closest thing to "a network filesystem that just works." I tested 6 clients over 3 months against Nextcloud, Nextcloud's built-in DAV, a Synology NAS, and a personal Caddy + WebDAV instance. Here's my honest take.

The contenders

• Cyberduck (free, open source, Win/Mac)
• Mountain Duck ($40 lifetime, Win/Mac)
• RaiDrive (free / paid, Win)
• NetMount (¥30 / $5.50 lifetime, Win/Mac/Linux)
• rclone + FUSE mount (free, command line)
• WebDAVfs (free, Windows native)

I ran each for at least 2 weeks, doing the same daily tasks: open 30 files, copy 5 GB of mixed file sizes to the remote, edit a 50 MB video project, sync a 10 GB folder of photos.

Cyberduck

The classic. Open source, donations-funded.

Setup: 2 minutes. Pick "WebDAV", enter URL, username, password.

Pros:

• Free, open source, audited regularly (CVE friendly)
• Browser-like interface (explore remote, then download/upload)
• Strong crypto: SFTP, WebDAV over HTTPS, S3
• Stable; rarely crashes
• macOS-native feel

Cons:

• Not a system mount. You browse the remote in Cyberduck's window. Other apps can't see those files.
• Slow for many small files
• Big files (>2 GB) can fail over flaky connections

Best for: Occasional access. "I want to peek at files on my NAS, upload a few things." Not a daily working drive.

Mountain Duck

$40 lifetime. Cyberduck's commercial cousin that mounts WebDAV as a real system drive.

Setup: 5 minutes. Same as Cyberduck, plus you tell it to mount at login.

Pros:

• Real system drive (Finder on macOS, Explorer on Windows). Apps see WebDAV files as local.
• Smart caching: keeps recent files local, syncs changes back.
• Pleasant UI for managing connections.
• Reliable; I've used it for 4 years without major issues.

Cons:

• $40 up front
• macOS Catalina+ sometimes fights with system extensions (re-mount after OS updates)
• Resource use: it caches aggressively, can use 1-2 GB RAM with many mounts

Best for: Single-user, Mac or Windows, WebDAV as your primary working drive. The $40 pays off if you use it daily.

RaiDrive

Free tier + paid "Pro" tier. Windows-only.

Setup: 3 minutes. Pick cloud provider (Nextcloud, Google Drive, OneDrive), enter credentials.

Pros:

• Many backend options (WebDAV, Nextcloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.)
• Free tier covers most personal use
• Multi-account / multi-cloud in one UI
• Stable for daily use

Cons:

• Windows-only. (Mac/Linux users need other options.)
• Free tier shows ads
• Pro tier is $40/year (subscription, not lifetime) — NetMount beats this by a lot if you want a lifetime license

Best for: Windows users who want a free, stable, multi-cloud client. Don't pay for Pro.

NetMount (the one I kept)

¥30 / $5.50 lifetime. Cross-platform (Win/Mac/Linux). Newer than the others, less famous, but surprisingly polished.

Setup: 5 minutes. Same flow as Mountain Duck.

Pros:

• $5.50 lifetime. That's the headline. Same functionality as Mountain Duck for 1/8 the price.
• Cross-platform (Win + Mac + Linux). Mountain Duck is Win/Mac only.
• Clean UI. Less cluttered than RaiDrive.
• Multi-mount (one app, many WebDAV drives)
• Stable for me for 90 days, no crashes

Cons:

• Small user community. Documentation is sparse.
• Limited cloud backend options (WebDAV only — no Google Drive native)
• No SFTP / S3 — strictly WebDAV. If you need those, use Cyberduck or rclone.

Best for: Anyone who primarily wants WebDAV. Lifetime price is unbeatable.

rclone + FUSE mount

Free, command line. Cross-platform. Ubiquitous in self-hosting communities.

Setup: 20 minutes for first-time (auth, crypt setup if you want encrypted cache).

rclone config  # add a new remote, choose WebDAV, enter URL+user+pass
rclone mount mywebdav: /mnt/webdav --vfs-cache-mode full

Pros:

• Free, infinitely scriptable
• Encryption layer (crypt) for sensitive data
• Backend support is massive (WebDAV, S3, Google Drive, B2, SFTP, etc.)
• The Swiss Army knife of cloud sync

Cons:

• Command line only. Nothing for non-techies.
• macOS FUSE needs a kernel extension (macFUSE), which Catalina+ requires you to re-approve every reboot
• Read performance is not as fast as Mountain Duck/NetMount for small files
• Crypt cache can have integrity issues if you don't unmount cleanly

Best for: Linux servers, automation, scripts, anywhere shell is fine.

WebDAVfs (Windows native)

Free, from the Windows "map network drive" wizard.

Setup: 5 minutes.

Pros:

• Built into Windows. No extra install.
• Real network drive.

Cons:

• Path length limits (260 chars on older Windows)
• Crashes if connection drops. Requires reconnection.
• Read-only on some configurations
• Microsoft doesn't really maintain it; behavior varies wildly by Windows version

Best for: Quick access from a Windows machine. Not for daily work.

Performance numbers

Same hardware, same network, copying 5 GB of mixed files (50 photos + 5 videos + 50 docs):

• Mountain Duck (cached): 95 MB/s sustained, 1.2 GB peak RAM
• NetMount (cached): 90 MB/s sustained, 800 MB peak RAM
• RaiDrive Free: 60 MB/s sustained, 400 MB peak RAM
• rclone + FUSE (no cache): 25 MB/s sustained, 50 MB peak RAM
• Cyberduck (no mount): depends on usage, ~40 MB/s equivalent for batch downloads
• WebDAVfs (native): 30 MB/s sustained, but reconnects every 10 minutes

For bulk operations, Mountain Duck and NetMount win on speed + caching. rclone wins on versatility but loses on speed for many small files.

What I'd choose today

• macOS / Windows, daily WebDAV use: NetMount ($5.50 lifetime). Same as Mountain Duck, 1/8 the price.
• Need lots of backends (S3, B2, Google Drive, etc.): rclone.
• Want a free, open-source client for occasional use: Cyberduck.
• Windows only, multi-cloud with one UI: RaiDrive Free tier.
• $40 doesn't bother you, Mac/Windows, polished: Mountain Duck (the original).

I've been on NetMount for 90 days across Windows + macOS, no complaints. $5.50 lifetime was an easy call.

Recommendations by use case

Once-a-month file peeking: Cyberduck (free).

Daily WebDAV working drive: NetMount ($5.50 lifetime) or Mountain Duck ($40 lifetime).

Linux server automation: rclone.

Windows-only, multi-cloud: RaiDrive.

Quick grab from a Windows machine: WebDAVfs.

Common mistakes

• Don't map WebDAV as a network drive on a server with periodic reconnects. Every connection drop = Windows dialog asking for credentials. Use NetMount or Mountain Duck with cache mode.
• Don't edit big media files over WebDAVfs. The 5-minute reconnection cycle will lose your work. Mount with a real client.
• Don't use unencrypted WebDAV over HTTP. HTTPS is mandatory. If your NAS only supports HTTP, run it behind a Caddy reverse proxy with Let's Encrypt (free).
• Don't expect sub-millisecond response. WebDAV is filesystem-over-network. Network latency matters.

Total cost after 2 years

• Cyberduck: $0
• Mountain Duck: $40 (one-time)
• RaiDrive Free: $0
• RaiDrive Pro: $80 ($40/year × 2)
• NetMount: $5.50 (one-time)
• rclone: $0
• WebDAVfs: $0

If you're buying, NetMount is the obvious value choice. If you want maximum polish and don't mind paying, Mountain Duck is the original and works well.

Final thought

WebDAV won't replace local SSDs, but for accessing a NAS from a few machines, or for shared team folders over the internet, it's still the simplest and most universal option. Pick the client that fits your OS and budget, not the most famous one.

The 3 clients worth paying for (Mountain Duck, RaiDrive Pro, NetMount) all do about 80% of the same thing. Price + platform support = the deciding factor.