AS2 vs SFTP vs HTTPS: The No‑Nonsense Guide for Risk‑Averse Manufacturers

When you manage EDI for a manufacturing business, all roads seem to lead back to one nagging decision: How should you securely exchange documents with your trading partners? Maybe your customers are sending you dense protocol charts, your IT staff is quietly dreading complex migrations, or you find yourself replaying that vendor pitch about “compliance.” You want predictable costs, no sleepless nights over failed ASNs, and absolutely zero surprise fees. But you also want to keep your systems as simple as possible.

What You’re Actually Picking: Proof, Control, and Cost

Strip away all the acronym soup for a moment. This decision comes down to three critical things for you:

• Proof: Can you prove a file was sent, received, and not tampered with?
• Control: Do you have clear control over access and data movement?
• Cost and Complexity: Does running this approach chew through time and budget, or will it actually make your life easier?

AS2, SFTP, HTTPS: What These Actually Mean to You

AS2: Your Compliance Buffer (and, Let’s Be Honest, Your Retailer’s Non-Negotiable Favorite)

If you ship to big-box stores or enterprise retailers, you might not even have a choice. AS2 was built to deliver business documents with cryptographic receipts called MDNs. In plain English: you get non-repudiable proof that your invoice, order, or ASN was received. You’ll use digital certificates instead of passwords. While this is great for audit trails and security, you will need to manage those certificates for every trading partner you connect to, keep up with expiring certs, and monitor MDN acknowledgments. Veterans know the pain. Certificate outages or missed rollovers? Not fun.

SFTP: The Reliable Workhorse When You Value Simplicity

SFTP (running over SSH) is as solid as you’d expect from decades of IT practice. Send, receive, pick-up, and drop-off—SFTP just works. It encrypts everything in transit, supports keys and passwords, and is easy to automate for batch processing. But here’s the catch: there’s no out-of-the-box, standardized “receipt” from your partner (like with AS2). You’ll get file-level logs, not cryptographically signed MDNs. For many manufacturing EDI flows, especially if you work with mid-market distributors, smaller retailers, or 3PLs, SFTP can be your goldilocks protocol—the right mix of easy, secure, and cost-effective.

HTTPS: The Foundation

HTTPS is what your browser uses, but it also underlies AS2 itself. Modern EDI APIs are built on HTTPS. On its own, it gives you a secure channel, but it won’t offer the same guarantees as AS2 for EDI—no standardized receipts, no digital signature workflows. If you want to automate EDI straight into your ERP or own portal via API, HTTPS can be a great option internally or for forward-looking tech partners.

What Actually Matters to You: Key Evaluation Points

1. Audit Trails & True Proof of Delivery

• If you’ve ever been questioned on whether you sent a shipment notice: Only AS2 gives you a standardized MDN, the gold standard for non-repudiation. SFTP logs file movement, but that’s it. HTTPS APIs can return a status, but it’s not standardized for audits.

2. Security & Compliance

• AS2: High security, built for compliance environments. Both message and payload are encrypted and signed with certificates. Required for many big-box and enterprise partners. Certificates must be actively managed to avoid outages.
• SFTP: Encryption in transit is strong (SSH-based). You can use passwords, keys, and even IP whitelisting. Good enough for almost every regulatory scenario except where AS2 is expressly mandated.
• HTTPS: Perfectly secure transit, but not EDI-specific. Great for APIs or web-based EDI tools.

3. Complexity & IT Overhead

• AS2: Be prepared for certificate rollovers, MDN tracking, retry logic, and per-partner configuration headaches. If you only have a few AS2 partners, manageable. If dozens? Expect distractions.
• SFTP: Easy server setup, straightforward onboarding for each partner. You control logins, access, and folders. Less break/fix, more plug-and-play.

4. Cost Predictability and Avoiding Fee Pile-Ups

• Setup charges, mailbox fees, “special AS2 connections”, and message tariffs can eat up your margin fast.
• Many veteran EDI managers will remember sudden fee increases or hidden per-document charges from the big VANs.
• BOLD VAN customers sidestep this completely with transparent trading partner pricing (see pricing details here).

Which Protocol Fits Which Manufacturing Scenario?

If Your Big Customers Demand AS2

• Don’t fight them. Use AS2 for those partners or work with a VAN like BOLD VAN that can provide an AS2 endpoint on your behalf. This keeps your processes in compliance, minimizes chargebacks, and gives you bulletproof proof of delivery for audits.
• If you want internal simplicity, let your VAN do the heavy lifting and just connect via SFTP or HTTPS on your side.

If You Work With a Mix of Distributors, 3PLs, and OEMs

• Most are happy as long as EDI batch files show up on time. SFTP is a perfect fit here—simple, secure, quick to onboard.
• AS2 only gets used where a customer absolutely requires it. Otherwise, keep it simple and focus your support time elsewhere.

If You’re Migrating Away from Gentran or a Legacy VAN

• Take inventory by partner. What protocols do they use today? Who’s high-risk for chargebacks if something breaks?
• Start migrations with SFTP for lower-volume, low-impact trading partners, then tackle AS2 connections with careful coordination (BOLD VAN supports phased migrations, zero downtime, and does the communication for you. See how onboarding works).

For IT Teams Who Dread Overhead

• If your inbox is already full, letting your VAN manage partner connections, AS2 endpoints, and day-to-day troubleshooting protects your focus and reduces risk. You can keep SFTP/HTTPS as your internal standard for integrations and let the VAN provide all the custom endpoints each partner needs.

Your Protocol Decision Impacts Cost

You’re judged by your total EDI spend, not just IT time. Watch these cost centers:

• Network and VAN fees: Are you being nickel-and-dimed for each mailbox, connection, or AS2 partner? Not with BOLD VAN. Our pricing saves customers up to 82% (see the real Spanx story).
• Internal labor: Each new AS2 partner means configuration, testing, cert management, and future troubleshooting. SFTP lets your IT team serve many partners with less time drain.
• Compliance charges: AS2 reduces uncertainty with proof if you do get audited. If you take this seriously, use AS2 for those partners who demand it and SFTP for everyone else.

How To Choose (and Justify) The Right Mix In Five Steps

• 1. List Your Trading Partners & What They Require:
  Create a simple list: partner, protocol (AS2/SFTP/FTP/Portal/API), required EDI docs, estimated volume, compliance risk.
• 2. Standardize Internally:
  Pick SFTP if you want low maintenance. Choose HTTPS/API for direct ERP integration. Run AS2 only internally if you have long-term in-house expertise.
• 3. Integrate with Your ERP Smartly:
  Is EDI handled in your ERP or do you want a VAN to map everything (and keep customizations out of your ERP)? For more guidance, read How to Achieve Seamless EDI-ERP Integration.
• 4. Move in Safe Waves:
  Migrate low-penalty flows first, then medium partners, and finish with your largest, riskiest trading partners. This avoids business disruption.
• 5. Lock In Monitoring and Archive Access:
  Make sure you’ve got visibility for 90 days online and 7 years archived (standard with BOLD VAN—see archive FAQ).

How BOLD VAN Removes the Headaches

• No mailbox or document fees, ever. You know the pain of message, mailbox, or "special partner" upcharges—none of that applies here.
• Support for AS2, SFTP, HTTPS, FTP, and API integrations. You get the flexibility to serve every trading partner without rebuilding your stack.
• Fast migration, real-time progress status, and no requirement to re-map your entire ecosystem. Most migrations complete in days, with zero downtime. See Torani’s experience.
• Trading partner pricing beats industry norms. You only pay for active, real business connections, not a pile of empty mailboxes.
• Global, multi-time-zone support with >99.998% uptime.

Final Thoughts: Make AS2 vs SFTP vs HTTPS a Non-Event, Not a Pain Point

If you take one thing away, let it be this: you don’t need to pick one protocol for everyone or let your team drown in endless AS2 setups. The risk-averse, cost-sensitive manufacturing IT and finance teams are choosing hybrid flows—SFTP for most, AS2 where the business demands it—with a VAN that handles the complexity and protects your bottom line. That’s the approach that’s saving money, improving audit readiness, and making migrations a breeze.

If you want to see how your current EDI setup stacks up, you can upload your current VAN bill for a real price comparison, or book a quick demo here. You’re also welcome to explore more manufacturing EDI insights on our blog, such as best practices for onboarding trading partners or how to stay compliant in retail EDI here.