head to head · open source
BleachBit vs gdu
BleachBit has 7,349 GitHub stars, 486 forks, 313 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gdu has 6,173 stars, 251 forks, 54 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. BleachBit leads on adoption by 19% (7,349 vs 6,173 stars). BleachBit is written in Python under GPL-3.0; gdu is written in Go under MIT. BleachBit has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, gdu 4%. BleachBit was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| BleachBit | gdu | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 7.3K | ★ 6.2K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 486 | ⑂ 251 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick BleachBit if
- You weight community size — 7.3K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick gdu if
- You want the gdu feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and gdu fits your workflow better
About BleachBit
BleachBit BleachBit cleans files to free disk space and to maintain privacy. Running from source To run BleachBit without installation, first install the system dependencies, then build the translations and run it: Many Linux systems have the basic dependencies: you may skip installation, but in case of any issues, please check for missing dependencies. Then, review the preferences. Then, select some options, and click Preview. Review the files, toggle options accordingly, and click Delete. For information regarding the command line interface, run: Read more about running from source. Links BleachBit home page…
read the full BleachBit overview →
About gdu
go DiskUsage() Pretty fast disk usage analyzer written in Go. Gdu is intended primarily for SSD disks where it can fully utilize parallel processing. However HDDs work as well, but the performance gain is not so huge. Installation Head for the releases page and download the binary for your system. Using curl: curl L tar xz chmod +x gdu linux amd64 mv gdu linux amd64 /usr/bin/gdu See the installation page for other ways how to install Gdu to your system. Or you can use Gdu directly via Docker: docker run rm init interactive tty privileged volume /:/mnt/root ghcr.io/dundee/gdu /mnt/root Usage Examples gdu analyze…
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Frequently asked questions
Is BleachBit or gdu more popular?
BleachBit has 7,349 GitHub stars and gdu has 6,173. BleachBit has the larger community by that measure.
Are BleachBit and gdu free?
Both are open source. BleachBit is licensed under GPL-3.0 and gdu under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between BleachBit and gdu?
BleachBit is written in Python and gdu in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, BleachBit or gdu?
Choose BleachBit if you want the larger community (7,349 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose gdu if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.