head to head · open source
dua-cli vs gdu
dua-cli has 6,277 GitHub stars, 170 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. gdu has 5,982 stars, 235 forks, 54 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. dua-cli leads on adoption by 5% (6,277 vs 5,982 stars). dua-cli is written in Rust under MIT; gdu is written in Go under MIT. dua-cli has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, gdu 4%. gdu was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (disk-usage), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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
| dua-cli | gdu | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 6.3K | ★ 6.0K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-12 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 170 | ⑂ 235 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick dua-cli if
- You weight community size — 6.3K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- 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 dua-cli
dua cli is a terminal based, parallel disk usage analyzer written in Rust that reports how much space a directory consumes and optionally deletes unwanted data, built for developers, system administrators, and anyone cleaning up storage from a shell rather than a graphical desktop application.
read the full dua-cli overview →
About gdu
gdu (go DiskUsage()) is a fast disk usage analyzer with a console interface written in Go, aimed at developers, system administrators and other terminal users who need to find out what is consuming space on a disk.
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Frequently asked questions
Is dua-cli or gdu more popular?
dua-cli has 6,277 GitHub stars and gdu has 5,982. dua-cli has the larger community by that measure.
Are dua-cli and gdu free?
Both are open source. dua-cli is licensed under MIT and gdu under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between dua-cli and gdu?
dua-cli is written in Rust 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, dua-cli or gdu?
Choose dua-cli if you want the larger community (6,277 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose gdu if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.