head to head · open source
dua-cli vs parallel-disk-usage
dua-cli has 6,289 GitHub stars, 169 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 10 days ago. parallel-disk-usage has 731 stars, 25 forks, 21 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. dua-cli leads on adoption by 760% (6,289 vs 731 stars). dua-cli is written in Rust under MIT; parallel-disk-usage is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. dua-cli has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, parallel-disk-usage 3%. parallel-disk-usage 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 | parallel-disk-usage | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 6.3K | ★ 731 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-12 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 169 | ⑂ 25 |
| 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 parallel-disk-usage if
- You want the parallel-disk-usage feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and parallel-disk-usage 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 parallel-disk-usage
parallel disk usage (pdu) is a highly parallelized directory tree analyzer written in Rust that renders a graphical chart of file and directory sizes directly in the terminal, and it is aimed at developers and system administrators who need to find out where disk space has gone without leaving the command line.
read the full parallel-disk-usage overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is dua-cli or parallel-disk-usage more popular?
dua-cli has 6,289 GitHub stars and parallel-disk-usage has 731. dua-cli has the larger community by that measure.
Are dua-cli and parallel-disk-usage free?
Both are open source. dua-cli is licensed under MIT and parallel-disk-usage under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between dua-cli and parallel-disk-usage?
dua-cli is written in Rust and parallel-disk-usage in Rust. 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 parallel-disk-usage?
Choose dua-cli if you want the larger community (6,289 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose parallel-disk-usage if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.