head to head · open source
dua-cli vs parallel-disk-usage
dua-cli has 6,416 GitHub stars, 180 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. parallel-disk-usage has 741 stars, 26 forks, 21 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. dua-cli leads on adoption by 766% (6,416 vs 741 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 4%. dua-cli 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 | ★ 6.4K | ★ 741 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 180 | ⑂ 26 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick dua-cli if
- You weight community size — 6.4K 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 ( Disk Usage Analyzer ) is a tool to conveniently learn about the usage of disk space of a given directory. It's parallel by default and will max out your SSD, providing relevant information as fast as possible. Optionally delete superfluous data, and do so more quickly than rm . Run dua i to launch the interactive mode for exploring and deleting files. Installation Binary Release MacOS MacOS via MacPorts: MacOS via Homebrew Linux Linux requires the target to be specified explicitly to obtain the MUSL build. Windows via Scoop Windows via WinGet Pre built Binaries See the [releases section][releases] for…
read the full dua-cli overview →
About parallel-disk-usage
Parallel Disk Usage (pdu) Highly parallelized, blazing fast directory tree analyzer. Description pdu is a CLI program that renders a graphical chart for disk usages of files and directories, it is an alternative to dust and dutree . Benchmark The benchmark was generated by a GitHub Workflow and uploaded to the release page. Programs pdu v0.20.0 dust v1.2.1 dua v2.30.1 ncdu gdu v5.31.0 du benchmark results (lower is better) (See more) Demo Features Very fast. Relative comparison of separate files. Extensible via the library crate or JSON interface. Unbiased regarding hardlinks: All hardlinks are treated as…
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 6,416 GitHub stars and parallel-disk-usage has 741. 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 (6,416 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.