head to head · open source
dua-cli vs squirreldisk
dua-cli has 6,439 GitHub stars, 181 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. squirreldisk has 2,249 stars, 110 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 27 days ago. dua-cli leads on adoption by 186% (6,439 vs 2,249 stars). dua-cli is written in Rust under MIT; squirreldisk is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0. dua-cli has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, squirreldisk 5%. dua-cli was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (disk-space, disk-space-analyzer, disk-usage, disk-usage-analyzer), 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 | squirreldisk | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 6.4K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-12 | 2026-10-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 181 | ⑂ 110 |
| 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 squirreldisk if
- You want the squirreldisk feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and squirreldisk 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 squirreldisk
SquirrelDisk See what's using your disk space, and clean it up safely. For macOS, Windows and Linux. Free. [!NOTE] SquirrelDisk 2 is here. After a few quiet years, SquirrelDisk is back, rebuilt from the ground up by its original author in native Rust: faster, better looking, and with many long standing bugs fixed on every platform. Completely free, and actively maintained here in this repository. Download All builds are on the releases page. SquirrelDisk updates itself when a new version comes out. macOS says the app can't be opened SquirrelDisk is distributed outside the App Store, so macOS asks for…
read the full squirreldisk overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is dua-cli or squirreldisk more popular?
dua-cli has 6,439 GitHub stars and squirreldisk has 2,249. dua-cli has the larger community by that measure.
Are dua-cli and squirreldisk free?
Both are open source. dua-cli is licensed under MIT and squirreldisk under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between dua-cli and squirreldisk?
dua-cli is written in Rust and squirreldisk 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 squirreldisk?
Choose dua-cli if you want the larger community (6,439 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose squirreldisk if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.