head to head · open source
LocalSend vs rclone
LocalSend has 97,192 GitHub stars, 5,520 forks, 1,113 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. rclone has 60,771 stars, 5,642 forks, 1,273 open issues and last shipped yesterday. LocalSend leads on adoption by 60% (97,192 vs 60,771 stars). LocalSend is written in Dart under Apache-2.0; rclone is written in Go under MIT. LocalSend has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, rclone 9%. rclone 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
| LocalSend | rclone | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 97K | ★ 61K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Dart | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.5K | ⑂ 5.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick LocalSend if
- You weight community size — 97K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Dart
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick rclone if
- You want the rclone feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and rclone fits your workflow better
About LocalSend
LocalSend [![CI status][ci badge]][ci workflow] [![Translations][translate badge]][translate link] [![Packaging status][packaging badge]][packaging link] [ci badge]: [ci workflow]: [translate badge]: [translate link]: [packaging badge]: [packaging link]: [Homepage][homepage] • [Discord][discord] • [GitHub][github] • [Codeberg][codeberg] English (Default) • 中文 [homepage]: [discord]: [github]: [codeberg]: LocalSend is a free, open source app that allows you to securely share files and messages with nearby devices over your local network without needing an internet connection. About Sponsors Screenshots Download…
read the full LocalSend overview →
About rclone
Website Documentation Download Contributing Changelog Installation Forum Rclone Rclone ("rsync for cloud storage") is a command line program to sync files and directories to and from different cloud storage providers. Storage providers 1Fichier :page facing up: Akamai Netstorage :page facing up: Alibaba Cloud (Aliyun) Object Storage System (OSS) :page facing up: Amazon S3 :page facing up: ArvanCloud Object Storage (AOS) :page facing up: Bizfly Cloud Simple Storage :page facing up: Backblaze B2 :page facing up: Box :page facing up: Ceph :page facing up: China Mobile Ecloud Elastic Object Storage (EOS) :page…
read the full rclone overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is LocalSend or rclone more popular?
LocalSend has 97,192 GitHub stars and rclone has 60,771. LocalSend has the larger community by that measure.
Are LocalSend and rclone free?
Both are open source. LocalSend is licensed under Apache-2.0 and rclone under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between LocalSend and rclone?
LocalSend is written in Dart and rclone 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, LocalSend or rclone?
Choose LocalSend if you want the larger community (97,192 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose rclone if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.