head to head · open source
Mole vs gdu
Mole has 73,641 GitHub stars, 2,611 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. gdu has 6,173 stars, 251 forks, 54 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. Mole leads on adoption by 1,093% (73,641 vs 6,173 stars). Mole is written in Shell under GPL-3.0; gdu is written in Go under MIT. Mole has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, gdu 4%. Mole 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
| Mole | gdu | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 74K | ★ 6.2K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Shell | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.6K | ⑂ 251 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Mole if
- You weight community size — 74K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- 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 Mole
Mole 🐹 Clean, uninstall, analyze, optimize, and monitor your Mac. Free open source CLI, plus a native Mac app. 💡 Prefer a native app? Mole for Mac brings cleanup, app management, maintenance, disk maps, and live status into one lightweight, VoiceOver ready app. One license covers 2 Macs with lifetime updates and a 14 day refund. The CLI stays free and open source. Features All in one toolkit : Combines CleanMyMac, AppCleaner, DaisyDisk, and iStat Menus in a single binary Deep cleaning : Removes caches, logs, leftovers, and orphaned app data to reclaim gigabytes of space Smart uninstaller : Removes apps plus…
About gdu
go DiskUsage() Pretty fast disk usage analyzer written in Go. Gdu is intended primarily for SSD disks where it can fully utilize parallel processing. However HDDs work as well, but the performance gain is not so huge. Installation Head for the releases page and download the binary for your system. Using curl: curl L tar xz chmod +x gdu linux amd64 mv gdu linux amd64 /usr/bin/gdu See the installation page for other ways how to install Gdu to your system. Or you can use Gdu directly via Docker: docker run rm init interactive tty privileged volume /:/mnt/root ghcr.io/dundee/gdu /mnt/root Usage Examples gdu analyze…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Mole or gdu more popular?
Mole has 73,641 GitHub stars and gdu has 6,173. Mole has the larger community by that measure.
Are Mole and gdu free?
Both are open source. Mole is licensed under GPL-3.0 and gdu under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Mole and gdu?
Mole is written in Shell 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, Mole or gdu?
Choose Mole if you want the larger community (73,641 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose gdu if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.