head to head · open source
nnn vs disky
nnn has 21,958 GitHub stars, 819 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped yesterday. disky has 952 stars, 39 forks, 11 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. nnn leads on adoption by 2,207% (21,958 vs 952 stars). nnn is written in C under BSD-2-Clause; disky is written in Kotlin under GPL-3.0. nnn has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, disky 4%. nnn was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (android, disk-usage, filesystem), 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.
← all 15422 open source comparisons
Side by side
| nnn | disky | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 22K | ★ 952 |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C | Kotlin |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-05-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 819 | ⑂ 39 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick nnn if
- You weight community size — 22K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick disky if
- You want the disky feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Kotlin
- You evaluated both and disky fits your workflow better
About nnn
nnn (n³) is a tiny, nearly zero config terminal file manager written in C and released under the BSD 2 Clause licence, built for developers, sysadmins, and command line users who want fast filesystem browsing, disk usage analysis, batch renaming, and file picking without leaving the shell.
About disky
disky is a free, GPL 3.0 licensed Android filesystem analyzer written in Kotlin that shows you the usage of your storage, built for any Android user who wants to find the biggest space thieves on their device.
read the full disky overview →
More in Productivity & Utilities
Related comparisons
More System Cleanup & Optimization projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the System Cleanup & Optimization field.
Frequently asked questions
Is nnn or disky more popular?
nnn has 21,958 GitHub stars and disky has 952. nnn has the larger community by that measure.
Are nnn and disky free?
Both are open source. nnn is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and disky under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nnn and disky?
nnn is written in C and disky in Kotlin. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, nnn or disky?
Choose nnn if you want the larger community (21,958 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose disky if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.