head to head · open source
nnn vs dua-cli
nnn has 21,895 GitHub stars, 817 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. dua-cli has 6,277 stars, 170 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. nnn leads on adoption by 249% (21,895 vs 6,277 stars). nnn is written in C under BSD-2-Clause; dua-cli is written in Rust under MIT. nnn has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, dua-cli 3%. nnn 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
| nnn | dua-cli | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 22K | ★ 6.3K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | MIT |
| Written in | C | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-12 |
| Forks | ⑂ 817 | ⑂ 170 |
| 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 dua-cli if
- You want the dua-cli feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and dua-cli 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 dua-cli
dua cli is a terminal based, parallel disk usage analyzer written in Rust that reports how much space a directory consumes and optionally deletes unwanted data, built for developers, system administrators, and anyone cleaning up storage from a shell rather than a graphical desktop application.
read the full dua-cli overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nnn or dua-cli more popular?
nnn has 21,895 GitHub stars and dua-cli has 6,277. nnn has the larger community by that measure.
Are nnn and dua-cli free?
Both are open source. nnn is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and dua-cli under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nnn and dua-cli?
nnn is written in C and dua-cli 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, nnn or dua-cli?
Choose nnn if you want the larger community (21,895 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose dua-cli if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.