head to head · open source
nnn vs parallel-disk-usage
nnn has 22,112 GitHub stars, 835 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. parallel-disk-usage has 741 stars, 26 forks, 21 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. nnn leads on adoption by 2,884% (22,112 vs 741 stars). nnn is written in C under BSD-2-Clause; parallel-disk-usage is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. nnn has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, parallel-disk-usage 4%. nnn was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (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.
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Side by side
| nnn | parallel-disk-usage | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 22K | ★ 741 |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-01 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 835 | ⑂ 26 |
| 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 parallel-disk-usage if
- You want the parallel-disk-usage feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and parallel-disk-usage fits your workflow better
About nnn
nnn Supercharge your productivity! [ Features ] $ $ [ Quickstart ] $ $ [ Plugins ] $ $ [ Wiki ] nnn ( n³ ) is a full featured terminal file manager. It's tiny ( 150 KiB), nearly 0 config and incredibly fast. It is designed to be unobtrusive with smart workflows to match the trains of thought. nnn can analyze disk usage, batch rename, launch apps and pick files. The plugin repository has tons of plugins to extend the capabilities further e.g. live previews, (un)mount disks, find & list, file/dir diff, upload files. A patch framework hosts sizable user submitted patches which are subjective in nature. Independent…
About parallel-disk-usage
Parallel Disk Usage (pdu) Highly parallelized, blazing fast directory tree analyzer. Description pdu is a CLI program that renders a graphical chart for disk usages of files and directories, it is an alternative to dust and dutree . Benchmark The benchmark was generated by a GitHub Workflow and uploaded to the release page. Programs pdu v0.20.0 dust v1.2.1 dua v2.30.1 ncdu gdu v5.31.0 du benchmark results (lower is better) (See more) Demo Features Very fast. Relative comparison of separate files. Extensible via the library crate or JSON interface. Unbiased regarding hardlinks: All hardlinks are treated as…
read the full parallel-disk-usage overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nnn or parallel-disk-usage more popular?
nnn has 22,112 GitHub stars and parallel-disk-usage has 741. nnn has the larger community by that measure.
Are nnn and parallel-disk-usage free?
Both are open source. nnn is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and parallel-disk-usage under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nnn and parallel-disk-usage?
nnn is written in C and parallel-disk-usage 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 parallel-disk-usage?
Choose nnn if you want the larger community (22,112 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose parallel-disk-usage if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.