head to head · open source
nnn vs Pearcleaner
nnn has 21,895 GitHub stars, 817 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Pearcleaner has 14,669 stars, 377 forks, 84 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. nnn leads on adoption by 49% (21,895 vs 14,669 stars). nnn is written in C under BSD-2-Clause; Pearcleaner is written in Swift under a custom or non-standard licence. nnn has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, Pearcleaner 3%. nnn 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
| nnn | Pearcleaner | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 22K | ★ 15K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | Custom / other |
| Written in | C | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-06-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 817 | ⑂ 377 |
| 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 Pearcleaner if
- You want the Pearcleaner feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and Pearcleaner 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 Pearcleaner
Pearcleaner is a free, source available, fair code licensed macOS application written in Swift and listed under Productivity & Utilities / System Cleanup & Optimization. It is described as a Mac app cleaner inspired by Freemacsoft's AppCleaner and by Sun Knudsen's Privacy Guides post about an app cleaner script. The project's homepage is hosted at itsalin.com, and the repository states that this is the only legitimate website owned by the author.
read the full Pearcleaner overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nnn or Pearcleaner more popular?
nnn has 21,895 GitHub stars and Pearcleaner has 14,669. nnn has the larger community by that measure.
Are nnn and Pearcleaner free?
Both are open source. nnn is licensed under BSD-2-Clause, and Pearcleaner has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between nnn and Pearcleaner?
nnn is written in C and Pearcleaner in Swift. 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 Pearcleaner?
Choose nnn if you want the larger community (21,895 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose Pearcleaner if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.