head to head · open source
nnn vs taskbar-monitor
nnn has 21,996 GitHub stars, 820 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. taskbar-monitor has 539 stars, 42 forks, 62 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. nnn leads on adoption by 3,981% (21,996 vs 539 stars). nnn is written in C under BSD-2-Clause; taskbar-monitor is written in C# under GPL-3.0. nnn has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, taskbar-monitor 8%. 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 | taskbar-monitor | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 22K | ★ 539 |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C | C# |
| Last push | 2026-09-21 | 2026-03-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 820 | ⑂ 42 |
| 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 taskbar-monitor if
- You want the taskbar-monitor feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and taskbar-monitor 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 taskbar-monitor
taskbar monitor is a free, open source Windows DeskBand, written in C and licensed under GPL 3.0, that draws live CPU, memory, disk, and network charts directly on the Windows taskbar for people who want resource usage visible at all times without opening a separate monitoring window.
read the full taskbar-monitor overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nnn or taskbar-monitor more popular?
nnn has 21,996 GitHub stars and taskbar-monitor has 539. nnn has the larger community by that measure.
Are nnn and taskbar-monitor free?
Both are open source. nnn is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and taskbar-monitor under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nnn and taskbar-monitor?
nnn is written in C and taskbar-monitor in C#. 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 taskbar-monitor?
Choose nnn if you want the larger community (21,996 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose taskbar-monitor if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.