head to head · open source
rclone vs PasswordPusher
rclone has 59,961 GitHub stars, 5,440 forks, 1,273 open issues and last shipped yesterday. PasswordPusher has 3,202 stars, 460 forks, 105 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. rclone leads on adoption by 1,773% (59,961 vs 3,202 stars). rclone is written in Go under MIT; PasswordPusher is written in Ruby under Apache-2.0. rclone has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, PasswordPusher 14%. rclone was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (encryption), 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
| rclone | PasswordPusher | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 60K | ★ 3.2K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-09-26 | 2026-09-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 460 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick rclone if
- You weight community size — 60K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick PasswordPusher if
- You want the PasswordPusher feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and PasswordPusher fits your workflow better
About rclone
Rclone is an MIT licensed, Go based command line program that syncs files and directories to and from cloud storage providers, built for anyone who needs one tool for many backends instead of a separate client for every service.
read the full rclone overview →
About PasswordPusher
PasswordPusher is an Apache 2.0 licensed Ruby web application for sharing passwords, notes, files and URLs as self deleting links that expire after a set number of views or a set duration, with audit logs recording who viewed what, and when.
read the full PasswordPusher overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rclone or PasswordPusher more popular?
rclone has 59,961 GitHub stars and PasswordPusher has 3,202. rclone has the larger community by that measure.
Are rclone and PasswordPusher free?
Both are open source. rclone is licensed under MIT and PasswordPusher under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rclone and PasswordPusher?
rclone is written in Go and PasswordPusher in Ruby. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, rclone or PasswordPusher?
Choose rclone if you want the larger community (59,961 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose PasswordPusher if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.