head to head · open source
Pearcleaner vs burrow
Pearcleaner has 14,670 GitHub stars, 377 forks, 84 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. burrow has 1,429 stars, 176 forks, 58 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Pearcleaner leads on adoption by 927% (14,670 vs 1,429 stars). Pearcleaner is written in Swift under a custom or non-standard licence; burrow is written in Swift under MIT. Pearcleaner has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, burrow 12%. burrow 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
| Pearcleaner | burrow | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Swift | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-06-22 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 377 | ⑂ 176 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Pearcleaner if
- You weight community size — 15K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick burrow if
- You want the burrow feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and burrow fits your workflow better
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 →
About burrow
Burrow is a free, open source (MIT), native macOS app that combines junk cleanup, app management, maintenance, disk analysis, and live system status in one window, with a built in MCP server so AI agents such as Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor can query and care for the same machine.
read the full burrow overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Pearcleaner or burrow more popular?
Pearcleaner has 14,670 GitHub stars and burrow has 1,429. Pearcleaner has the larger community by that measure.
Are Pearcleaner and burrow free?
Both are open source. Pearcleaner has no licence declared in this registry, and burrow is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Pearcleaner and burrow?
Pearcleaner is written in Swift and burrow 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, Pearcleaner or burrow?
Choose Pearcleaner if you want the larger community (14,670 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose burrow if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.