head to head · open source
Pearcleaner vs gdu
Pearcleaner has 14,669 GitHub stars, 377 forks, 84 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. gdu has 5,982 stars, 235 forks, 54 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Pearcleaner leads on adoption by 145% (14,669 vs 5,982 stars). Pearcleaner is written in Swift under a custom or non-standard licence; gdu is written in Go under MIT. Pearcleaner has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, gdu 4%. gdu 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 | gdu | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 6.0K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Swift | Go |
| Last push | 2026-06-22 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 377 | ⑂ 235 |
| 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 gdu if
- You want the gdu feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and gdu 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 gdu
gdu (go DiskUsage()) is a fast disk usage analyzer with a console interface written in Go, aimed at developers, system administrators and other terminal users who need to find out what is consuming space on a disk.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Pearcleaner or gdu more popular?
Pearcleaner has 14,669 GitHub stars and gdu has 5,982. Pearcleaner has the larger community by that measure.
Are Pearcleaner and gdu free?
Both are open source. Pearcleaner has no licence declared in this registry, and gdu is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Pearcleaner and gdu?
Pearcleaner is written in Swift and gdu in Go. 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 gdu?
Choose Pearcleaner if you want the larger community (14,669 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose gdu if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.