head to head · open source
Pearcleaner vs squirreldisk
Pearcleaner has 15,124 GitHub stars, 404 forks, 84 open issues and last shipped 5 months ago. squirreldisk has 2,249 stars, 110 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 27 days ago. Pearcleaner leads on adoption by 572% (15,124 vs 2,249 stars). Pearcleaner is written in Swift under a custom or non-standard licence; squirreldisk is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0. Pearcleaner has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, squirreldisk 5%. squirreldisk 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 | squirreldisk | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | Custom / other | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Swift | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-06-22 | 2026-10-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 404 | ⑂ 110 |
| 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 squirreldisk if
- You want the squirreldisk feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and squirreldisk fits your workflow better
About Pearcleaner
Pearcleaner Website The only legitimate website owned by me is Anything else offering Pearcleaner downloads is either a scam or not affiliated with me. More details HERE. Project Status: On Hold As you may have noticed, development on the app has basically stopped since end of 2025, so I wanted to provide some context. Between a new job, joining a friend who is building a SaaS company, and other life priorities, I no longer have the time needed to actively maintain or continue development on the project. Another major reason is that I previously relied on my work MacBook for development. After changing jobs, I…
read the full Pearcleaner overview →
About squirreldisk
SquirrelDisk See what's using your disk space, and clean it up safely. For macOS, Windows and Linux. Free. [!NOTE] SquirrelDisk 2 is here. After a few quiet years, SquirrelDisk is back, rebuilt from the ground up by its original author in native Rust: faster, better looking, and with many long standing bugs fixed on every platform. Completely free, and actively maintained here in this repository. Download All builds are on the releases page. SquirrelDisk updates itself when a new version comes out. macOS says the app can't be opened SquirrelDisk is distributed outside the App Store, so macOS asks for…
read the full squirreldisk overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Pearcleaner or squirreldisk more popular?
Pearcleaner has 15,124 GitHub stars and squirreldisk has 2,249. Pearcleaner has the larger community by that measure.
Are Pearcleaner and squirreldisk free?
Both are open source. Pearcleaner has no licence declared in this registry, and squirreldisk is licensed under AGPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Pearcleaner and squirreldisk?
Pearcleaner is written in Swift and squirreldisk in Rust. 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 squirreldisk?
Choose Pearcleaner if you want the larger community (15,124 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose squirreldisk if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.