head to head · open source
rclone vs ranger
rclone has 59,844 GitHub stars, 5,413 forks, 1,273 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ranger has 17,405 stars, 942 forks, 896 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. rclone leads on adoption by 244% (59,844 vs 17,405 stars). rclone is written in Go under MIT; ranger is written in Python under GPL-3.0. rclone has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, ranger 5%. rclone 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
| rclone | ranger | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 60K | ★ 17K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 942 |
| 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 ranger if
- You want the ranger feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and ranger 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 ranger
Ranger is a console file manager with VI key bindings, written in Python and released under the GNU General Public License version 3, for terminal users who want to browse, preview, and manipulate files without leaving a Unix shell.
read the full ranger overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rclone or ranger more popular?
rclone has 59,844 GitHub stars and ranger has 17,405. rclone has the larger community by that measure.
Are rclone and ranger free?
Both are open source. rclone is licensed under MIT and ranger under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rclone and ranger?
rclone is written in Go and ranger in Python. 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 ranger?
Choose rclone if you want the larger community (59,844 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose ranger if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.