head to head · open source
rclone vs fanbox
rclone has 60,183 GitHub stars, 5,488 forks, 1,273 open issues and last shipped yesterday. fanbox has 1,021 stars, 148 forks, 5 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. rclone leads on adoption by 5,795% (60,183 vs 1,021 stars). rclone is written in Go under MIT; fanbox is written in JavaScript under MIT. rclone has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, fanbox 14%. 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 | fanbox | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 60K | ★ 1.0K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-08 | 2026-09-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.5K | ⑂ 148 |
| 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 fanbox if
- You want the fanbox feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and fanbox 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 fanbox
FanBox is a local first macOS cockpit for running coding agents like Claude Code and Codex alongside your files, aimed at developers whose AI generated projects have scattered across their disk.
read the full fanbox overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rclone or fanbox more popular?
rclone has 60,183 GitHub stars and fanbox has 1,021. rclone has the larger community by that measure.
Are rclone and fanbox free?
Both are open source. rclone is licensed under MIT and fanbox under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rclone and fanbox?
rclone is written in Go and fanbox in JavaScript. 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 fanbox?
Choose rclone if you want the larger community (60,183 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose fanbox if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.