head to head · open source
rclone vs ffsend
rclone has 59,833 GitHub stars, 5,408 forks, 1,273 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ffsend has 7,413 stars, 205 forks, 33 open issues and last shipped 10 months ago. rclone leads on adoption by 707% (59,833 vs 7,413 stars). rclone is written in Go under MIT; ffsend is written in Rust under GPL-3.0. rclone has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, ffsend 3%. rclone was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (encryption), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 15422 open source comparisons
Side by side
| rclone | ffsend | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 60K | ★ 7.4K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2025-11-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 205 |
| 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 ffsend if
- You want the ffsend feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and ffsend 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 ffsend
ffsend is a command line client for the Send file sharing service that uploads and downloads encrypted files and directories through a single terminal command, built for developers, system administrators and anyone who prefers a scriptable, privacy respecting alternative to a web upload form.
read the full ffsend overview →
More in Productivity & Utilities
Related comparisons
More File Management & Sync projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the File Management & Sync field.
Frequently asked questions
Is rclone or ffsend more popular?
rclone has 59,833 GitHub stars and ffsend has 7,413. rclone has the larger community by that measure.
Are rclone and ffsend free?
Both are open source. rclone is licensed under MIT and ffsend under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rclone and ffsend?
rclone is written in Go and ffsend 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, rclone or ffsend?
Choose rclone if you want the larger community (59,833 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose ffsend if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.