head to head · open source
rclone vs Firefiles
rclone has 59,844 GitHub stars, 5,413 forks, 1,273 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Firefiles has 371 stars, 57 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped 11 months ago. rclone leads on adoption by 16,030% (59,844 vs 371 stars). rclone is written in Go under MIT; Firefiles is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. rclone has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Firefiles 15%. rclone was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (cloud-storage), 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.
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Side by side
| rclone | Firefiles | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 60K | ★ 371 |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2025-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 57 |
| 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 Firefiles if
- You want the Firefiles feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Firefiles 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 Firefiles
Firefiles is an open source, self hosted alternative to Dropbox: a TypeScript and Next.js web application that turns your own cloud storage buckets — such as AWS S3, Backblaze, or Firebase Cloud Storage — into a single browser based drive with a familiar file system interface, built for people who want Dropbox style file management while keeping their files in storage they already own.
read the full Firefiles overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rclone or Firefiles more popular?
rclone has 59,844 GitHub stars and Firefiles has 371. rclone has the larger community by that measure.
Are rclone and Firefiles free?
Both are open source. rclone is licensed under MIT and Firefiles under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rclone and Firefiles?
rclone is written in Go and Firefiles in TypeScript. 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 Firefiles?
Choose rclone if you want the larger community (59,844 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Firefiles if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.