head to head · open source
rclone vs flea
rclone has 60,253 GitHub stars, 5,503 forks, 1,273 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. flea has 767 stars, 87 forks, 85 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rclone leads on adoption by 7,756% (60,253 vs 767 stars). rclone is written in Go under MIT; flea is written in Shell under MIT. rclone has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, flea 11%. flea 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 | flea | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 60K | ★ 767 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-10-09 | 2026-10-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.5K | ⑂ 87 |
| 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 flea if
- You want the flea feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and flea 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 flea
Flea is a fast, keyboard first GUI file manager for the Omarchy desktop on Linux, built with a Quickshell front end and a Rust backend for people who navigate and manage files from the keyboard.
More in Productivity & Utilities
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Frequently asked questions
Is rclone or flea more popular?
rclone has 60,253 GitHub stars and flea has 767. rclone has the larger community by that measure.
Are rclone and flea free?
Both are open source. rclone is licensed under MIT and flea under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rclone and flea?
rclone is written in Go and flea in Shell. 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 flea?
Choose rclone if you want the larger community (60,253 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose flea if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.