head to head · open source
rclone vs hfs
rclone has 59,899 GitHub stars, 5,420 forks, 1,273 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hfs has 3,915 stars, 371 forks, 17 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rclone leads on adoption by 1,430% (59,899 vs 3,915 stars). rclone is written in Go under MIT; hfs is written in TypeScript under GPL-3.0. rclone has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, hfs 9%. hfs 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 | hfs | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 60K | ★ 3.9K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-22 | 2026-09-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 371 |
| 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 hfs if
- You want the hfs feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and hfs 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 hfs
HFS is a TypeScript web file server under the GPL 3.0 licence that turns a computer running Windows, Linux, macOS, FreeBSD or Android into a file sharing server whose folders and individual files are reachable from any browser.
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Frequently asked questions
Is rclone or hfs more popular?
rclone has 59,899 GitHub stars and hfs has 3,915. rclone has the larger community by that measure.
Are rclone and hfs free?
Both are open source. rclone is licensed under MIT and hfs under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rclone and hfs?
rclone is written in Go and hfs 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 hfs?
Choose rclone if you want the larger community (59,899 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose hfs if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.