head to head · open source
rclone vs MaterialFiles
rclone has 59,878 GitHub stars, 5,418 forks, 1,273 open issues and last shipped yesterday. MaterialFiles has 9,022 stars, 738 forks, 611 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. rclone leads on adoption by 564% (59,878 vs 9,022 stars). rclone is written in Go under MIT; MaterialFiles is written in Kotlin under GPL-3.0. rclone has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, MaterialFiles 8%. 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 | MaterialFiles | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 60K | ★ 9.0K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Kotlin |
| Last push | 2026-09-21 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 738 |
| 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 MaterialFiles if
- You want the MaterialFiles feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Kotlin
- You evaluated both and MaterialFiles 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 MaterialFiles
Material Files is a free, open source Material Design file manager for Android 5.0 and later, aimed at Android users who want to browse, manage and modify files — including files that require root access — without handing full device access to a closed source app.
read the full MaterialFiles overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rclone or MaterialFiles more popular?
rclone has 59,878 GitHub stars and MaterialFiles has 9,022. rclone has the larger community by that measure.
Are rclone and MaterialFiles free?
Both are open source. rclone is licensed under MIT and MaterialFiles under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rclone and MaterialFiles?
rclone is written in Go and MaterialFiles in Kotlin. 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 MaterialFiles?
Choose rclone if you want the larger community (59,878 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose MaterialFiles if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.