head to head · open source
rclone vs Meteor-Files
rclone has 59,942 GitHub stars, 5,430 forks, 1,273 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Meteor-Files has 1,116 stars, 165 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped 17 days ago. rclone leads on adoption by 5,271% (59,942 vs 1,116 stars). rclone is written in Go under MIT; Meteor-Files is written in JavaScript under BSD-3-Clause. rclone has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Meteor-Files 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 (dropbox), 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 | Meteor-Files | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 60K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Go | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-24 | 2026-09-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 165 |
| 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 Meteor-Files if
- You want the Meteor-Files feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and Meteor-Files 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 Meteor-Files
Meteor Files is an open source Meteor.js package, published as ostrio:files under the BSD 3 Clause licence, that adds file upload and file management to Meteor applications using the MongoDB Collection API, and it is aimed at JavaScript developers building on Meteor.js who need uploads without adopting a separate file handling API.
read the full Meteor-Files overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rclone or Meteor-Files more popular?
rclone has 59,942 GitHub stars and Meteor-Files has 1,116. rclone has the larger community by that measure.
Are rclone and Meteor-Files free?
Both are open source. rclone is licensed under MIT and Meteor-Files under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rclone and Meteor-Files?
rclone is written in Go and Meteor-Files in JavaScript. 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 Meteor-Files?
Choose rclone if you want the larger community (59,942 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Meteor-Files if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.