head to head · open source
rclone vs nimble-commander
rclone has 60,308 GitHub stars, 5,518 forks, 1,273 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nimble-commander has 746 stars, 57 forks, 34 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. rclone leads on adoption by 7,984% (60,308 vs 746 stars). rclone is written in Go under MIT; nimble-commander is written in C++ under GPL-3.0. rclone has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, nimble-commander 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 | nimble-commander | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 60K | ★ 746 |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-10-14 | 2026-10-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.5K | ⑂ 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 nimble-commander if
- You want the nimble-commander feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and nimble-commander 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 nimble-commander
Nimble Commander is a free, open source, dual pane file manager for macOS, aimed at Mac users who want keyboard driven navigation and the speed of classic file managers instead of the pointer first workflow of the Finder.
read the full nimble-commander overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rclone or nimble-commander more popular?
rclone has 60,308 GitHub stars and nimble-commander has 746. rclone has the larger community by that measure.
Are rclone and nimble-commander free?
Both are open source. rclone is licensed under MIT and nimble-commander under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rclone and nimble-commander?
rclone is written in Go and nimble-commander in C++. 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 nimble-commander?
Choose rclone if you want the larger community (60,308 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose nimble-commander if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.