head to head · open source
rclone vs nova
rclone has 60,170 GitHub stars, 5,487 forks, 1,273 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nova has 1,198 stars, 52 forks, 21 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rclone leads on adoption by 4,923% (60,170 vs 1,198 stars). rclone is written in Go under MIT; nova is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. rclone has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, nova 4%. nova 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 | nova | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 60K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-10-07 | 2026-10-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.5K | ⑂ 52 |
| 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 nova if
- You want the nova feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and nova 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 nova
Yazelix Nova is a Nix packaged terminal workspace for developers who want a batteries included development environment built from focused, first party components rather than assembling their own.
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Frequently asked questions
Is rclone or nova more popular?
rclone has 60,170 GitHub stars and nova has 1,198. rclone has the larger community by that measure.
Are rclone and nova free?
Both are open source. rclone is licensed under MIT and nova under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rclone and nova?
rclone is written in Go and nova in Rust. 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 nova?
Choose rclone if you want the larger community (60,170 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose nova if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.