head to head · open source
rclone vs OpenCloud
rclone has 59,830 GitHub stars, 5,407 forks, 1,273 open issues and last shipped yesterday. OpenCloud has 6,021 stars, 242 forks, 449 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rclone leads on adoption by 894% (59,830 vs 6,021 stars). rclone is written in Go under MIT; OpenCloud is written in Go under Apache-2.0. rclone has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, OpenCloud 4%. OpenCloud 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 | OpenCloud | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 60K | ★ 6.0K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 242 |
| 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 OpenCloud if
- You want the OpenCloud feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and OpenCloud 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 OpenCloud
OpenCloud is an open source platform for file management, sharing and collaboration, positioned as a self hosted alternative built for digital sovereignty. The project lives in the Productivity & Utilities / File Management & Sync category of the open source ecosystem, and the repository in question is the main repository of the OpenCloud server: it contains the Go codebase for the backend services that the rest of the platform is built on. The server is released under the Apache 2.0 licence, and the wider project is backed by OpenCloud GmbH, with documentation and installation guidance published at opencloud.eu …
read the full OpenCloud overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rclone or OpenCloud more popular?
rclone has 59,830 GitHub stars and OpenCloud has 6,021. rclone has the larger community by that measure.
Are rclone and OpenCloud free?
Both are open source. rclone is licensed under MIT and OpenCloud under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rclone and OpenCloud?
rclone is written in Go and OpenCloud in Go. 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 OpenCloud?
Choose rclone if you want the larger community (59,830 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose OpenCloud if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.