head to head · open source
rclone vs PairDrop
rclone has 59,830 GitHub stars, 5,407 forks, 1,273 open issues and last shipped yesterday. PairDrop has 11,435 stars, 693 forks, 111 open issues and last shipped 5 months ago. rclone leads on adoption by 423% (59,830 vs 11,435 stars). rclone is written in Go under MIT; PairDrop is written in JavaScript under GPL-3.0. rclone has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, PairDrop 6%. 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 | PairDrop | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 60K | ★ 11K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-04-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 693 |
| 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 PairDrop if
- You want the PairDrop feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and PairDrop 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 PairDrop
PairDrop is open source JavaScript web app for file sharing. It lives in browser PWA ecosystem, using WebRTC, WebSockets, IndexedDB, Node.js. It is fork of Snapdrop. It is inspired by Apple AirDrop. It is listed as Productivity & Utilities / File Management & Sync. License is GPL 3.0. GitHub metadata lists 11390 stars and 690 forks.
read the full PairDrop overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rclone or PairDrop more popular?
rclone has 59,830 GitHub stars and PairDrop has 11,435. rclone has the larger community by that measure.
Are rclone and PairDrop free?
Both are open source. rclone is licensed under MIT and PairDrop under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rclone and PairDrop?
rclone is written in Go and PairDrop 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 PairDrop?
Choose rclone if you want the larger community (59,830 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose PairDrop if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.