head to head · open source
rclone vs rclone-manager
rclone has 59,926 GitHub stars, 5,424 forks, 1,273 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. rclone-manager has 1,132 stars, 54 forks, 25 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. rclone leads on adoption by 5,194% (59,926 vs 1,132 stars). rclone is written in Go under MIT; rclone-manager is written in TypeScript under GPL-3.0. rclone has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, rclone-manager 5%. rclone-manager 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 | rclone-manager | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 60K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-23 | 2026-09-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 54 |
| 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 rclone-manager if
- You want the rclone-manager feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and rclone-manager 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 rclone-manager
RClone Manager is a cross platform, GPL 3.0 licensed graphical application for managing Rclone remotes, built for people who want the capabilities of the Rclone command line tool without working exclusively in a terminal.
read the full rclone-manager overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rclone or rclone-manager more popular?
rclone has 59,926 GitHub stars and rclone-manager has 1,132. rclone has the larger community by that measure.
Are rclone and rclone-manager free?
Both are open source. rclone is licensed under MIT and rclone-manager under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rclone and rclone-manager?
rclone is written in Go and rclone-manager in TypeScript. 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 rclone-manager?
Choose rclone if you want the larger community (59,926 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose rclone-manager if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.