head to head · open source
rclone vs syncthing-macos
rclone has 59,878 GitHub stars, 5,418 forks, 1,273 open issues and last shipped yesterday. syncthing-macos has 3,933 stars, 202 forks, 45 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. rclone leads on adoption by 1,422% (59,878 vs 3,933 stars). rclone is written in Go under MIT; syncthing-macos is written in Objective-C under MIT. rclone has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, syncthing-macos 5%. 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 | syncthing-macos | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 60K | ★ 3.9K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Objective-C |
| Last push | 2026-09-21 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 202 |
| 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 syncthing-macos if
- You want the syncthing-macos feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Objective-C
- You evaluated both and syncthing-macos 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 syncthing-macos
Syncthing for macOS is the official frugal, native macOS tray application bundle for Syncthing, aimed at Mac users who want peer to peer file synchronisation to behave like a native application instead of a command line utility with a web browser interface.
read the full syncthing-macos overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rclone or syncthing-macos more popular?
rclone has 59,878 GitHub stars and syncthing-macos has 3,933. rclone has the larger community by that measure.
Are rclone and syncthing-macos free?
Both are open source. rclone is licensed under MIT and syncthing-macos under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rclone and syncthing-macos?
rclone is written in Go and syncthing-macos in Objective-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 syncthing-macos?
Choose rclone if you want the larger community (59,878 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose syncthing-macos if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.