head to head · open source
rclone vs vifm
rclone has 60,027 GitHub stars, 5,461 forks, 1,273 open issues and last shipped yesterday. vifm has 3,279 stars, 146 forks, 146 open issues and last shipped 24 days ago. rclone leads on adoption by 1,731% (60,027 vs 3,279 stars). rclone is written in Go under MIT; vifm is written in C under GPL-2.0. rclone has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, vifm 4%. 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 | vifm | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 60K | ★ 3.3K |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-30 | 2026-09-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.5K | ⑂ 146 |
| 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 vifm if
- You want the vifm feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and vifm 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 vifm
Vifm is a curses based, Vim like file manager for the terminal that gives people who already use Vim complete keyboard control over their files without having to learn a new set of commands.
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Frequently asked questions
Is rclone or vifm more popular?
rclone has 60,027 GitHub stars and vifm has 3,279. rclone has the larger community by that measure.
Are rclone and vifm free?
Both are open source. rclone is licensed under MIT and vifm under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rclone and vifm?
rclone is written in Go and vifm in 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 vifm?
Choose rclone if you want the larger community (60,027 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose vifm if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.