head to head · open source
rclone vs xplorer
rclone has 60,839 GitHub stars, 5,657 forks, 1,273 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. xplorer has 5,696 stars, 383 forks, 49 open issues and last shipped 5 months ago. rclone leads on adoption by 968% (60,839 vs 5,696 stars). rclone is written in Go under MIT; xplorer is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. rclone has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, xplorer 7%. 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 | xplorer | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 61K | ★ 5.7K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-06 | 2026-06-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.7K | ⑂ 383 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick rclone if
- You weight community size — 61K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick xplorer if
- You want the xplorer feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and xplorer fits your workflow better
About rclone
Website Documentation Download Contributing Changelog Installation Forum Rclone Rclone ("rsync for cloud storage") is a command line program to sync files and directories to and from different cloud storage providers. Storage providers 1Fichier :page facing up: Akamai Netstorage :page facing up: Alibaba Cloud (Aliyun) Object Storage System (OSS) :page facing up: Amazon S3 :page facing up: ArvanCloud Object Storage (AOS) :page facing up: Bizfly Cloud Simple Storage :page facing up: Backblaze B2 :page facing up: Box :page facing up: Ceph :page facing up: China Mobile Ecloud Elastic Object Storage (EOS) :page…
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About xplorer
Xplorer A modern, AI powered file manager built with Rust and React. Cross platform. AI integrated. Extensible. One app for all your files. Website Documentation Discussions Why Xplorer? Most file managers haven't changed in decades. Xplorer is a ground up rethink: a Tauri 2 desktop app with a Rust backend for speed and a React frontend for flexibility. It ships with AI chat, Git integration, an extension marketplace, and themeable UI out of the box. Note: This is the next branch a full rewrite using Tauri 2, React 18, and a new extension system. Not yet production ready, but actively developed. Feedback…
read the full xplorer overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rclone or xplorer more popular?
rclone has 60,839 GitHub stars and xplorer has 5,696. rclone has the larger community by that measure.
Are rclone and xplorer free?
Both are open source. rclone is licensed under MIT and xplorer under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rclone and xplorer?
rclone is written in Go and xplorer 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 xplorer?
Choose rclone if you want the larger community (60,839 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose xplorer if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.