head to head · open source
rclone vs xplr
rclone has 59,926 GitHub stars, 5,424 forks, 1,273 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. xplr has 4,828 stars, 96 forks, 12 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. rclone leads on adoption by 1,141% (59,926 vs 4,828 stars). rclone is written in Go under MIT; xplr is written in Rust under MIT. rclone has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, xplr 2%. 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 | xplr | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 60K | ★ 4.8K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-23 | 2026-09-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 96 |
| 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 xplr if
- You want the xplr feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and xplr 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 xplr
xplr is a hackable, minimal and fast terminal UI file explorer, written in Rust and released under the MIT licence, for command line users who want a scriptable, keyboard controlled visual layer over the filesystem utilities they already run.
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Frequently asked questions
Is rclone or xplr more popular?
rclone has 59,926 GitHub stars and xplr has 4,828. rclone has the larger community by that measure.
Are rclone and xplr free?
Both are open source. rclone is licensed under MIT and xplr under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rclone and xplr?
rclone is written in Go and xplr in Rust. 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 xplr?
Choose rclone if you want the larger community (59,926 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose xplr if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.