head to head · open source
rclone vs zrok
rclone has 59,844 GitHub stars, 5,413 forks, 1,273 open issues and last shipped yesterday. zrok has 4,711 stars, 224 forks, 125 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. rclone leads on adoption by 1,170% (59,844 vs 4,711 stars). rclone is written in Go under MIT; zrok is written in Go under Apache-2.0. rclone has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, zrok 5%. rclone was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (golang), 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 | zrok | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 60K | ★ 4.7K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-06-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 224 |
| 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 zrok if
- You want the zrok feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and zrok 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 zrok
zrok is an open source, Apache 2.0 licensed secure sharing tool written in Go that lets developers, operators, and self hosters expose web services, folders, and TCP or UDP resources over the internet or to specific users without firewall changes or port forwarding.
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Frequently asked questions
Is rclone or zrok more popular?
rclone has 59,844 GitHub stars and zrok has 4,711. rclone has the larger community by that measure.
Are rclone and zrok free?
Both are open source. rclone is licensed under MIT and zrok under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rclone and zrok?
rclone is written in Go and zrok in Go. 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 zrok?
Choose rclone if you want the larger community (59,844 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose zrok if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.