head to head · open source
rustfs vs ZeroFS
rustfs has 33,600 GitHub stars, 1,503 forks, 28 open issues and last shipped today. ZeroFS has 3,078 stars, 119 forks, 10 open issues and last shipped today. rustfs leads on adoption by 992% (33,600 vs 3,078 stars). rustfs is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; ZeroFS is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0. rustfs has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, ZeroFS 4%. ZeroFS was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (filesystem), 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
| rustfs | ZeroFS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 34K | ★ 3.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-22 | 2026-09-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 119 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick rustfs if
- You weight community size — 34K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick ZeroFS if
- You want the ZeroFS feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and ZeroFS fits your workflow better
About rustfs
RustFS is an open source, S3 compatible, high performance distributed object storage system written in Rust, aimed at teams running data lakes, AI, and big data workloads who want MinIO style operational simplicity without the restrictions of an AGPL licence.
read the full rustfs overview →
About ZeroFS
ZeroFS is a log structured filesystem written in Rust that presents S3 compatible buckets as POSIX filesystems over NFS and 9P, and as raw block devices over NBD, for teams that want object storage to behave like ordinary local storage.
read the full ZeroFS overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rustfs or ZeroFS more popular?
rustfs has 33,600 GitHub stars and ZeroFS has 3,078. rustfs has the larger community by that measure.
Are rustfs and ZeroFS free?
Both are open source. rustfs is licensed under Apache-2.0 and ZeroFS under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rustfs and ZeroFS?
rustfs is written in Rust and ZeroFS 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, rustfs or ZeroFS?
Choose rustfs if you want the larger community (33,600 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose ZeroFS if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.