head to head · open source
Spacedrive vs cryfs
Spacedrive has 39,008 GitHub stars, 1,351 forks, 57 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. cryfs has 2,304 stars, 170 forks, 154 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Spacedrive leads on adoption by 1,593% (39,008 vs 2,304 stars). Spacedrive is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence; cryfs is written in Rust under LGPL-3.0. Spacedrive has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, cryfs 7%. cryfs was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (encryption), 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Spacedrive | cryfs | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | Custom / other | LGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-07-29 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 170 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Spacedrive if
- You weight community size — 39K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick cryfs if
- You want the cryfs feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the LGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and cryfs fits your workflow better
About Spacedrive
Spacedrive is an open source, cross platform file explorer built on a virtual distributed filesystem written in Rust. It unifies local and remote storage—including cloud services like Dropbox, Google Drive, and S3—into a single interface, enabling unified search, browsing, and syncing across devices without centralized servers.
read the full Spacedrive overview →
About cryfs
CryFS is a FUSE based cryptographic filesystem written in Rust that encrypts a vault directory so it can be stored safely in cloud services such as Dropbox, iCloud, or OneDrive, and it is intended for Linux users who want their file contents, file sizes, directory structure, and metadata hidden from the storage provider rather than encrypted one file at a time.
read the full cryfs overview →
More in Productivity & Utilities
Related comparisons
More File Management & Sync projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the File Management & Sync field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Spacedrive or cryfs more popular?
Spacedrive has 39,008 GitHub stars and cryfs has 2,304. Spacedrive has the larger community by that measure.
Are Spacedrive and cryfs free?
Both are open source. Spacedrive has no licence declared in this registry, and cryfs is licensed under LGPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Spacedrive and cryfs?
Spacedrive is written in Rust and cryfs 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, Spacedrive or cryfs?
Choose Spacedrive if you want the larger community (39,008 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose cryfs if its feature set, stack or LGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.