head to head · open source
Spacedrive vs dufs
Spacedrive has 39,008 GitHub stars, 1,351 forks, 57 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. dufs has 10,759 stars, 589 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. Spacedrive leads on adoption by 263% (39,008 vs 10,759 stars). Spacedrive is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence; dufs is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Spacedrive has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, dufs 5%. Spacedrive was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (rust), 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
| Spacedrive | dufs | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 11K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-07-29 | 2026-06-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 589 |
| 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 dufs if
- You want the dufs feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and dufs 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 dufs
Dufs is a Rust command line file server, released under the Apache 2.0 licence and distributed as dufs , that serves static files, accepts uploads, supports search and access control, and speaks WebDAV from a single binary.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Spacedrive or dufs more popular?
Spacedrive has 39,008 GitHub stars and dufs has 10,759. Spacedrive has the larger community by that measure.
Are Spacedrive and dufs free?
Both are open source. Spacedrive has no licence declared in this registry, and dufs is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Spacedrive and dufs?
Spacedrive is written in Rust and dufs 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 dufs?
Choose Spacedrive if you want the larger community (39,008 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose dufs if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.