head to head · open source
Spacedrive vs filegator
Spacedrive has 39,516 GitHub stars, 1,381 forks, 57 open issues and last shipped yesterday. filegator has 3,089 stars, 457 forks, 222 open issues and last shipped 10 days ago. Spacedrive leads on adoption by 1,179% (39,516 vs 3,089 stars). Spacedrive is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; filegator is written in PHP under MIT. Spacedrive has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, filegator 15%. Spacedrive was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (file-manager, storage), 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 | filegator | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 3.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-14 | 2026-11-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 457 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Spacedrive if
- You weight community size — 40K 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 filegator if
- You want the filegator feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and filegator fits your workflow better
About Spacedrive
Spacedrive One file manager for all your devices and clouds. Powered by a Virtual Distributed File System, complete with apps for macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android v2.spacedrive.com • Discord • Getting Started What is Spacedrive? Spacedrive is a cross device data platform. Index files, emails, notes, and external sources. Search everything. Sync via P2P. Keep AI agents safe with built in screening. Content identity — every file gets a BLAKE3 content hash. Same file on two devices produces the same hash. Spacedrive tracks redundancy and deduplication across all your machines. Cross device — see all…
read the full Spacedrive overview →
About filegator
FileGator Powerful Multi User File Manager FileGator is a free, open source, self hosted web application for managing files and folders. You can manage files inside your local repository folder (on your server's hard drive) or connect to other storage adapters (see below). FileGator has multi user support so you can have admins and other users managing files with different access permissions, roles and home folders. All basic file operations are supported: copy, move, rename, edit, create, delete, preview, zip, unzip, download, upload. If allowed, users can download multiple files or folders at once. File upload…
read the full filegator overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Spacedrive or filegator more popular?
Spacedrive has 39,516 GitHub stars and filegator has 3,089. Spacedrive has the larger community by that measure.
Are Spacedrive and filegator free?
Both are open source. Spacedrive is licensed under Apache-2.0 and filegator under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Spacedrive and filegator?
Spacedrive is written in Rust and filegator in PHP. 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 filegator?
Choose Spacedrive if you want the larger community (39,516 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose filegator if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.