head to head · open source
yazi vs Spacedrive
yazi has 42,303 GitHub stars, 1,023 forks, 65 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Spacedrive has 39,008 stars, 1,351 forks, 57 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. yazi leads on adoption by 8% (42,303 vs 39,008 stars). yazi is written in Rust under MIT; Spacedrive is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence. yazi has attracted 2% as many forks as stars, Spacedrive 3%. yazi was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (cross-platform, file-manager), 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
| yazi | Spacedrive | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 42K | ★ 39K |
| License | MIT | Custom / other |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-07-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.0K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick yazi if
- You weight community size — 42K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Spacedrive if
- You want the Spacedrive feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and Spacedrive fits your workflow better
About yazi
Yazi is a terminal file manager written in Rust on non blocking async I/O, aimed at developers and command line users who want fast, customizable file browsing without leaving the terminal.
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is yazi or Spacedrive more popular?
yazi has 42,303 GitHub stars and Spacedrive has 39,008. yazi has the larger community by that measure.
Are yazi and Spacedrive free?
Both are open source. yazi is licensed under MIT, and Spacedrive has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between yazi and Spacedrive?
yazi is written in Rust and Spacedrive 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, yazi or Spacedrive?
Choose yazi if you want the larger community (42,303 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Spacedrive if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.