head to head · open source
syncthing vs rclone
syncthing has 89,310 GitHub stars, 5,518 forks, 388 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. rclone has 60,248 stars, 5,506 forks, 1,273 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. syncthing leads on adoption by 48% (89,310 vs 60,248 stars). syncthing is written in Go under MPL-2.0; rclone is written in Go under MIT. syncthing has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, rclone 9%. syncthing was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (go), 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
| syncthing | rclone | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 89K | ★ 60K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-10 | 2026-10-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.5K | ⑂ 5.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick syncthing if
- You weight community size — 89K stars and counting
- You want the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick rclone if
- You want the rclone feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and rclone fits your workflow better
About syncthing
Syncthing is an open source continuous file synchronization program written in Go that keeps files identical across two or more computers, aimed at individual users who want to sync their own data without a third party service.
read the full syncthing overview →
About rclone
Rclone is an MIT licensed, Go based command line program that syncs files and directories to and from cloud storage providers, built for anyone who needs one tool for many backends instead of a separate client for every service.
read the full rclone overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is syncthing or rclone more popular?
syncthing has 89,310 GitHub stars and rclone has 60,248. syncthing has the larger community by that measure.
Are syncthing and rclone free?
Both are open source. syncthing is licensed under MPL-2.0 and rclone under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between syncthing and rclone?
syncthing is written in Go and rclone in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, syncthing or rclone?
Choose syncthing if you want the larger community (89,310 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose rclone if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.