head to head · open source
yazi vs dufs
yazi has 42,278 GitHub stars, 1,022 forks, 65 open issues and last shipped yesterday. dufs has 10,756 stars, 589 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. yazi leads on adoption by 293% (42,278 vs 10,756 stars). yazi is written in Rust under MIT; dufs is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. yazi has attracted 2% as many forks as stars, dufs 5%. yazi was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (command-line), 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 | dufs | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 42K | ★ 11K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-06-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.0K | ⑂ 589 |
| 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 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 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 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 yazi or dufs more popular?
yazi has 42,278 GitHub stars and dufs has 10,756. yazi has the larger community by that measure.
Are yazi and dufs free?
Both are open source. yazi is licensed under MIT and dufs under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between yazi and dufs?
yazi 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, yazi or dufs?
Choose yazi if you want the larger community (42,278 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose dufs if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.