head to head · open source
yazi vs fanbox
yazi has 42,696 GitHub stars, 1,040 forks, 65 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. fanbox has 1,021 stars, 148 forks, 5 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. yazi leads on adoption by 4,082% (42,696 vs 1,021 stars). yazi is written in Rust under MIT; fanbox is written in JavaScript under MIT. yazi has attracted 2% as many forks as stars, fanbox 14%. yazi 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, macos), 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 | fanbox | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 43K | ★ 1.0K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-05 | 2026-09-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.0K | ⑂ 148 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick yazi if
- You weight community size — 43K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick fanbox if
- You want the fanbox feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and fanbox 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 fanbox
FanBox is a local first macOS cockpit for running coding agents like Claude Code and Codex alongside your files, aimed at developers whose AI generated projects have scattered across their disk.
read the full fanbox overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is yazi or fanbox more popular?
yazi has 42,696 GitHub stars and fanbox has 1,021. yazi has the larger community by that measure.
Are yazi and fanbox free?
Both are open source. yazi is licensed under MIT and fanbox under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between yazi and fanbox?
yazi is written in Rust and fanbox in JavaScript. 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 fanbox?
Choose yazi if you want the larger community (42,696 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose fanbox if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.