head to head · open source
yazi vs Spacedrive
yazi has 43,192 GitHub stars, 1,055 forks, 65 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Spacedrive has 39,386 stars, 1,370 forks, 57 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. yazi leads on adoption by 10% (43,192 vs 39,386 stars). yazi is written in Rust under MIT; Spacedrive is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. 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 | ★ 43K | ★ 39K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.1K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| 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 Spacedrive if
- You want the Spacedrive 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 Spacedrive fits your workflow better
About yazi
Special thanks to: Yazi ⚡️ Blazing Fast Terminal File Manager Yazi (means "duck") is a terminal file manager written in Rust, based on non blocking async I/O. It aims to provide an efficient, user friendly, and customizable file management experience. 💡 A new article explaining its internal workings: Why is Yazi Fast? 🚀 Full Asynchronous Support : All I/O operations are asynchronous, CPU tasks are spread across multiple threads, making the most of available resources. 💪 Powerful Async Task Scheduling and Management : Provides real time progress updates, task cancellation, and internal task priority…
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is yazi or Spacedrive more popular?
yazi has 43,192 GitHub stars and Spacedrive has 39,386. yazi has the larger community by that measure.
Are yazi and Spacedrive free?
Both are open source. yazi is licensed under MIT and Spacedrive under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
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 (43,192 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Spacedrive if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.