CKAN vs Spacedrive

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeatureCKANSpacedrive
CategoryBackup & RecoveryFile Sync & Storage
LicenseAGPL-3.0AGPL-3.0
LanguagePythonRust
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM512 MB512 MB
Deploymentbare-metalbinary
GitHub stars★ 5,088★ 38,732
First released20262022
ReplacesGoogle Drive, Dropbox

Why pick each one

Choose CKAN if…

  • Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
  • Mature project with 5.1k GitHub stars
  • Written in Python
  • Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM
CKAN details

Choose Spacedrive if…

  • Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
  • Mature project with 38.7k GitHub stars
  • Written in Rust
  • Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM
Spacedrive details

Frequently asked questions

Is CKAN or Spacedrive better?

Neither is universally better. Spacedrive has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are CKAN and Spacedrive free and open-source?

Yes. CKAN is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Spacedrive under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run CKAN and Spacedrive with Docker?

CKAN: check the project docs for container support. Spacedrive: check the project docs for container support.

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