ShareDrop vs Spacedrive

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted file sync & storage options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeatureShareDropSpacedrive
CategoryFile Sync & StorageFile Sync & Storage
LicenseMITAGPL-3.0
LanguageJavaScriptRust
Setup difficultyEasyMedium
Min. RAM64 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metalbinary
GitHub stars★ 10,747★ 38,732
First released20142022
ReplacesAirDrop, WeTransferGoogle Drive, Dropbox

Why pick each one

Choose ShareDrop if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Mature project with 10.7k GitHub stars
ShareDrop 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 ShareDrop or Spacedrive better?

Neither is universally better. Spacedrive has the larger community, while ShareDrop is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are ShareDrop and Spacedrive free and open-source?

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

Can I run ShareDrop and Spacedrive with Docker?

ShareDrop: yes. Spacedrive: check the project docs for container support.

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