Spacedrive vs Rclone
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?
Compare Spacedrive with
choose an app… Immich Syncthing LocalSend MinIO copyparty Puter PhotoPrism croc Nextcloud File Browser Restic SeaweedFS Cloudreve Ente Photos DeepFace Magic Wormhole Snapdrop gallery-dl Kubo (IPFS) Ceph transfer.sh ProjectSend alt: Vert.sh File converter Seafile Duplicati Filestash Stalwart Kopia Color Thief BorgBackup darktable SFTPGo PairDrop ShareDrop Dufs Thumbor qrcp Nextcloud All-in-One Velero FilePizza OctoPrint ownCloud LibrePhotos CryptPad miniserve FileBrowser Quantum bup Conduit File Sync Backrest Resilio Sync alternative Onionshare wger Photoview closet GoToSocial NoNo upspin imaginary h5ai Tiny File Manager Send Google Photos Takeout Helper OpenCloud WebDAV Server Go Duplicacy Unison Flying Carpet Papra CKAN SparkleShare elFinder Pingvin Share gocryptfs Kinto pgBackRest Syncthing Android Wrapper bitmagnet Nextcloud Desktop Sync slskd Updog Zipline FileGator PicoShare RcloneView gohttpserver Gokapi LubeLogger Chibisafe Mazanoke Syncthing-Fork Directory Lister Peergos Palmr Reitti CryFS Pydio Cells Mainsail OpenCloud Files Enclosed git-annex ProjectSend Zenko CloudServer bittorrent-tracker Apaxy PsiTransfer Plik Firefox SyncStorage Nextcloud companion go-filecoin none WebDAV-Aria Syncany Sync-in HortusFox FreeFileSync Garage Linx Slink Sharry rmfakecloud Morphos server Picsur rsync.net alternative Stash NoDuplicate HomeHub Uguu rustypaste XBackBone Zen scanservjs Gossa Threema Web FileRise Twake Drive Pomf Readur Poznote Webtor QuickShare ownCloud Web DumbDrop Wingfit Local Content Share Cryptomator CLI 015 IFM mikochi Open Web Calendar ThinkDashboard Davros goploader Lufi Files Sharing Filebin Tracim Kleeja Z-Push PrivyDrop Flare Nephele File Drop Cryptomator Hub hash-calendar ZeroNote Pydio Cells Sync Shifter Passky Client Pydio Cells Client elixire Dropgate Server IPFS Podcasting Digirecord Feber FileRun GoSƐ Jirafeau LibreOffice pacebin Resilio Sync ResourceSpace Samba slcl Surfer Yetishare
Compare Rclone with
choose an app… Syncthing LocalSend MinIO copyparty Puter croc Nextcloud File Browser Restic SeaweedFS Cloudreve Magic Wormhole Duplicati Kopia BorgBackup Velero bup Backrest Duplicacy CKAN pgBackRest bitmagnet Timeshift WAL-G Docker Volume Backup Sanoid rsnapshot Backup wrapper nono Backup-rsync-time-backup Barman mydumper Rustic Back In Time pgBackWeb SnapRAID Vorta Open Archiver Wayback btrbk mail-archiver Backup tool nono Plakar borgmatic Autorestic BackupPC MySQL backup XtraBackup Restic REST Server Gickup Stash by AppsCode Restic alt MiniBackup Restic Browser rdiff-backup Bareos ElkarBackup alt Snapper zrepl K8up Ganymede Bupstash UrBackup Kanister linux-timemachine ZFS Autobackup MySQL Backup Container Restic Cron ZnapZend Restic Mailer BorgWarehouse Deja Dup Burp Backblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone Knoxite ArchivesSpace ElkarBackup Collective Access - Providence Duplicacy alt MailpileBackup nono pgmoneta Duplicity Conserve Backup Backblaze alt nono Nxs-backup Amanda Tarsnap GUI Minarca Backup DAR Obnam2 Rdiffweb Restic Exporter Kup Minarca BackupNinja Time Machine Eonvelope Yuno Archive Custom Backup Sosse HashBackup
Feature Spacedrive Rclone Category File Sync & Storage Backup & Recovery License AGPL-3.0 MIT Language Rust Go Setup difficulty Medium Medium Min. RAM 512 MB 128 MB Deployment binary binary, docker GitHub stars ★ 38,732 ★ 58,995 First released 2022 2014 Replaces Google Drive, Dropbox Backblaze
Why pick each one
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 Choose Rclone if… Works with almost any cloud Extremely versatile Reliable Rclone details
Frequently asked questions Is Spacedrive or Rclone better? Neither is universally better. Rclone has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Spacedrive and Rclone free and open-source? Yes. Spacedrive is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Rclone under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Spacedrive and Rclone with Docker? Spacedrive: check the project docs for container support. Rclone: yes.