# Rclone vs rsync

**Leader by vioscaleAI score:** Rclone

| Attribute | Rclone | rsync |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 61.3 (78% (high)) | 49.4 (47% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 100 | 27 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 43 | 267 |
| adoption.github_stars | 60,306 | 5,285 |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"A client-side command-line program that synchronizes files between your local machine and multiple cloud storage services. It supports a wide range of cloud providers and offers features like encryption, checksums, server-side transfers, and bidirectional synchronization. It is indexed under File Sync.","source":"https://rclone.org","question":"What is Rclone?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Rclone is open source, so it can be self-hosted and used at no licence cost. It is released under the MIT licence. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://rclone.org","question":"Is Rclone free to use?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Rclone supports Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://rclone.org","question":"What platforms does Rclone support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Rclone can be deployed self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://rclone.org","question":"Can Rclone be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 38 integrations for Rclone, including Amazon S3, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, Backblaze B2, Microsoft Azure Blob Storage, Azure Files Storage and Google Cloud Storage, plus 30 more. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://rclone.org","question":"What does Rclone integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Rclone is published under the MIT licence, a permissive licence that generally allows commercial use and modification. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.","source":"https://github.com/rclone/rclone","question":"Is Rclone open source?","confidence":0.95}]` | `[{"answer":"An open source command-line tool for efficiently synchronizing files and directories between systems. It uses the rsync algorithm to send only differences rather than complete copies, supporting multiple transport protocols (SSH, rsh, direct sockets) and can operate as both a client and server. It is indexed under File Sync.","source":"https://rsync.samba.org","question":"What is rsync?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"rsync is open source, so it can be self-hosted and used at no licence cost. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://rsync.samba.org","question":"Is rsync free to use?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"rsync supports Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://rsync.samba.org","question":"What platforms does rsync support?","confidence":0.6}]` |
| deployment.options | `{"self_hosted":true}` | `{"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | A command-line utility that synchronizes files and directories between multiple cloud storage providers and local storage. | Open-source command-line tool that synchronizes files between computers or locations using efficient delta transfer, available across Linux, BSD, macOS, and other Unix-like systems. |
| features.capabilities | `{"pricing_model":"free_open_source","deployment_model":"self_hosted","aws_s3_azure_blob_external_mounts":true,"self_hosted_linux_docker_deployment":true,"block_level_delta_sync_transfer_speed":true,"client_server_architecture_cloud_host":true,"end_to_end_encryption_keys_in_transit":true,"version_history_and_conflict_resolution":true}` | `{"pricing_model":"free_open_source","deployment_model":"self_hosted","block_level_delta_sync_transfer_speed":true}` |
| integrations.count | 43 | - |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Amazon S3"},{"name":"Google Drive"},{"name":"Microsoft OneDrive"},{"name":"Dropbox"},{"name":"Backblaze B2"},{"name":"Microsoft Azure Blob Storage"},{"name":"Azure Files Storage"},{"name":"Google Cloud Storage"},{"name":"Oracle Cloud Storage"},{"name":"Cloudflare R2"},{"name":"iCloud Drive"},{"name":"Nextcloud"},{"name":"ownCloud"},{"name":"pCloud"},{"name":"Alibaba Cloud OSS"},{"name":"Huawei Cloud OBS"},{"name":"Tencent Cloud COS"},{"name":"OpenStack Swift"},{"name":"Rackspace Cloud Files"},{"name":"OVHcloud"},{"name":"rsync.net"},{"name":"Seagate Lyve Cloud"},{"name":"IONOS Cloud"},{"name":"Mail.ru Cloud"},{"name":"Yandex Disk"},{"name":"ArvanCloud AOS"},{"name":"Bizfly Cloud"},{"name":"China Mobile Ecloud"},{"name":"Dreamhost"},{"name":"OpenDrive"},{"name":"SugarSync"},{"name":"Synology C2"},{"name":"Qiniu Cloud"},{"name":"Rabata Cloud Storage"},{"name":"Servercore Object Storage"},{"name":"Wasabi"},{"name":"Hubic"},{"name":"Impossible Cloud"},{"name":"AWS S3","native":true},{"name":"Microsoft Azure Files Storage","native":true},{"name":"OneDrive","native":true},{"name":"Azure Blob Storage","native":true,"direction":"bidirectional"},{"name":"Azure Files","native":true,"direction":"bidirectional"},{"name":"OVHcloud Object Storage","native":true,"direction":"bidirectional"}]` | - |
| language.primary | Go | C |
| license.spdx | MIT | - |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"mac":true,"linux":true,"android":true,"windows":true}` | `{"cli":true,"mac":true,"linux":true,"android":true,"windows":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","summary":"Free and open source (MIT license)","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://rclone.org","retrievedAt":"2026-08-21T12:45:40.197Z"}` | `{"type":"open_source","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Open Source","description":"Freely available under GNU General Public License"}],"summary":"Free and open source (GNU GPL)","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://rsync.samba.org","retrievedAt":"2026-08-20T16:36:33.254Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | open_source | open_source |
| pricing.price_level | free | free |
| pricing.transparent | yes | yes |
| release.cadence_days | 18 | 30 |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/rclone/rclone/releases/tag/v1.75.2","date":"2026-10-09T11:03:19Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.75.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/rclone/rclone/releases/tag/v1.75.1","date":"2026-09-04T17:11:27Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.75.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/rclone/rclone/releases/tag/v1.75.0","date":"2026-07-31T17:10:19Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.75.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/rclone/rclone/releases/tag/v1.74.4","date":"2026-07-08T18:48:10Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.74.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/rclone/rclone/releases/tag/v1.74.3","date":"2026-06-05T16:29:04Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.74.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/rclone/rclone/releases/tag/v1.74.2","date":"2026-05-23T10:12:31Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.74.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/rclone/rclone/releases/tag/v1.74.1","date":"2026-05-08T16:11:14Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.74.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/rclone/rclone/releases/tag/v1.74.0","date":"2026-05-01T16:10:00Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.74.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/rclone/rclone/releases/tag/v1.73.5","date":"2026-04-19T12:15:18Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.73.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/rclone/rclone/releases/tag/v1.73.4","date":"2026-04-08T13:42:54Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.73.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/rclone/rclone/releases/tag/v1.73.3","date":"2026-03-23T23:00:41Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.73.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/rclone/rclone/releases/tag/v1.73.2","date":"2026-03-06T20:42:26Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.73.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/rclone/rclone/releases/tag/v1.73.1","date":"2026-02-17T18:27:21Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.73.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/rclone/rclone/releases/tag/v1.73.0","date":"2026-01-30T22:12:03Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.73.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/rclone/rclone/releases/tag/v1.72.1","date":"2025-12-10T14:55:44Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.72.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/rclone/rclone/releases/tag/v1.72.0","date":"2025-11-21T18:20:58Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.72.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/rclone/rclone/releases/tag/v1.71.2","date":"2025-10-20T15:25:52Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.71.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/rclone/rclone/releases/tag/v1.71.1","date":"2025-09-24T16:32:16Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.71.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/rclone/rclone/releases/tag/v1.71.0","date":"2025-08-22T16:41:23Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.71.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/rclone/rclone/releases/tag/v1.70.3","date":"2025-07-09T15:06:31Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.70.3"}]` | `[{"url":"https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/releases/tag/v3.5.1","date":"2026-09-21T04:10:18Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.5.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/releases/tag/v3.5.0","date":"2026-08-13T00:30:25Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.5.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/releases/tag/v3.4.4","date":"2026-06-08T04:59:28Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.4.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/releases/tag/v3.4.3","date":"2026-05-20T00:16:38Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.4.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/releases/tag/v3.4.2","date":"2026-04-28T04:50:25Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.4.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/releases/tag/v3.4.1","date":"2025-01-15T21:06:03Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.4.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/releases/tag/v3.4.0","date":"2025-01-14T19:39:27Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.4.0"}]` |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | yes |
| security.scorecard | 4.8 | - |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":29,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=github.com%2Frclone%2Frclone&per_page=100","last_12m":27,"max_severity":"CRITICAL"}` | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=homebrew&package_name=rsync&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` |

## Capabilities (File Sync)

| Capability | Rclone | rsync |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Capabilities** |  |  |
| Deployment model | Self hosted | Self hosted |
| Peer to peer p2p network routing | - | - |
| Client server architecture cloud host | ✓ | - |
| Block level delta sync transfer speed | ✓ | ✓ |
| Self hosted linux docker deployment | ✓ | - |
| Synology qnap nas hardware integration | - | - |
| Aws s3 azure blob external mounts | ✓ | - |
| Active directory ldap identity sync | - | - |
| Version history and conflict resolution | ✓ | - |
| End to end encryption keys in transit | ✓ | - |
| SOC2 type ii | - | - |
| ISO 27001 | - | - |
| Pricing model | Free open source | Free open source |

*Source: vioscaleAI. Generated 2026-10-16T19:14:48.718Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*