WinDirStatvs
CCleaner
CCleaner: If the goal is routine cleanup automation rather than understanding where the space went
WinDirStat
Windows disk usage analyser that shows where space went as a colour-coded treemap
As of 31 August 2026, WinDirStat is free to use. The open-source disk space visualiser that was effectively abandoned for over fifteen years and then revived. Softwr lists it under Utilities. WinDirStat is made by WinDirStat Project, available on Windows.
Overview
What WinDirStat does
WinDirStat scans a Windows drive or folder and presents the result three ways at once: a directory tree sorted by size, a list of file types, and a treemap where every file is a rectangle sized by the space it occupies and coloured by extension. Selecting a rectangle reveals the file in the tree, which is what makes it useful. A full drive stops being an abstraction and becomes a visible block of one colour. The history matters when choosing it. The version most people have installed is 1.1.2 from 2007, which is single-threaded, slow on large drives and does not understand modern Windows features. The project sat dormant for well over a decade before new maintainers resumed work and shipped 2.x releases with multithreaded scanning, current Windows support and much faster performance. If you evaluated WinDirStat years ago and dismissed it as slow, that judgement was correct at the time and is now out of date. Check which version you actually have. It is genuinely free software under the GPL with no commercial licence tier, which distinguishes it from the popular alternatives in this category that are free only for personal use. The trade-off against the fastest tools is method: WinDirStat walks the directory tree, so it works on any drive and any filesystem but takes minutes where a tool that reads the NTFS master file table directly takes seconds. It is also Windows only, with no macOS or Linux build.
What people use it for
- Finding what filled a Windows system drive when the usual suspects are not responsible
- Auditing a shared or network drive where files are spread across thousands of folders
- Environments where licence terms forbid personal-use-only freeware on company machines
- Explaining disk usage visually to someone who will not read a list of folder sizes
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about WinDirStat.
- It walks the directory tree rather than reading the NTFS master file table, so a full scan takes minutes where WizTree takes seconds on the same drive.
- The version most users have installed is the 2007 build, and because it was dormant for so long, search results and download mirrors still point at it.
- It is Windows only, so a mixed estate needs a different tool for macOS and Linux machines.
- There is no scheduling, reporting or export for fleet use, so it answers a question on one machine at a time rather than monitoring storage across an organisation.
- Hard links, junctions and deduplicated volumes can be counted in ways that make the totals disagree with what Windows reports, which causes confusion on servers.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of WinDirStat
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- WinDirStatvsGParted
GParted: When the answer is repartitioning or resizing rather than deleting files
- WinDirStatvs7-Zip
7-Zip: If the space is recoverable by archiving rather than deleting, on the same free licence terms
Pricing
What WinDirStat costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
WinDirStat
Free
- GPL licensed
- Commercial use permitted
- No paid edition or feature gating
- Community support via GitHub issues
Capabilities
Features
Treemap visualisation
Every file drawn as a rectangle sized by disk usage and coloured by file type
Three linked views
Directory tree, extension list and treemap stay synchronised as you select items
Multithreaded scanning
The 2.x releases scan in parallel, a large speed increase over the long-dormant 1.1.2 build
Cleanup actions
Delete, open in Explorer and user-defined commands run against selected files or folders
Any filesystem
Directory traversal means external drives, network shares and non-NTFS volumes all work
GPL licensed
Free for commercial use with no personal-use restriction and no paid edition
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Is WinDirStat still maintained?
Yes. It was dormant from around 2007 until new maintainers resumed development and released the 2.x line with multithreaded scanning and current Windows support.
Can I use it at work?
Yes. It is GPL licensed with no personal-use restriction, which is the practical advantage over free-for-personal-use alternatives in this category.
Why is it slower than WizTree?
Different method. WizTree reads the NTFS master file table directly; WinDirStat traverses directories, which is slower but works on any filesystem, including network shares.
Does it run on macOS or Linux?
No. Separate projects exist with similar treemap interfaces, but WinDirStat itself is Windows only.
Keep looking
Where to go from WinDirStat
- WinDirStat alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- WinDirStat pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- WinDirStat badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Utilities softwareThe full category
- Best Utilities softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Utilities software for
Compare WinDirStat with
- CCleaner
- GParted
- 7-Zip
- WizTree
- TreeSize
- CrystalDiskInfo
- AutoHotkey
- HWiNFO
- PeaZip
- Kap
- Calsense
- Shottr
- McDonalds
- Paste
- Rufus
- Starbucks
- Transmission
- Shottr
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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for WinDirStat, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on WinDirStat
WinDirStat alternatives
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WinDirStat pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare WinDirStat
Put it head to head with anything we hold
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