Terminal/CLI

8 open source tools compared. Sorted by stars — scroll down for our analysis.

Tool	Stars	Velocity	Language	License	Score
ripgrep Fast regex search respecting gitignore	61.4k	—	Rust	The Unlicense	82
bat A cat clone with wings	57.8k	—	Rust	Apache License 2.0	82
Starship Minimal, blazing-fast cross-shell prompt	55.3k	—	Rust	ISC License	82
Nushell A new type of shell	38.8k	+107/wk	Rust	MIT License	79
Zoxide Smarter cd command for all major shells	34.9k	+320/wk	Rust	MIT License	77
Warp Agentic development environment terminal	26.2k	+81/wk	Rust	—	67
opencli Make Any Website & Tool Your CLI. A universal CLI Hub and AI-native runtime. Transform any website, Electron app, or local binary into a standardized command-line interface. Built for AI Agents to discover, learn, and execute tools seamlessly via a unified AGENT.md integration.	6.7k	+4941/wk	TypeScript	Apache License 2.0	80
sqlit A user-friendly TUI for SQL databases — supports SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, and more.	3.9k	+43/wk	Python	MIT License	68

Our Analysis

ripgrep61.4k★

ripgrep (rg) is grep but 10x faster and actually pleasant to use. It respects .gitignore by default, searches recursively, uses Rust's regex engine, and outputs with color and context. Once you use it, regular grep feels broken. GNU grep is the universal baseline — everywhere, but slow on large codebases. ag (The Silver Searcher) was the first fast grep alternative but ripgrep surpassed it. For commercial, nothing — ripgrep is the standard now. IDE search uses it under the hood (VS Code, Zed both use ripgrep). Install it. No qualifiers. If you touch a terminal, rg should be aliased and ready. It's faster than every alternative in virtually every benchmark, handles Unicode correctly, and the flag interface is intuitive. Unlicense means it's as free as software gets. The catch: there genuinely isn't a significant one. If pressed: it doesn't support multiline matching as elegantly as some alternatives, and the --pcre2 flag for lookaheads requires an optional dependency. That's about it. ripgrep is one of the rare tools that's just better.

bat57.8k★

bat is cat with syntax highlighting, line numbers, and git integration. It makes reading files in the terminal actually pleasant instead of squinting at monochrome text. Written in Rust, fast enough that you won't notice it's doing extra work. Plain cat is universal but featureless. less is the pager alternative for longer files. highlight and pygmentize add syntax coloring but with more friction. There's no commercial equivalent because this is a terminal utility, not a product. Replace cat with bat in your shell aliases and never look back. It auto-detects file types, shows git changes in the margin, and pipes cleanly to other tools. Apache 2.0 licensed. The catch: it's slightly slower than cat on huge files (hundreds of MB) because it's actually parsing the content. If you're piping binary data or giant logs, use cat. Also, the default theme might not match your terminal colors — you'll want to run bat --list-themes and pick one that works with your setup.

Starship55.3k★

Starship is a cross-shell prompt that makes your terminal actually useful. Shows git branch, Node version, Python env, Kubernetes context — whatever's relevant to your current directory — in a fast, pretty prompt. Written in Rust, so it never lags. Oh My Zsh is the popular alternative but it's zsh-only and can slow your shell startup. Powerlevel10k is the zsh power-prompt that's slightly faster for zsh users specifically. Pure is the minimal option. Starship works across bash, zsh, fish, PowerShell, and more. If you use multiple shells or want a prompt that just works without a 200-line config, install Starship. The TOML config is clean and the presets get you started in seconds. ISC licensed — use it however you want. The catch: it's a prompt, not a shell. It won't give you better completions, aliases, or shell functions. And the default config shows everything — you'll want to disable modules you don't use, or your prompt becomes a dashboard you didn't ask for.

Nushell38.8k★

Nushell rethinks what a shell should be. Every command returns structured data — tables, records, lists — not raw text. Pipe data between commands and filter, sort, and transform it like you're querying a database. It's what happens when you cross a shell with a spreadsheet. If you spend time parsing command output with grep, awk, and cut, Nushell makes that pain disappear. Bash is the default but its text-pipe model is showing its age. Zsh adds features on top. Fish is friendlier but still text-based. PowerShell does structured data but is verbose and Windows-first. Best for developers who do heavy data manipulation in the terminal — log analysis, CSV processing, JSON wrangling, system administration. The structured pipeline model is genuinely better for these tasks. The catch: your muscle memory is wrong. Bash scripts don't work. Many Unix conventions break. Nushell is a new language — the learning curve is real and steep. If you share scripts with teammates, they probably don't have Nushell. Best used as a personal shell, not a scripting standard.

Zoxide34.9k★

Zoxide is cd with a memory. Type "z projects" and it jumps to /Users/you/code/projects because it learned that's where you go. Powered by a frecency algorithm (frequency + recency), it gets smarter the more you use it. Two keystrokes instead of twenty. If you navigate directories in a terminal — and you do — zoxide saves cumulative hours. autojump and z.sh are the predecessors but slower and less maintained. fzf gives you fuzzy finding but requires more keystrokes. There's no commercial equivalent because this is pure terminal magic. Best for literally every developer who uses a terminal. Install it, alias cd to z, forget it exists until you realize you can't live without it. Works with bash, zsh, fish, PowerShell, and Nushell. The catch: there barely is one. The database needs to learn your patterns, so the first few days it won't know anything. If you work across many similarly-named directories, you might occasionally jump to the wrong one. That's it. This is one of those tools where the only catch is you'll be annoyed it's not on every machine you touch.

Warp26.2k★

Warp reimagines the terminal as an IDE. AI-powered command generation from natural language, block-based output you can select and share, built-in command history search, and collaborative features for pair debugging. It's the terminal for developers who think iTerm2 is showing its age. Ghostty is the fast, lightweight, GPU-accelerated alternative for purists who want speed without AI. iTerm2 is the free customization king. Alacritty is the minimal GPU-rendered option. Kitty balances features and performance. Use Warp if you want AI assistance in your terminal workflow — generating commands, explaining errors, debugging output. The modern UX is genuinely nice. Now available on macOS, Linux, and Windows. The catch: Warp requires an account to use. A terminal that phones home feels wrong to many developers, and the privacy implications matter. The "Other" license means it's not truly open source despite the GitHub repo. Ghostty is the pick for developers who want a modern terminal without the account requirement.

opencli6.7k★

OpenCLI turns any website, Electron app, or local binary into a CLI command your AI agent can call. Think of it as a universal adapter — 50+ sites (Reddit, HackerNews, Bilibili) already have adapters, and it auto-discovers APIs for new ones. Your agent runs "opencli list" and instantly knows every tool available. If you're building agent workflows that need to interact with the web — scraping, posting, automating — OpenCLI is a shortcut past writing custom integrations. It reuses your Chrome's logged-in state, so credentials never leave the browser. The dual-engine architecture (YAML declarative + TypeScript injection) covers both simple scraping and complex interactions. Alternatives: Puppeteer/Playwright give you more control but need custom code per site. Browser-use is AI-native but heavier. MCP servers are the Claude-native approach but require per-service setup. The catch: the AGENT.md integration is clever but couples you to a specific agent paradigm. Coverage outside the built-in 50 sites requires writing your own adapters. And scraping-based approaches are inherently fragile — one site redesign breaks your workflow.

sqlit3.9k★

sqlit is lazygit but for databases. A keyboard-driven TUI that connects to basically everything — Postgres, MySQL, SQLite, SQL Server, DuckDB, Snowflake, even Turso and Cloudflare D1. Vim-style editing for queries, syntax highlighting, and SSH tunneling built in. DBeaver is the heavyweight GUI alternative that does everything but slowly. TablePlus is the polished commercial option ($99). psql/mysql CLI clients are free but raw. lazysql is another Go-based TUI alternative with fewer database drivers. Use sqlit if you live in the terminal and need to quickly inspect or query databases without leaving your workflow. The connection manager and Docker container auto-detection are nice touches. MIT licensed, Python-based. The catch: it's very new (3.9K stars, early 2026 launch). Expect rough edges — missing features, undocumented behaviors, and the occasional crash. Python TUI apps can feel sluggish compared to Rust/Go alternatives on large result sets. And if you're already happy with TablePlus or DataGrip, the TUI workflow might be a downgrade, not an upgrade.