Linux commands alternatives

A list of alternative commands to standard linux commands

Posted July 19, 2022 by Adrian Wyssmann

Some tools from this list come from the project modern-unix. You may also check tools-list: Open source, experimental, and tiny tools roundup.

Url Description
bat A cat clone with syntax highlighting and Git integration
exa A modern replacement for ls
lsd The next gen file listing command. Backwards compatible with ls
delta A viewer for git and diff output
dust A more intuitive version of du written in rust
duf A better df alternative
lfs A better df alternative
broot A new way to see and navigate directory trees
fd A simple, fast and user-friendly alternative to find
ripgrep An extremely fast alternative to grep that respects your gitignore
ag A code searching tool similar to ack, but faster
fzf A general purpose command-line fuzzy finder
mcfly Fly through your shell history
choose A human-friendly and fast alternative to cut and (sometimes) awk
jq sed for JSON data
sd A sed alternative, a more intuitive find & replace CLI
hyperfine A command-line benchmarking tool
gping A ping alternative with a graph
zoxide A smarter cd command inspired by z.
dog A user-friendly command-line DNS client. dig on steroids
mvv Rename multiple files with editor
age A simple, modern and secure encryption tool (and Go library) with small explicit keys, no config options, and UNIX-style composability
await 32Kb, small memory footprint, single binary that run list of commands in parallel and waits for their termination

curl

Url Description
curlie The power of curl, the ease of use of httpie
procs A modern replacement for ps written in Rust
httpie A modern, user-friendly command-line HTTP client for the API era
xh A friendly and fast tool for sending HTTP requests. It reimplements as much as possible of HTTPie’s excellent design, with a focus on improved performance

top

Url Description
bashtop Linux/OSX/FreeBSD resource monitor
bottom Yet another cross-platform graphical process/system monitor
glances Glances an Eye on your system. A top/htop alternative for GNU/Linux, BSD, Mac OS and Windows operating systems
gtop System monitoring dashboard for terminal
wtf The personal information dashboard for your terminal

enhancements

Url Description
shellhub Get seamless remote access to any Linux device. Centralized SSH for the edge and cloud computing
tmate Instant Terminal Sharing
trash-cli Command line interface to the freedesktop.org trashcan
up Ultimate Plumber is a
tool for writing Linux pipes with instant live preview
visidata A terminal spreadsheet multitool for discovering and arranging data