Best terminal tools (2026)

1. 1.ZellijMIT Rust terminal workspace with layouts and plugins

   Free / OSS · OSS/MIT · 35.8k GitHub stars

   VerdictMIT Rust terminal workspace. Free forever; layouts over tmux nostalgia.

   CatchRust terminal workspace/layouts/plugins — agent terminal lane; not tmux-clone marketing. Plugin ecosystem younger than tmux. Some SSH/remote habits still assume tmux/screen.

2. 2.ripgrepUnlicense/MIT recursive grep that respects .gitignore

   Free / OSS · Unlicense · 69.2k GitHub stars

   VerdictUnlicense/MIT grep replacement. Free forever; the search tool every terminal should alias.

   CatchVs grep (POSIX baseline) and ag/The Silver Searcher (predecessor): ripgrep is the modern default, not a POSIX drop-in. If your workflow depends on GNU grep flags exactly, `rg` is similar but not identical. No built-in fuzzy matching — pair with fzf for interactive filtering.

3. 3.batMIT/Apache-2.0 cat clone with syntax highlighting and Git integration

   Free / OSS · Apache-2.0 · 60.8k GitHub stars

   VerdictMIT/Apache-2.0 cat clone. Free forever; alias cat=bat and never look at monochrome output again.

   CatchVs cat (POSIX baseline): bat is heavier — startup and memory cost for highlighting. Not a POSIX cat drop-in for scripts expecting raw byte streams. Large files or binary content should still use plain cat. Theme configuration is optional but becomes a rabbit hole.

4. 4.fdMIT/Apache-2.0 ignore-aware parallel filename find

   Free / OSS · Apache-2.0 · 44.8k GitHub stars

   VerdictMIT/Apache-2.0 filename finder. Free forever; alias find habits here when you care about names and ignores.

   CatchVs ripgrep (content search) and fzf (fuzzy UI): fd finds *names*, not file contents, and it is not an interactive fuzzy picker. Not a POSIX find drop-in for every `-exec`/`-printf` edge case. Large trees still need sensible roots; it is not a content indexer.

5. 5.gumMIT scriptable prompts, filters, and spinners for shell UX

   Free / OSS · OSS/MIT · 24.5k GitHub stars

   VerdictMIT shell UX toolkit. Free forever; use when a script needs a real prompt, not another echo menu.

   CatchVs Starship (prompt *theme*): gum is scriptable interaction widgets, not your PS1 theme. Adds a Charm binary dependency to scripts that used to be pure POSIX. Non-interactive CI still needs flags/`--` paths that skip the TUI.

6. 6.glowMIT Markdown TUI pager from Charm

   Free / OSS · OSS/MIT · 27.7k GitHub stars

   VerdictMIT Markdown TUI. Free forever; open the README in-terminal instead of leaving the SSH session.

   CatchVs bat (generic syntax highlight cat): glow is Markdown-*first* presentation, not a drop-in for every source file. Heavier than bat for one-off file peeks. Stash/cloud-adjacent features are optional — local files are the core job.

7. 7.hyperfineMIT/Apache-2.0 statistical CLI benchmarker

   Free / OSS · Apache-2.0 · 29.1k GitHub stars

   VerdictMIT/Apache-2.0 CLI bench. Free forever; replace anecdotal `time` with numbers you can paste into a PR.

   CatchIt benchmarks *process wall time*, not flamegraphs or allocator profiles — pair with a profiler when the hot path is inside one long process. Shell overhead and cold caches still skew naive runs; read the warmup flags. Not a load-test / HTTP soak tool.

8. 8.deltaMIT syntax-aware git diff pager

   Free / OSS · OSS/MIT · 32.5k GitHub stars

   VerdictMIT git diff pager. Free forever; set it once in gitconfig and every diff gets readable.

   CatchVs bat (file viewer) and lazygit (TUI Git client): delta is the *diff pager*, not a file cat and not a staging UI. Config lives in gitconfig — wrong pager nesting with less can surprise. Huge binary diffs still want `--stat` or path filters first.

9. 9.YaziMIT async terminal file manager with image preview

   Free / OSS · OSS/MIT · 42.9k GitHub stars

   VerdictMIT terminal FM. Free forever; pick it when browsing files needs previews, not another fuzzy one-liner.

   CatchVs fzf (fuzzy finder) and zoxide (directory jumper): Yazi is a full *file manager*, not a one-shot picker or frecency cd. Preview depends on terminal image protocols and optional external tools. Learning the keymap is real onboarding versus plain ls/cd.

10. 10.watchexecApache-2.0 mature file→command watcher (entr-class)

    Free / OSS · Apache-2.0 · 7.2k GitHub stars

    VerdictApache-2.0 file watcher. Free forever; fill the entr-shaped hole when Tilt is overkill.

    CatchVs Tilt (K8s microservice *dev control plane*): watchexec is the entr-class local file watcher, not a cluster live-update UI. Not a build system and not a process supervisor for multi-service graphs. You still write the command and filter extensions yourself.

Also reviewed (14)

• btop — Apache-2.0 local host resource TUI (CPU/mem/disk/net/GPU)
• tokei — MIT/Apache-2.0 fast LOC and code stats by language
• dust — Apache-2.0 intuitive du tree — see what eats the disk
• navi — Apache-2.0 interactive cheatsheet runner for the shell
• jless — MIT interactive JSON pager — explore, do not filter
• xh — MIT HTTPie-compatible HTTP client as a Rust single binary
• procs — MIT modern ps — colors, tree, and JSON
• ast-grep — MIT structural AST search and rewrite (sg)
• Difftastic — MIT structural/AST diff that understands syntax
• Ghostty — MIT GPU-accelerated native terminal emulator
• cmux — Native macOS terminal for parallel coding agents
• tuios — MIT terminal window manager that shows which of your coding agents is working, waiting or done
• Uniterm — Apache-2.0 terminal for 30+ protocols with an AI agent
• sd — MIT intentional sed subset — search & displace