altbox.dev — A catalog of 118 alternative power tools for the Linux/Unix/macOS command line
The standard Unix tools have lasted us for decades. Every programmer should know them, but there are plenty of
tools that add on to the standard tools. For example, grep works fine for finding text, but tools
like ack and ripgrep are designed for today's modern
programmer working with large trees of heterogeneous source code.
Find alternatives to cat, cd, curl, cut, df, diff, dig, du, find, ftp, git, grep, gzip, history, info, kill, locate, ls, man, nm, objdump, ping, ps, rm, scp, screen, sed, ssh, tail, tar, top, traceroute, tree, watch and wc.
Recently added/updated
| Tool | Description | Updated |
|---|---|---|
| dyff | Diff tool for YAML files that shows changes by their location in the document structure. | |
| hishtory | Shell history that stores context with each command and syncs across machines with end-to-end encryption. | |
| hunk | Review-first terminal diff viewer designed for inspecting agent-authored changesets. | |
| icdiff | Side-by-side colored diff with intra-line change highlighting. | |
| navi | Interactive cheatsheet tool that lets you browse and execute commands with prompted argument values. |
Related links
- I just discovered lazygit. What terminal programs can you not live without? ()
- After 22 years on Linux, I finally switched to more modern CLI tools ()
- 13 CLI Tools Every Developer Should Master in 2025 ()
- 10 CLI Tools That Made the Biggest Impact on Transforming My Terminal-Based Workflow ()
- My list of CLI gems ()
- Linux commands: Drop these old utilities for modern alternatives ()
- A list of new(ish) command line tools ()
- My Favorite CLI Tools ()
- An Illustrated Guide to Some Useful Command Line Tools ()
- CLI: improved ()
- One Thing Well: A weblog about simple, useful software
Feedback
If you've got comments or feedback, email Andy Lester at andy@petdance.com.
Additions and errata
If you have a favorite tool that isn't here, please email Andy or submit an issue on our GitHub page: https://github.com/petdance/altbox