Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Choose – An alternative to cut and sometimes awk
A human-friendly and fast alternative to cut (and sometimes awk) - theryangeary/choose
Choose is a command-line tool designed as an alternative to the Unix cut and awk commands. It helps users extract and manipulate columns from text data more intuitively than traditional tools. The software targets… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Choose – An alternative to cut and sometimes awk launched in 2020; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
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Announcing `tuc`, a utility similar to coreutils `cut`, but more powerful. It allows to split text or bytes into parts and reassemble them in any order. I always found `cut` very practical for some tasks where `sed` or `awk` were overkill or awkward to use, but I also felt the need for more features. Some key differences from `cut`: - parts can be referenced by negative indexes - delimiters can be any number of characters long, or match a regex - can split text into lines, and reassemble them
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 2

A sharp cut(1) clone. Contribute to sstadick/hck development by creating an account on GitHub.
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 3AP
After having cycled through various CLI-based todo apps, I started to realise that I actually don’t need a tool at all for managing my todos. Most of the time, my use cases are quite simple, like viewing my todo items, checking them off, or adding a new one. Rather than having to memorise CLI commands for these interactions (which I’m not super good at), I figured that it’s easier for me to use my text editor directly, and have an editor plugin help me with the visual structure and some convenience functionality. So, kind-of similar to Emacs Org Mode, but without having to use Emacs. I…
2022 · its alternatives →
- 4

Command line picker to pipe through. Contribute to bernardorufino/pick development by creating an account on GitHub.
2015 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 5

Describes Prig, which is for Processing Records In Go. It's a text processing tool like AWK, but it uses Go as the scripting language.
2022 · benhoyt.com · its alternatives →
- 6

Allows you to "pause" a shell pipeline to interactively select a subset of lines to proceed with. I've always wanted a tool like this, as it effectively combines the best of shell pipes (easy to automate) and visual file managers (easy to make selections). Now that I have it I can't believe a tool like this is not already part of the standard set of shell utilities. There are so many situations where it is useful. Tested on Linux but should also work on MacOS. Also: please help me come up with a better name!
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 7AE
Hi, I recently published my ebook on GNU awk one-liners [1]. It starts from the basics of awk syntax and then discusses one-liner examples. There's a chapter on regular expressions as well. The github repo has the details on how to get the PDF version, all the example files and code snippets used in the book, sample chapters as well the markdown source used to generate the PDF. I made all my ebooks [2] free last month amidst the pandemic fears. These include GNU grep & ripgrep, GNU sed and three books on regular expressions (Python, Ruby, JavaScript). I'd appreciate your feedback and hope…
2020 · its alternatives →
- 8

node-based editor for exploring, analyzing and transforming data without code
2021 · datablocks.pro · its alternatives →
- 9

A simple, fast and user-friendly alternative to 'find' - sharkdp/fd
2017 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 10

The workflow enhancing Finder extension for Mac
2018 · fiplab.com · its alternatives →
- 11
SelectStar▲196Automated data catalog and discovery for modern data teams
2021 · selectstar.com · its alternatives →
- 12

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Simple SQL-like syntax on top of Perl text processing. - andrewbihl/bsed
2019 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 14

Hey HN! I'm excited to share f2, a command-line tool I built for fast and flexible bulk renaming of files. It's cross-platform (Linux, macOS, Windows), executes a dry-run by default, supports undo, and provides incredible flexibility in file renaming with several built-in variables and Exiftool integration. If you've ever struggled with renaming large batches of files or wished for more control and speed when managing file names, this might be just what you need. I hope you find it useful!
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 15

Hello HN community, I'm excited to share a new command-line tool I developed called purl, inspired by the simplicity of Perl one-liners for efficient text processing. Purl features include Perl-like regex that simplifies text manipulation, it's cross-platform so works equally well on macOS, Linux, etc., and it's quick and easy to install. The tool also supports simple commands such as -replace, -filter, and -exclude, and offers optional color output to enhance readability. Purl is a practical alternative to traditional tools like sed and grep, designed to address some of their common…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 16AI
2021 · n8ta.com · its alternatives →
- 17

:panda_face: Bringing the python data stack to the shell prompt - robdmc/pandashells
2015 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 18

Free browser-based SQL editor powered by DuckDB. Query and visualize CSV, JSON, Parquet and Arrow files locally or from remote URLs. No installation required.
2024 · sql-workbench.com · its alternatives →
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Flexible command line tool to create graphs from CSV data - mcastorina/graph-cli
2018 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 21

Daily notes command line tool. Contribute to tomlockwood/dn development by creating an account on GitHub.
2019 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 22

Last month, I started learning a Python TUI framework called Textual. After working on a 4x4 board game, I made an interactive app to test your CLI text processing skills with 40 beginner to intermediate level exercises. The app is fairly basic in terms of features — only single input file, so no stdin data, multiple files, etc. Most of the exercises in this app is based on my Computing from the Command Line ebook (https://learnbyexample.github.io/cli-computing/preface.html). I hope to improve the TUI app to support all the 200+ exercises sometime next year.
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 23

I've built a tool called sol (like "soul") that helps you inspect and format complex shell one-liners. Features: - Choose which transformations you want (break on pipe, args, redirect, whatever) - "Peeks" into stringified commands (think xargs, parallel) and formats those, too - Auto-breaks at a given width (e.g., 80 characters) - Shows you non-standard aliases, functions, files, etc. that you might not have in your shell environment - Breaks up long jq lines with jqfmt because—let's be honest—they're getting out of hand As a security researcher and tool developer, I often encounter (or…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 24

WhatTheDuck is an in-browser sql tool to analyze csv files that uses duckdb-wasm under the hood. Please provide feedback/issues/pull requests.
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
Also compare
- Tuc – When cut doesn’t cut it alternatives
- Hck – a fast and flexible cut-like tool alternatives
- A plain-text file format for todos and check lists alternatives
- Pick – Cmd line tool to interactively pick items from stdin to stdout alternatives
- Prig – like AWK, but uses Go for “scripting” alternatives
- LineSelect, shell utility to interactively select lines in a pipeline alternatives
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →