Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to "curl … | sh" is bad.
This website explains why downloading and executing scripts directly from the internet using curl piped to shell is a security risk. It's aimed at developers and system administrators who need to understand the dangers… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Prices are shown for the 1 we have checked on their own sites, 1 of them free or with a free tier. "curl … | sh" is bad. launched in 2011; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
- 1
Don't run "curl | sh" again. Use "curl | shed" to verify scripts before running. - mplewis/shed
2015 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 2
My simple Swiss Army knife for http/https troubleshooting and profiling. - trimstray/htrace.sh
2019 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 3
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tap curl in your editor before it gets to sh it. Contribute to awalgarg/curl-tap-sh development by creating an account on GitHub.
2016 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 5
Run a shell script with bash, line-by-line, prompted on each command. Useful for running unknown scripts or debugging. Not a secure substitute for understanding a script beforehand. - LICENSE
2021 · gist.github.com · its alternatives →
- 6AU
websocketd is a single binary that wraps a command-line program and serves it over a WebSocket. Your program reads lines from stdin and writes lines to stdout.
2015 · websocketd.com · its alternatives →
- 7
Time to announce Noisy Sockets Shell, the first in a series of WireGuard powered applications I'm working on. Noisy Sockets Shell is an SSH replacement that uses WireGuard for authentication and encryption, and WebSockets for communication. CLI and browser client available.
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 8
Use cURL with cookies from Chrome. Contribute to fipso/ccurl.sh development by creating an account on GitHub.
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 9SP
2017 · seashells.io · its alternatives →
- 10
Lockdown your linux install. The simple zero config linux hardening script - dolegi/lockdown.sh
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 11
- 12
vet — A safer way to run remote scripts.
2025 · getvet.sh · its alternatives →
- 13
Command line tool to share your UNIX terminal and forward local TCP ports to people you trust. - gravitational/teleconsole
2016 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 14ET
2018 · curlmail.co · its alternatives →
- 15CS
The pattern of downloading and executing installation scripts without verifying them has bothered me for a while. I started messing around with a way to verify the checksum of scripts before I execute them. I've found it a really useful tool for installing things like Rust or Deno. It's written entirely as a shell script, and it's easy to read and understand what's happening. I hope it may be useful to someone else!
2022 · checksum.sh · its alternatives →
- 16KS
Hi HN! I built KeyPub.sh to solve the problem of user verification for CLI applications. It's essentially OAuth for the terminal, but using SSH keys that developers and users already have. - No installation needed - works with existing SSH setup - Privacy-focused: users control what email info is shared - Simple email verification process - Free public service - Perfect for CLI app developers who don't want to build user verification Try it with: `$ ssh keypub.sh about` Source code: https://github.com/skariel/keypub
2024 · keypub.sh · its alternatives →
- 17
Lightweight solution for using encrypted passwords in shell scripts - plyint/encpass.sh
2018 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 18
Grownetics DevOps Open Source
2019 · gitlab.com · its alternatives →
- 19
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I originally was just messing with pi-autoresearch. Gave it a sample task to build the most portable coding agent. First cut was 6 KB of shell. Great for one-shots, unusable interactively. I was shocked it actually worked. Started building up -- adding features — but with a self-imposed rule: no new dependencies, and sub 500 LOC. This thing had to be truly portable. Just sh, curl, awk. System primitives only. Which means I did some genuinely disgusting things in awk, including JSON parsing and the OpenAI Responses tool loop with reasoning items carried across turns. It's now ~400 lines. In…
Apr 2026 · pu.dev · its alternatives →
- 21
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Protect yourself from crypto scams and frauds
2018 · uppward.sentinelprotocol.io · its alternatives →
- 23
Hey HN, I built uncurl.dev to scratch my own itch: I kept getting curl commands in API docs, bug reports, or Slack messages and wanted a quick way to visualize, run, and debug them without firing up Postman or writing code to dissect them. It was also sometimes painful to create a test page specifically for non-tech users to consume an API. I originally vibe-coded this over a weekend just to make it easier for myself to debug API requests shared as curl commands. It slowly grew into something I found surprisingly useful in my workflow, so I decided to clean it up and share it. uncurl.dev…
2025 · uncurl.dev · its alternatives →
- 24
2016 · github.com · its alternatives →
Also compare
- Inspect questionable scripts before piping them to sh or bash alternatives
- My shell script for HTTP/HTTPS troubleshooting and profiling alternatives
- curl.io alternatives
- Tap curl in your editor before it gets to sh alternatives
- Run unknown shell script with a line-by-line confirmation prompt alternatives
- A Unixy approach to WebSockets 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 →