Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

Grsh is a command-line shell written in Rust designed for FreeBSD and macOS. It prioritizes memory safety, speed, and minimal resource usage compared to alternative shells. The tool targets developers and system users… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.

1. 1
   Warp, a Rust-based terminal▲946

   Hi HN community, I’m Zach, founder and CEO of Warp, and am excited to show you Warp, a fast Rust-based terminal that’s easy to use and built for teams. As of today, Warp is in public beta and any Mac user can download it. It works with bash, zsh, and fish. The terminal’s teletype-like interface has made it hard for the CLI to thrive. After 20 years of programming, I still find it hard to copy a command’s output; I always forget how to use `tar`; and I always have to relearn how to move my cursor. To fix fundamental accessibility issues, I believe we need to start innovating on the terminal,…

   2022 · warp.dev · its alternatives →

2. 2HA
   Hucksh – A shell with a very good memory▲93

   In the deep mists of time (circa 2012), I was playing with the Go standard library, and saw how easy it was to stand up a webserver that let you navigate a remote file system, and I thought it was pretty neat. I took a look at my shell history and a frequent pattern of commands was "cd, ls, cd, ls, ...". And I thought "I love my keyboard, but you know, point and click might be nice in this context." And then I thought, "It'd be even cooler if you could run commands there." Skip forward several years, a few earlier implementations, a name change, and now there's Hucksh(ell), a bash-like shell…

   2023 · its alternatives →

3. 3
   Devbox – Easy, predictable shells and containers▲515

   Devbox is a command-line tool that lets you easily create isolated shells and containers. You start by defining the list of packages required by your development environment, and devbox uses that definition to create an isolated environment just for your application. In practice, Devbox works similar to a package manager like yarn – except the packages it manages are at the operating-system level (the sort of thing you would normally install with brew or apt-get). See it in action: https://youtu.be/WMBaXQZmDoA

   2022 · github.com · its alternatives →

4. 4
   Janetsh – A new system shell▲90

   A powerful new shell that uses the janet programming language for both the implementation and repl. - andrewchambers/janetsh

   2019 · github.com · its alternatives →

5. 5BS
   Blink Shell for iOS, an Open-Source, Mosh and SSH Terminal for Pros▲219

   2016 · blink.sh · its alternatives →

6. 6CS
   Checksum.sh verify every install script▲119

   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 →

7. 7
   Kern – container and resource runtime in a 1.5 MB binary, no daemon▲70

   A fast, rootless sandbox and virtual resource runtime for any workload, including untrusted and AI-generated code. Daemonless: a real, kernel-enforced container in ~3.5 ms from an OCI image, out of one static binary - getkern/kern

   Aug 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

8. 8
   Using Rust to write shell-script like tasks▲231

   Common rust command-line macros and utilities, to write shell-script like tasks in a clean, natural and rusty way - rust-shell-script/rust_cmd_lib

   2020 · github.com · its alternatives →

9. 9
   macOS-cross-compiler – Compile binaries for macOS on Linux▲215

   2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

10. 10
    Lisp Shell▲120

    A fully-featured lisp/scheme shell written in Racket. - DexterLagan/lsh

    2018 · github.com · its alternatives →

11. 11
    Redox Rust OS – v0.3.3 release▲232

    Mirror of https://gitlab.redox-os.org/redox-os/redox - Release 0.3.3 - Lower Memory Usage · redox-os/redox

    2017 · github.com · its alternatives →

12. 12
    Zerobox – Sandbox any command with file, network, credential controls▲141

    I'm excited to introduce Zerobox, a cross-platform, single binary process sandboxing CLI written in Rust. It uses the sandboxing crates from the OpenAI Codex repo and adds additional functionalities like secret injection, SDK, etc. Watch the demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZiPm9BOPCg Zerobox follows the same sandboxing policy as Deno which is deny by default. The only operation that the command can run is reading files, all writes and network I/O are blocked by default. No VMs, no Docker, no remote servers. Want to block reads to /etc? zerobox…

    Mar 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

13. 13
    go-nbd – A Pure Go NBD Server and Client▲113

    Hey HN! I just released go-nbd, a lightweight Go library for effortlessly creating NBD servers and clients. Its a neat tool for creating custom Linux block devices with arbitrary backends, such as a file, byte slice or what I'm planning to use it for, a tape drive. While there are a few partially abandoned projects like this out there already, this library tries to be as maintainable as possible by only implementing the most recent handshake revision and baseline functionality for both the client and the server, while still having enough support to be useful. I'd love to get your feedback :)

    2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

14. 14
    Jetpack, a FreeBSD Jail/ZFS-based container runtime▲96

    **PROTOTYPE** FreeBSD Jail/ZFS based implementation of the Application Container Specification - 3ofcoins/jetpack

    2015 · github.com · its alternatives →

15. 15
    Cosh – concatenative command-line shell▲68

    Concatenative command-line shell. Contribute to tomhrr/cosh development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

16. 16
    Shelgon: A Framework for Building Interactive REPL Shells in Rust▲130

    I've been working on Shelgon, a framework that lets you build your own custom REPL shells and interactive CLI applications in Rust. You can use Shelgon to: - Create a custom shell with only a few lines of code - Build interactive debugging tools with persistent state between commands - Develop domain-specific language interpreters with shell-like interfaces - Add REPL capabilities to existing applications Getting started is straightforward - implement a single trait that handles your command execution logic, and Shelgon takes care of the terminal UI, input handling, and async runtime…

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

17. 17
    Hydrogen, a multithread non-blocking Linux server framework in Rust▲154

    Multithreaded, non-blocking Linux server framework in Rust - nathansizemore/hydrogen

    2016 · github.com · its alternatives →

18. 18
    FlakeHub Cache: Fast, secure, configurable. A new take on Nix caching▲65

    Fast, secure, configurable. A bold new take on Nix caching.

    2024 · determinate.systems · its alternatives →

19. 19
    Shuck – a fast shell linter written in Rust▲8

    I’ve been working on shuck, a shell script linter written in Rust. ShellCheck is excellent project and set the bar for this space. However, it's very slow and take up a far amount of resources. shuck is conservatively 20x faster than shellcheck and uses a fraction of the resources. shuck currently supports sh, bash, dash, ksh, mksh, and zsh. shuck should mostly be a drop in replacement for shellcheck but it is not a port since shellcheck is GPL. It is s clean-room implementation with its own parser and analysis engine, so behavior may differ in some cases. shuck is tested against shellcheck…

    Apr 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

20. 20
    My microkernel-based OS built from scratch now has basic Unix commands▲69

    This project contains no code from Linux, BSD, Minix, or any other OS. Everything up until this point is written entirely from scratch, including a pure microkernel (that only implements multiprocessor priority scheduling, memory management, and interprocess communication), a work-in-progress implementation of the standard C library, and a variety of servers that provide drivers and other essential OS functionality. At the time of writing this post, the servers provide drivers for the keyboard, NVMe SSDs (that works on real hardware), a Unix-like virtual file system (with a single root…

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

21. 21
    I missed the moving blocks, so I built a real Linux disk defragmenter▲97

    Linux filesystem defragger written in Rust and Qt Quick/Kirigami - gbin/defragger

    Aug 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

22. 22
    I built a Rust crate for running unsafe code safely▲113

    A Rust crate for containing memory leaks and fragmentation - brannondorsey/mem-isolate

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

23. 23
    AISH▲3

    I built Aish because I wanted a shell that could help with troubleshooting and routine ops work without changing normal terminal usage. Regular commands still work as usual. On top of that, Aish can use live terminal output to help reason about errors, assist with multi-step tasks, and reduce the need to copy terminal output into another tool. It’s still early, but I’d love feedback on whether this feels useful in real shell workflows.

    Jun 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

24. 24
    Nushell▲6

    shell, data, dataframes, rust, pipelines

    2023 · nushell.sh · its 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 →