GNU Bourne Again SHell Alternatives for Linux

There are many alternatives to GNU Bourne Again SHell for Linux if you are looking for a replacement. The best Linux alternative is fish, which is both free and Open Source. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 25 alternatives to GNU Bourne Again SHell and many of them are available for Linux so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting Linux alternatives to GNU Bourne Again SHell are Zsh, Perl, Nushell and IPython.

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Alternatives list

  1. fish icon
     119 likes

    Fish is a user-friendly command line shell for UNIX-like operating systems such as Linux

    31 fish alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • BSD
    • Rust
     
  2. Zsh icon
     128 likes

    Zsh is a UNIX command interpreter (shell) which of the standard shells most resembles the Korn shell (ksh); its compatibility with the 1988 Korn shell has been gradually increasing. It includes enhancements of many types, notably in the command-line editor, options for...

    27 Zsh alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Linux
    • BSD
     
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  3. Perl icon
     142 likes

    Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language with over 22 years of development.

    81 Perl alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • BSD
    • Haiku
     
  4. Nushell icon
     21 likes

    This project has reached a minimum-viable product level of quality. While contributors dogfood it as their daily driver, it may be unstable for some commands. Future releases will work fill out missing features and improve stability.

    28 Nushell alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • BSD
     
  5. IPython icon
     85 likes

    IPython offers a robust architecture for interactive computing, including dynamic shells, a kernel for Jupyter, interactive visualization, GUI toolkit support, and seamless project embeddings. Targeting high efficiency in parallel computing, it supports Python interactions tailored for Jupyter environments.

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Python
     
  6. Xonsh is a Python-powered, cross-platform, Unix-gazing shell language and command prompt. The language is a superset of Python 3.4+ with additional shell primitives that you are used to from Bash and IPython. It works on all major systems including Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  7. KornShell icon
     10 likes

    The KornShell language was designed and developed by David G. Korn at AT&T Bell Laboratories. It is an interactive command language that provides access to the UNIX system and to many other systems, on the many different computers and workstations on which it is implemented.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Linux
    • BSD
    • Cygwin
     
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  8. Elk Shell icon
     3 likes

    Elk is an experimental shell language that aims to seamlessly combine the syntax of a shell language like bash with the syntax of a general-purpose language like Python. Bash is great for executing programs and handling files, but can be quite limiting and tedious to use when it...

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  9. DASH Shell icon
     9 likes

    DASH is a POSIX-compliant implementation of /bin/sh that aims to be as small as possible. It does this without sacrificing speed where possible. In fact, it is significantly faster than bash (the GNU Bourne-Again SHell) for most tasks. DASH stands for Debian Almquist Shell.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Linux
    • BSD
     
  10. Oil icon
     1 like

    Oil is a new Unix shell.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Linux
     
  11. Elvish icon
     2 likes

    Elvish is a friendly and expressive shell for UN*X systems including Linux, macOS and BSDs.

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Linux
    • BSD
     
  12. Murex icon
     Like

    Murex is a shell, like bash / zsh / fish / etc however Murex supports an enhanced UX and support for additional type information in pipelines, which can be used for complex data formats like JSON or tables.

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Linux
     
12 of 27 GNU Bourne Again SHell alternatives