Windows Grep Alternatives

Windows Grep has been discontinued. Similar apps include grepWin, which is free and open source. Other options are grep, dnGREP, SearchMyFiles and AstroGrep. File Search Utilities like Windows Grep are a crowded field, with more than 25 alternatives for Windows, Linux, Mac and the web.

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Alternatives
Windows Grep alternatives page was last updated

Alternatives list

  1. PowerGREP icon
     23 likes

    PowerGREP is a powerful Windows grep tool. Quickly search through large numbers of files on your PC or network, including text and binary files, compressed archives, MS Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PDF files, OpenOffice files, etc.

    88 PowerGREP alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Paid
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Since

    • Since 2009

    Platforms

    • Windows
    Good alternative?
     
  2. AIKIN is a powerful new desktop search that can find item names and content using advanced pattern recognition and semantic awareness, that doesn't require the user to always know exactly how something was named or written.

    Cost / License

    • Freemium
    • Proprietary

    Since

    • Since 2016

    Platforms

    • Windows
    Good alternative?
     
  3. SeaGOAT icon
     2 likes

    SeaGOAT is an "AI-based" code search engine that you can run on your local computer, or you can run it on your server as a REST API. It can be considered an alternative to grep.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Since

    • Since 2023

    Platforms

    • Windows
    • Mac
    • Linux
    Good alternative?
     
  4. BareGrep icon
     13 likes

    A free file finding and text searching tool:

    • Regular expression text search
    • High performance search algorithm
    • Wildcard and regular expression file search
    • Recursive directory search
    • Save, name and manage text search patterns
    • Interactive, incremental search
    • Ext.

    Cost / License

    • Freemium
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Since

    • Since 2010

    Platforms

    • Windows
    Good alternative?
     
  5. regexxer icon
     8 likes

    regexxer is a nifty GUI search/replace tool featuring Perl-style regular expressions. If you need project-wide substitution and you’re tired of hacking sed command lines together, then you should definitely give it a try.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Since

    • Since 2012

    Platforms

    • Linux
    Good alternative?
     
  6. Offers a visual grep interface for Windows, enabling fast text and log filtering with multi-phrase search, set operations like merge and intersection, Regex editor with real-time preview, Unicode support, and instant output. No command-line or scripts needed.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Since

    • Since 2026

    Platforms

    • Windows
    Good alternative?
     
  7. Provides search across local files, Outlook emails, network shares, and cloud drives, offers secure peer-to-peer sharing, secure real-time messaging, advanced search profiles, free access, multi-view results, query refinement, and quick keyboard shortcuts.

    Cost / License

    • Freemium
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Since

    • Since 2015

    Platforms

    • Windows
    • Microsoft Outlook
    Good alternative?
     
  8. Replace Text icon
     6 likes

    Replace Text, formerly called BK ReplaceEm, is the free string-replacing utility for Windows.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Since

    • Since 2009

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Windows
    Good alternative?
     
  9. UltraFinder icon
     2 likes

    UltraFinder is your personal search engine for your PC, network, and remote servers!

    Cost / License

    • Paid
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Since

    • Since 2013

    Platforms

    • Windows
    Good alternative?
     
  10. SSuite Desktop Search is a useful and extremely fast windows desktop search engine that can find files, folders, and file content.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Since

    • Since 2017

    Platforms

    • Windows
    Good alternative?
     
  11. InfoRapid Search & Replace is one of the most powerful text retrieval programs currently. With its built-in converters, its excellently suitable for searching and previewing HTML and RTF documents. In pure text files, the found text passages can be replaced after the search...

    Cost / License

    • Free Personal
    • Proprietary

    Since

    • Since 2009

    Platforms

    • Windows
    Good alternative?
     
  12. EasyGrep icon
     2 likes

    EasyGrep is an easy to use Windows grep software which allows you to search within files on your computer. Supports text based searches as well as regex searches. Supports Notepad++.

    Cost / License

    • Free Personal
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Since

    • Since 2019

    Platforms

    • Windows
    Good alternative?
     
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