Alternatives to ugrep
A grep-compatible file searcher with a text interface, Boolean queries, fuzzy matching and archive search. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
ugrep
A grep-compatible file searcher with a text interface, Boolean queries, fuzzy matching and archive search.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as ugrep.
ripgrep
Searches a whole directory tree for a pattern in a fraction of the time grep takes, and skips what gitignore says to skip.
ripgrep drops the interactive interface and archive search but respects gitignore by default and is known for speed, with regex syntax slightly different from grep.
ripgrep-all
ripgrep that can also search inside PDFs, Office documents, ebooks, zip files, databases and subtitles.
ripgrep-all adds search inside PDFs, Office documents and ebooks through external tools like pandoc, under AGPL-3.0 instead of BSD-3-Clause.
ack
A grep-like source code search tool built for programmers working in large code trees.
ack is a Perl-based code searcher with Boolean options and Perl regular expressions, needing a Perl interpreter and lacking archive search.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
fd
Finds files by name without the argument soup that find requires, and it is much faster.
fzf
A fuzzy filter for any list: files, command history, processes, branches, anything you can pipe into it.
sad
A command-line batch search and replace tool that shows a diff before changes are applied.
bat-extras
A set of Bash scripts that connect the bat file viewer with grep, man, diff and less.
sd
Replace text with a focused command-line tool.
Serpl
A terminal interface for searching and replacing text across a whole project folder.
