Alternatives to Xonsh
A cross-platform shell whose language is a superset of Python 3 with shell commands built in. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Xonsh
A cross-platform shell whose language is a superset of Python 3 with shell commands built in.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Xonsh.
Nushell
Shell that pipes structured tables instead of untyped text.
Nushell pipes structured tables instead of mixing in Python, behaves the same on Windows, macOS and Linux, and its language still breaks between releases.
fish
A shell that autosuggests commands from your history, highlights syntax as you type and has tab completions that work without configuration.
fish gives autosuggestions and highlighting with no configuration, but uses its own language rather than Python and has no official Windows build.
Zsh
Interactive shell with powerful completion, globbing and prompt theming.
Zsh offers powerful completion and globbing in a conventional shell language, without Xonsh's Python integration, and runs on macOS and Linux.
Elvish
A scripting language and interactive shell with data structures and built-in interactive features.
Elvish provides its own scripting language with lists, maps and early error checks, shipped as a single static binary instead of relying on Python.
Murex
A command-line shell with native support for JSON, YAML, CSV and other structured data.
Murex handles JSON, YAML and CSV natively with error handling and unit tests for scripts, but runs only on macOS and Linux.
Oils
A Unix shell project combining OSH, a bash-compatible shell, and YSH, a new shell language.
Oils runs existing bash scripts through OSH and offers the newer YSH language, keeping bash compatibility that Xonsh lacks, though still pre-1.0.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Starship
A shell prompt that shows the git branch, language version and other context, configured once and working in every shell.
McFly
Replaces the shell's Ctrl-R history search with context-aware suggestions.
ble.sh
A line editor written in pure Bash that adds syntax highlighting, autosuggestions and vim modes.
