PowerShell
Microsoft's cross-platform automation shell, where commands pass structured objects to each other instead of lines of text.
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3 more ways to get PowerShell
Package managers
- winget
winget install --id Microsoft.PowerShell - Homebrew
brew install powershell - Snap Store
snap install powershell
About PowerShell
The idea that separates PowerShell from bash is the pipeline. Commands, called cmdlets, pass .NET objects rather than text, so filtering on a property is `Where-Object Size -gt 1MB` rather than parsing a column out of output that was formatted for a human. That makes it well suited to JSON, CSV, XML, REST APIs and object models.
PowerShell 7 runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, and is a separate thing from the Windows PowerShell 5.1 that ships in Windows. The two coexist on a machine, changes in 7 are not backported to 5.1, and some Windows-specific modules still only work in the older one.
Strengths
- Pipes structured objects rather than text, so filtering and sorting need no parsing
- Optimised for JSON, CSV, XML, REST APIs and object models
- Runs on Windows, macOS and Linux from one codebase
- A very large module ecosystem for managing Microsoft and cloud services
Limitations
- PowerShell 7 and the built-in Windows PowerShell 5.1 are separate; some modules only work in 5.1
- Verbose command names make one-liners long compared with bash
- Startup is slower than a traditional shell
- Execution policy settings trip people up on Windows the first time
Details
- Pricing
- Free · Free and open source under the MIT licence.
- License
- MIT
- Developer
- Microsoft
- Platforms
- Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line
- How it runs
- Downloadable app
- Account
- Not required
- Works offline
- Yes
- Best suited for
- Automating Windows administration, or anything where the data is objects rather than text
- Categories
- Developer tools
- Last verified
- Added
- Provenance
- Selected from the TechWalrus downloads catalog (Dev Tools); facts checked against the developer's own pages, 2 sources on file.