VisiData
An interactive terminal multitool for exploring, cleaning and converting tabular data in many formats.
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1 more ways to get VisiData
Package managers
- Homebrew
brew install visidata
About VisiData
VisiData opens tabular data in a spreadsheet-like terminal interface and handles millions of rows. It reads CSV, TSV, JSON, Excel, SQLite, HDF5, HTML tables, fixed-width text and many other formats, and can save to formats such as CSV, JSON, Markdown and SQLite.
A single keystroke gives a histogram, scatterplots can be drawn in the terminal, and Python expressions can be computed for each row. Sessions can be saved and replayed, and batch mode runs ad hoc data pipelines. It runs on Linux, macOS and Windows through WSL, with Python 3.8 or newer.
Strengths
- Opens dozens of data formats, including Excel and SQLite
- Handles millions of rows quickly
- Instant histograms and terminal scatterplots
- Replayable sessions and batch mode
Limitations
- Keyboard-driven interface with many commands to learn
- Some formats need extra Python packages
- Windows use requires WSL
Details
- Pricing
- FreeFree and open source under GPL-3.0, supported by donations.
- License
- GPL-3.0
- Developer
- Saul Pwanson
- Platforms
- macOS, Linux, Command line
- How it runs
- Downloadable app
- Account
- Not required
- Works offline
- Yes
- Best suited for
- Exploring and cleaning CSV, JSON or Excel data quickly from the terminal
- Categories
- CLI tools, Database tools
- Last verified
- Added
- Provenance
- Facts checked against the developer's own pages and store listings, 2 sources on file.
Alternatives to VisiData
Compare allSoftware that can replace VisiData for an important use case, and what changes if you switch.
csvlens
A command-line CSV viewer that works like less, with regex search and row and column filtering.
csvlens is a less-style CSV viewer with regex search and filters, but it only views CSV files and cannot edit, clean or convert other formats.
qsv
Query, transform and validate tabular data from the terminal.
qsv replaces the interactive interface with composable commands for querying, transforming and validating tabular data, and it runs natively on Windows without needing WSL.
xan
Analyze and transform CSV files through composable terminal commands.
xan works through composable terminal commands and an expression language for CSV files rather than an interactive spreadsheet view, and it has native Windows builds.
csvkit
Suite of command line tools for converting and working with CSV files.
csvkit is a suite of separate commands that can run SQL against CSV and convert Excel or JSON, but it has no interactive view and is slow on very large files.
VisiData as an alternative
Listings that name VisiData as an alternative.
Tad
A desktop viewer for CSV and Parquet files and SQLite and DuckDB databases, with pivot tables.
VisiData explores CSV, JSON, Excel and SQLite data in the terminal under GPL-3.0 with histograms, but needs WSL on Windows and uses keyboard commands.
trdsql
Query structured files with SQL from the command line.
VisiData explores and converts tabular files interactively in the terminal rather than through SQL queries, and needs WSL on Windows.
Similar software
Related functionality, not necessarily a direct replacement.
sq
An open-source command-line tool to inspect, query, join, import and export data across databases and files.
Harlequin
A SQL IDE that runs in the terminal, with adapters for DuckDB, SQLite, Postgres and more.
jless
Browse large JSON structures in a keyboard-driven terminal viewer.
fx
Inspect JSON interactively from your terminal.
Dasel
Query and update structured files through a consistent command syntax.
LiteCLI
A command-line SQLite client with auto-completion and syntax highlighting.
