Compare software

ack vs tgrep: catalog facts
ack	tgrep
Best for: Programmers searching large source trees from the terminal	Best for: Developers who search very large repositories many times a day
Free Free and open source.	Free Free and open source under the MIT licence.
Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line	Windows, Command line
Built for searching source code rather than general text Full Perl regular expressions All 3 strengths for ack Built for searching source code rather than general text Full Perl regular expressions Boolean --and, --or and --not options	Index makes repeated searches over large codebases fast Regular expression search All 4 strengths for tgrep Index makes repeated searches over large codebases fast Regular expression search Runs entirely locally Actively maintained by Microsoft
Needs a Perl interpreter Newer tools such as ripgrep are typically faster on very large trees	Needs a background server and index, unlike plain grep or ripgrep Benefit is mainly on very large codebases
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License: Artistic-2.0	License: MIT
No account needed	No account needed
Offline features available	Offline features available
Official website Full listing and sources Sources for ack beyondgrep.com Catalog checked September 23, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Sources for tgrep github.com/microsoft/tgrep Catalog checked October 2, 2026

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