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Zsh vs fish: catalog facts
Zsh	fish
Best for: Interactive shell with powerful completion, globbing and prompt theming	Best for: An interactive shell that is pleasant immediately, with nothing to configure
Free The open-source application is available without a license fee.	Free Free and open source under the GPL.
macOS, Linux, Command line	macOS, Linux, Command line
Completion system that knows the options of individual commands Recursive globbing and qualifiers that replace many find invocations	Autosuggestions from history appear as you type with no plugins Syntax highlighting shows an invalid command before you run it All 4 strengths for fish Autosuggestions from history appear as you type with no plugins Syntax highlighting shows an invalid command before you run it Tab completions generated from man pages, so they cover real options Works well with no configuration file at all
Startup configuration grows complicated quickly, which is why frameworks exist Scripts written for Zsh are not portable to plain POSIX shells	Not POSIX-compatible, so bash snippets and scripts often need changing No official Windows build All 4 limitations for fish Not POSIX-compatible, so bash snippets and scripts often need changing No official Windows build A smaller plugin ecosystem than zsh Minimum supported macOS version is 10.12
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License: MIT	License: GPL-2.0
Not stated if an account is needed	No account needed
Not stated if it works offline	Offline features available
Official website Full listing and sources Sources for Zsh zsh.org Catalog checked September 22, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Sources for fish github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell Catalog checked September 21, 2026

“Not stated” means we have not confirmed it. Features can vary by device and plan.