vorpal
Node's framework for interactive CLIs (by dthree)
blessed
A high-level terminal interface library for node.js. (by chjj)

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vorpal | blessed | |
---|---|---|
5 | 23 | |
5,639 | 11,535 | |
-0.1% | 0.6% | |
0.0 | 0.0 | |
almost 2 years ago | over 1 year ago | |
JavaScript | JavaScript | |
MIT License | GNU General Public License v3.0 or later |
The number of mentions indicates the total number of mentions that we've tracked plus the number of user suggested alternatives.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.
vorpal
Posts with mentions or reviews of vorpal.
We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives
and similar projects. The last one was on 2024-07-11.
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Mastering Node.js
Vorpal.js is a framework for building mature, immersive command-line applications.
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Use GNU Emacs
I occasionally try that as well and it sometimes helps but not for things like node apps that use https://vorpal.js.org REPLs. They just aren't usable in shell-mode.
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google/zx: write shell scripts in JavaScript
Got it, so more about the general idea of using Node to interact with a shell. Fair points but I'm not sure that's where zx falls. I'm looking at it in relation to projects like commander, oclif, and vorpal— frameworks for authoring and packaging local-use CLI tools written in JS, typically aimed at people who know JS and work in a terminal but don't know shell scripting. Those have the overhead of learning a framework, and don't do anything to help you work with the shell. zx seems to come from the other direction: instead of an esoteric framework, shell concepts and shell commands in a Node script.
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Ask a question before a git commit when committing to a certain folder
Assuming the project uses node, and admittedly it's a lil overkill, but you could use vorpal.
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Use command from terminal?
Are you wanting to run your nodejs app, and then control it within the same terminal it is running in? If so, take a look at vorpal
blessed
Posts with mentions or reviews of blessed.
We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives
and similar projects. The last one was on 2025-03-19.
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CLI application with the Node.js Readline module (3/3)
Advance CLI modules: https://github.com/chjj/blessed
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Best Javascript libraries for TUI development?
I found blessed but it seems like it was last updated 8 years ago. So what are my options?
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good high-level ncurses library
So far I found this library github.com/chjj/blessed which is very powerful, I need to render animated charts and other complex objects and for my purpose it is doing well.
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Ink: React for interactive command-line apps
Alas https://github.com/chjj/blessed/issues/418#issuecomment-1533...
I considered blessed for a recent project, but ended up just simplifying the approach & making do with Inquirer + Meow instead due to the maintenance status. Haven't found anything else equivalent to blessed, other than Ink.
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My 2022 side project: @steggy/tty. Custom widgets and utilities for building terminal apps on top of NestJS. Looking for testers / feedback
Inquirer is still probably the library that is most similar, if you are looking for comparisons to existing tools. My goal was to create a set of tools that uses the terminal window for a single operation at a time. The UI providing as much contextual information as possible to the user to know what actions they can perform, and any relevant information. A bit like a "choose your adventure" via terminal app sort of thing. Explicitly trying to stay clear of full screen and dashboard type stuff, like what blessed provides.
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Like seriously why does not one does it ?
Not exactly a shell scripting framework, but y’all should check out blessed js. Weirdly enough I just found it yesterday and shit goes absolutely wild in the terminal
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NodeJS Backend with UI Help. New to UI/Frameworks
Perhaps you’d like a terminal based UI? https://github.com/chjj/blessed
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Command line applications
You can build them from scratch, or use one of many specialized libraries on NPM, like commander, yargs, blessed, terminal kit, prompts, and many more.
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get input from user while continuously outputting
This is where libraries come in: https://github.com/chjj/blessed - this allows you to manage rendering in the terminal on your own, so you can have a scrolling box of text at the top and a "command line" at the bottom.
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Hey Rustaceans! Got a question? Ask here! (28/2022)!
I was hoping to write my app in Rust as a learning exercise, but my alternative is https://www.npmjs.com/package/blessed, which is NodeJS. Ah well.
What are some alternatives?
When comparing vorpal and blessed you can also consider the following projects:
Inquirer.js - A collection of common interactive command line user interfaces.
Ink - 🌈 React for interactive command-line apps
yargs - yargs the modern, pirate-themed successor to optimist.
cli-table - Pretty unicode tables for the CLI with Node.JS
KeyboardJS - A JavaScript library for binding keyboard combos without the pain of key codes and key combo conflicts.

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