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Top 23 Shell Command-line Projects
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distrobox
Use any linux distribution inside your terminal. Enable both backward and forward compatibility with software and freedom to use whatever distribution you’re more comfortable with. Mirror available at: https://gitlab.com/89luca89/distrobox
Docker, Distrobox, Flatpak, and a bit of Homebrew where it makes sense
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nb
CLI and local web plain text note‑taking, bookmarking, and archiving with linking, tagging, filtering, search, Git versioning & syncing, Pandoc conversion, + more, in a single portable script.
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yt-x
Posix script to browse youtube plus other yt-dlp supported sites from your terminal (fzf) or app launcher (rofi) with optional previews. (supports bash, zsh and dash)
Project mention: Show HN: Yt-x v0.8.0 – Browse, play, and download YouTube from the terminal | news.ycombinator.com | 2026-05-19 -
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vet
vet is a command-line tool that acts as a safety net for the risky curl | bash pattern. It lets you inspect, diff against previous versions, and lint remote scripts before asking for your explicit approval to execute. Promoting a safer, more transparent way to handle remote code execution. (by vet-run)
Project mention: Vet is a safety net for the risky curl | bash pattern | news.ycombinator.com | 2025-07-24 -
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zsh-abbr
zsh-abbr brings auto-expanding abbreviations to your zsh terminal. Full-featured CLI; dotfiles-friendly; integrates with suggestions and syntax highlighting; comprehensive documentation; configurable for power users; surfaces core features for extension authors; feature requests considered. 25k clones by 16k cloners as of June '26. Human-written.
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tools-osx
A small collection of command line tools for Mac OS X, incl.: clipcat, dict, eject, launch, ql, swuser, trash & with.
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Project mention: Wcurl: A simple wrapper around curl to easily download files | news.ycombinator.com | 2026-01-11
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cli_text_processing_coreutils
Example based guide for specialized text processing with GNU Coreutils
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NOTE:
The open source projects on this list are ordered by number of github stars.
The number of mentions indicates repo mentiontions in the last 12 Months or
since we started tracking (Dec 2020).
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A note from our sponsor - SaaSHub
www.saashub.com | 15 Jun 2026
Index
What are some of the best open-source Command-line projects in Shell? This list will help you:
| # | Project | Stars |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | distrobox | 12,587 |
| 2 | nb | 8,205 |
| 3 | fzf-fish-integration | 2,633 |
| 4 | vcsh | 2,264 |
| 5 | shpotify | 2,049 |
| 6 | yt-x | 1,599 |
| 7 | learn_gnuawk | 1,142 |
| 8 | vet | 1,042 |
| 9 | theme.sh | 950 |
| 10 | zsh-abbr | 788 |
| 11 | tools-osx | 737 |
| 12 | cli-computing | 687 |
| 13 | wcurl | 510 |
| 14 | json.bash | 461 |
| 15 | gh-f | 387 |
| 16 | learn_gnugrep_ripgrep | 349 |
| 17 | termv | 291 |
| 18 | learn_gnused | 219 |
| 19 | bed | 203 |
| 20 | cli_text_processing_coreutils | 195 |
| 21 | learn_ruby_oneliners | 194 |
| 22 | arkdep | 185 |
| 23 | fla.sh | 185 |
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