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fish shell VS Nu Shell

Compare fish shell VS Nu Shell and see what are their differences

fish shell logo fish shell

The friendly interactive shell.

Nu Shell logo Nu Shell

A modern shell written in Rust
  • fish shell Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-23
  • Nu Shell Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-21

fish shell features and specs

  • User-Friendly Syntax
    Fish shell features a more readable and user-friendly syntax compared to traditional shells like Bash or Zsh, making it easier for new users to learn and use.
  • Modern Features
    Fish shell includes out-of-the-box support for modern shell features such as syntax highlighting, autosuggestions, and smart command-line completions, greatly enhancing the user experience.
  • Web-Based Configuration
    Users can configure Fish shell through a web interface, making it more accessible and easier to customize compared to other shells that require manual configuration file edits.
  • Consistent Scripting
    Fish shell uses a consistent scripting language, which reduces the quirks and peculiarities often found in other shell scripting languages.

Possible disadvantages of fish shell

  • Compatibility Issues
    Fish shell is not POSIX compliant, which means scripts written in Fish will not be compatible with other POSIX-compliant shells like Bash or Zsh, potentially causing issues in environments that rely on such standards.
  • Smaller Ecosystem
    Compared to shells like Bash and Zsh, Fish has a smaller ecosystem of plugins, themes, and community support, which could limit available resources and tools.
  • Learning Curve for Experienced Users
    Experienced users of traditional shells like Bash or Zsh might find Fish's different syntax and features take some time to adapt to, potentially reducing initial productivity.
  • Limited Script Portability
    Scripts written in Fish shell are often not portable to other shell environments without significant modification, reducing their usability in multi-shell setups.

Nu Shell features and specs

  • Modern Design
    Nu Shell offers a modern shell environment with structured data support, rather than plain text, making data manipulation more powerful and intuitive.
  • Cross-Platform
    Nu Shell is designed to work across different operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux, enhancing versatility and interoperability.
  • Enhanced Pipelines
    Its pipelines are more advanced because they pass structured data rather than text, allowing better automation and complex data transformations.
  • Rich Plugin Support
    Nu Shell supports custom plugins, which expands its functionalities and allows users to tailor the shell to their specific needs.
  • User-Friendly
    With a focus on user experience, Nu Shell provides features like autocomplete, syntax highlighting, and inline help, which make it easier for new users to adopt.

Possible disadvantages of Nu Shell

  • Learning Curve
    Users accustomed to traditional shells may find Nu Shell's approach to data and commands different, requiring time and effort to learn.
  • Compatibility Issues
    Since Nu Shell handles data differently, scripts and tools that rely on traditional shell behavior may not work without modification.
  • Limited Adoption
    Nu Shell is relatively new and has a smaller user community compared to established shells like bash or zsh, which can impact community support and available resources.
  • Performance Overhead
    The structured data approach, while powerful, can add performance overhead compared to simpler traditional shell operations, especially in high-demand scripting.
  • Documentation Gaps
    As with many evolving projects, there might be gaps or inconsistencies in documentation, which can make troubleshooting and learning more difficult for new users.

fish shell videos

this tank is not overstocked | Fish Tank Review Ep. 1

More videos:

  • Review - Can Female Bettas Live In A Bowl Together? | Fish Tank Review 36
  • Review - Ryan's First Time Catching Fish for Dinner!!!

Nu Shell videos

No Nu Shell videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to fish shell and Nu Shell)
Cryptocurrencies
74 74%
26% 26
Blockchain
72 72%
28% 28
Developer Tools
77 77%
23% 23
Programming
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, fish shell should be more popular than Nu Shell. It has been mentiond 134 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

fish shell mentions (134)

  • A short tutorial on using fish shell.
    Follow this to install. Note that this tutorial assume that you are on Linux. - Source: dev.to / 6 days ago
  • Tools for 2025
    I've probably been using fish shell [0] for close to 10 years now. When I need POSIX compliance or if I need to run a one-off bash command, I just call bash. It's exceedingly rare. Browsing through the documentation for Oils, it seems to be organized in a way that's very confusing. When you open the fish shell website it was two clear buttons for Tutorial and Documentation. [0] https://fishshell.com/. - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • TIL: Ghostty — a new and quite promising terminal emulator
    I remember that Julia Evans, whose blog I follow, mentioned a few time that she uses Fish. Also, some days ago I came across this post about Fish rewrite to Rust from C++, which sounds like a cool thing to do. However, I tried it some time ago, and while pretty neat, I wasn't convinced to switch to it completely. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Easy development environments with Nix and Nix flakes!
    The default shell in the above flake adds Valkey, NodeJS 22, the PNPM package manager, and the fish shell to the environment. It also starts Valkey in the background through a shell hook, passing it a custom config (declared via Nix!) and runs fish so we're dropped in the fish shell instead of our login shell. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • A new shell for using modern Unix commands
    I’m testing a new shell called fish, and I’m enjoying some features that truly make it a friendly interactive shell. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
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Nu Shell mentions (41)

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What are some alternatives?

When comparing fish shell and Nu Shell, you can also consider the following products

zsh - The Z shell (Zsh) is a Unix shell that can be used as an interactive login shell and as a powerful command interpreter for shell scripting.

the xonsh shell - Xonsh is a Python-powered, cross-platform, Unix-gazing shell language and command prompt.

GNU Bourne Again SHell - Bash is the shell, or command language interpreter, that will appear in the GNU operating system.

Starship (Shell Prompt) - Starship is the minimal, blazing fast, and extremely customizable prompt for any shell! Shows the information you need, while staying sleek and minimal. Quick installation available for Bash, Fish, ZSH, Ion, and Powershell.

Xiki - Xiki makes the command line friendlier and more powerful.

Oh My Zsh - A delightful community-driven framework for managing your zsh configuration.