Is zsh faster than bash ZSH vs. Identidy the user and delete it using deluser command. However, Zsh shines in interactive tasks, where its additional features make up for the marginal speed difference. Learn which shell aligns with your command-line needs in this comprehensive comparison. Apr 11, 2025 · Learn the key differences between Zsh and Bash—two powerful Unix shells. The results in both the above snippets show that zsh is faster than bash. Bash: The Important Differences Sep 29, 2023 · Explore the differences between Zsh and Bash, two powerful command-line shells. Jul 1, 2025 · Fact check analysis: Is Zsh better than Bash?. Zsh, while mostly compatible with Bash, prioritizes features and user experience over strict POSIX compliance. Mar 29, 2025 · In this comprehensive 2025 Linux shell comparison, we’ll break down the 7 key differences between Bash, Zsh, and Fish, covering areas like scripting power, plugin ecosystems, performance, user experience, customization, community support, and ease of use. Dec 7, 2020 · Back in June, I started porting my dotfiles from ZSH to Fish. Zsh even has limited support for set operations. Discover which is better for scripting, performance, customization, and productivity in your terminal workflow. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the key differences between ZSH and Fish shell. Mar 24, 2024 · I use Zsh on my workstation/local machines (i. Extensibility – Shells like Zsh offer extensive plugin ecosystems and customization. In this guide, we learn how to use Zsh to improve your command line productivity. Oct 24, 2022 · Sometime when running useradd command it throws "cannot lock /etc/passwd; try again later" error and solution to remove lock files. What is ZSH? ZSH, also called the Z shell, is an extended version of the Bourne Shell (sh), with new features and support for plugins and themes. How to reproduce Install nushell Compare startup performance Startup performance If you need speed, go definitely with dash, it is much faster than any other shell and about 4x faster than bash. Zsh has much, much better support for arrays in syntax and functions that can use arrays. Jun 10, 2022 · Here learn use-cases of dotfiles and proper management of dotfiles in Linux. Zsh offers some advanced functionality that Bash lacks, like more customizable completion and theming, spelling correction, and plugins. I use zsh rather than fish for the pragmatic reason that other people's bash scripts are extremely common to come across (as a dev). Oct 28, 2023 · But Zsh has been gaining popularity over the last several years as an alternative shell. This cheat sheet will guide you through its most common commands. Configuration files Bash Oct 8, 2022 · Describe the bug nushell has a slower startup time compared to other shells (dash, bash, csh, fish, tcsh, ksh, zsh). Aug 14, 2024 · It's a command-line tool for transferring data using various network protocols. Feb 11, 2023 · Here understand the different types of shells avaialble for Linux Operating system. Aug 9, 2022 · Learn how to install ROS 2 humble on Ubuntu 22. 04. At first I thought it's just another terminal, but turns out it's a customisation prompt like omz. Here's a comparison: Bash (Bourne Again SHell) History: The successor to the original Bourne shell (sh). While bash may be slightly faster (can't vouch either way), zsh supports precompiling zsh functions, which may put zsh at an overall advantage. Created by the GNU Project. Since it's based on the same shell as Bash, ZSH has many of the same features, and switching over is a breeze. They interpret your commands and interact with the operating system. I believe both have the necessary plugins and themes I need, so it all just comes down to speed. Zsh doesn't resort to Bash's IFS to make arrays or make strings from arrays, you just split and join like you would in a "real" programming language. Here’s why. Initial performance Fish’s performance is a lot better than ZSH’s, and very similar to Bash. It makes scripting in Zsh oh so much nicer. By using zsh, I'm learning something that's much more similar to the bash in the scripts that I'll likely be reading (and occasionally modifying), so this kills two birds with one stone. There are multiple shells available, each with its own unique features and capabilities to cater to the varying needs and also preferences of the user. Which one is faster? starship is written in rust so maybe it has Nov 13, 2023 · Performance gains – Shells like Dash and others can execute scripts substantially faster than Bash. Feb 20, 2024 · Here learn about adduser command in Linux with examples. e. However, Bash still excels in certain areas like startup speed and cross-platform portability. With themes, plugins, and helpful functions, it can transform your terminal into a productivity powerhouse. It is a more user-friendly version of useradd that is typically used on Debian-based systems. With zsh: We've written a script that reads input from the user and prints a statement multiple times using a for loop. But two popular alternatives, ZSH and Fish, offer more advanced features and customization. Jan 1, 2024 · Zsh itself is a speedy shell, but it’s all too easy to blindly add stuff to its startup scripts and prompt that drastically slow it down. Portability – Some shells boast improved portability for scripts across different platforms. For this install zsh shell, zshell plugins and some additional tools. The terms in the results mean the following: real is the time from start to finish of the call. A few years back, there was a very noticeable delay when opening a new terminal tab where It still has bash installed (a fairly old version due to licensing) and existing accounts keep their perfered shell as bash but ya it is installed by default and new users have zsh as their perfered shell. , which don't have as many features as the commonly used GNU / en / versus / bash-vs-zsh BASH vs ZSH Both are powerful command-line shells used primarily on Unix-like operating systems (Linux, macOS). do. Apr 11, 2025 · Learn the key differences between Zsh and Bash—two powerful Unix shells. We also have sh (Bourne Shell), tcsh (TC shell), csh (C shell), Zsh (Z shell) and ksh (Korn Shell). Or if you do, be fully aware of that, and be careful with the points at which they differ. Shells are just an executable like any other on your machine - their purpose is to just take user input and behave like an old Zsh is great, and is even better with oh-my-zsh, but if you have to deal with Linux that may or not have zsh (including legacy ones), and colleagues that may or not know/use zsh, probably sticking with bash is a good choice. This article dives into the differences between Bash and Zsh, comparing their features, scripting capabilities, performance, and customization options to help users choose the right shell for their needs in 2025. Sep 24, 2023 · Here's how to install one popular alternative, ZSH. We can verify that by firing up a container with limited CPU and memory, like so: docker run --rm -it --cpus 1 --memory 100m ubuntu bash And then we can install all the shells, as well as hyperfine, and see how they go: The left and right outputs are for zsh and bash respectively. This difference matters when you‘re writing scripts that need to run on multiple systems: # This works in both Bash and Zsh May 16, 2018 · My zsh set up was nearly 100x slower than raw bash. The default Bash shell is a powerful option. The difference is using arrays for very basic operations with a With regards to running commands themselves, I imagine both zsh and bash to be very comparible in performance. Jul 29, 2022 · Out of the box, Linux provides a wide variety of shells. Sep 13, 2023 · Use curl to interact with websites directly from your command line. Discover their unique features, customization options, scripting capabilities, and user preferences. Feb 18, 2023 · Here learn how to delete user accounts on Ubuntu from the command line. There is bash (Bourne Again shell) shell which ships by default in many Linux distributions. It is an alternative to the default shell, Bash. The easiest approach to install it on Ubuntu is by using the APT package manager. for var in $* . While busybox 's shell can be much slower than dash, in some tests it could be faster, because it has many of its own userland utilities, like grep, sed, sort, etc. Just recently a colleague told me he's using starship. By the end, you’ll see why Fish provides […] I've always been using oh-my-zsh (omz) on mac/linux and oh-my-bash on windows. It is a configuration file or folder which stores user application-specific configuration. What is Zsh? Dec 22, 2022 · Here learn how to make your Ubuntu terminal look like Kali Linux. sys is the amount of CPU time spent in the kernel within the process. Curious to know which shell you are using on your Linux system? In this guide, we explore different ways that you can use to check which shell you Aug 14, 2024 · It's a command-line tool for transferring data using various network protocols. May 21, 2025 · Bash strictly adheres to POSIX standards, which ensures broad compatibility across Unix-like systems. . Curious to know which shell you are using on your Linux system? In this guide, we explore different ways that you can use to check which shell you Mar 24, 2023 · Zsh, short for "Z Shell," is a command-line interpreter shell for Unix-based systems such as Linux and macOS. machines in the room with me) because it's already provided on macOS and it's a lot newer than the system Bash. Verdict: Partially True. I wanted to investigate what was going on, and why it was so much slower. zsh + oh-my-zsh: zsh is a powerful alternative to the default Bash shell, and oh-my-zsh is a framework that makes it even better. To evaluate this, let's generate some load and check how fast the shell responds. user is the amount of CPU time spent in user-mode within the process. Jan 10, 2025 · Zsh is slightly slower than Bash for script execution due to its advanced features, but the difference is negligible for most users. Dec 27, 2023 · For experienced Linux users, choosing the right shell is an important decision. Intro Before we begin, it might be helpful to understand how shells in general start up. Mar 24, 2023 · Zsh, short for "Z Shell," is a command-line interpreter shell for Unix-based systems such as Linux and macOS. Read our detailed fact-check analysis with sources and evidence. In the above command, replace shell_name with zsh and bash. This will help us check the time taken to process the script. Apr 29, 2024 · Which is faster bash or zsh? In general, the speed and performance of Bash and Zsh are comparable, and the speed difference between the two is usually negligible. I’ve been using Zsh since around 2002 (narrator: that’s over 20 years ago, which is making me feel really old!), and my Zsh config has accumulated a lot of cruft.