Feature comparison of ack, ag, git-grep, GNU grep and ripgrep
Report a link problem
Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderThe chart was created by Andy Lester, the creator of ack, who thinks that more open source projects should point to their "competing" projects because it's not really a competition: http://blog.petdance.com/2018/01/02/the-best-open-source-pro...
I adore Ripgrep and use it dozens of times a day, and have for years. It's extremely fast, does the right thing most of the time, and has a useful featureset. Ack is also nice, I've used that quite a bit too. It has the advantage of being in Perl, so if you're on a "secure" computer (no compiler), you can still use a fast + featureful search tool.
Please note that the chart is a bit out of date. ripgrep has some features that aren't shown on the chart yet. Patches welcome if anyone wants to help. https://github.com/beyondgrep/website
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 376
- Total comments
- 149
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-01-08 | Feature comparison of ack, ag, git-grep, GNU grep and ripgrepFirst breakout · Best thread | infodroid | 244 | 100 |
| 2021-10-07 | Feature comparison of ack, ag, Git-grep, GNU grep and ripgrep | capableweb | 2 | 1 |
| 2021-10-24 | Feature comparison of ack, ag, Git-grep, grep and ripgrepLatest 20+ point return | Amorymeltzer | 130 | 48 |