Boring vs Modern CLI: Tools That Make the Terminal Fun Again

Are you still using ls, cat or du in 2025? Please don't.

Still rocking the same dusty terminal commands from the 80s? Stop it. Old tools like ls, cat, or du get the job done, but they’re bare-bones: no colors, no nice formatting, too many flags for simple stuff, and outputs that look like a wall of plain white noise. It’s 2025 — your terminal deserves better.

So what?

I have managed to find some great alternatives to legacy CLI command with superpowers. Let's try a few of those and see why they are worth replacing old tools.

Why switch?

If you are okay writing more and seeing less — You should'nt. But if you are a little nerd, a power user or just flexing your terminal on your colleges or classmates, you should definitely try these. Perhaps, replace a few of them with old utilities.

Let's see those in action

1. Eza — A Modern Alternative To ls Command

Eza is a command for listing files similar to ls with more features than traditional ls command and better output format.

Features:

• Tree view
• Color output
• File icons
• Grouping directories first

Eza is fully compatible with ls that means you can create it as an alias for ls and it'll work fine.

eza --group-directories-first --icons --no-quotes --tree --level 1

Explanation:

• --group-directories-first — Self explanatory

• --icons Shows icons by file types

• --no-quotes (Optional) hides quotes for files with spaces

• --tree Formats the output as a tree. (By default it recursively lists files from directories)

• --level To specify the depth of the tree. (I'm using 1 to show files only in the current directory)

• See more options

2. Bat — A Modern Alternative To cat Command

Bat is a command for viewing file contents similar to cat but with syntax highlighting and Git integration.

Features:

• Syntax highlighting
• Git integration
• Line numbers
• File previews
• Custom Themes

Bat is fully compatible with cat that means you can create it as an alias for cat and it'll work fine.

bat --style=plain

Explanation:

• --style This will get rid of all the formatting, (e.g line numbers, file name)

If you pipe your output to another program, bat won't add any extra formatting or colors, making it suitable for use in scripts and other command-line tools.

3. Dua — A Modern Alternative To du (disk usage) Command

Dua is a command for checking disk usage similar to du but with a more user-friendly output and better performance.

Features:

• Multi Threaded Operation
• Interactive CLI — Better for freeing up space
• Colorful Output

I can't imagine managing files without this command. It's fast and finds the elephant in the room to find the big boy taking up space.

Try it:

• MacOS

  curl -LSfs https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Byron/dua-cli/master/ci/install.sh | \
      sh -s -- --git Byron/dua-cli --crate dua --tag v2.29.0
  

• Linux

  curl -LSfs https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Byron/dua-cli/master/ci/install.sh | \
      sh -s -- --git Byron/dua-cli --target x86_64-unknown-linux-musl --crate dua --tag v2.29.0
  

• Windows via Scoop

  scoop install dua
  

4. Duf — A Modern Alternative To df Command

Duf is a modern replacement for the classic df command, designed to display disk usage and free space in a much more readable and visually appealing way. Duf stands out with its colorful output, table formatting, and interactive features, making it easier to quickly understand your disk usage at a glance.

Features:

• Beautiful, colorized output
• Tabular display with sorting
• Interactive mode for exploring disks
• Supports many filesystems (local, network, fuse, etc.)
• Filter disks and mount points
• JSON output for scripting

Duf is fully compatible with df and can be used as a drop-in replacement. You can even alias it for convenience.

duf --sort size

Explanation:

• --sort size — Sorts the output by disk size, so you can quickly spot the largest partitions.

Try it:

• Linux & MacOS

  sudo pacman -S duf # Arch Linux
  sudo apt install duf # Ubuntu
  

• Windows via Scoop

  scoop install duf # scoop
  choco install duf # chocolatey
  

• See more options

5. Tldr — A Modern Alternative To man Command

tldr is a collection of community-maintained help pages for command-line tools, that aims to be a simpler, more approachable complement to traditional man pages. If you are new to commandline or just can't remember every command, tldr can be a great resource. You can think of it as a simplified version of man pages, with practical examples and easy-to-understand explanations, instead of a boring usage page with all the possible options a program has, it focuses on the most common use cases and handover you the exact commands you probably need.

Features:

• Simplified and community-driven man pages
• Practical examples for common use cases
• Supports many command-line tools
• Easy to contribute and improve
• Extensive community-driven documentation

Try it:

• Installation

  npm install -g tldr # Node.js
  pip3 install tldr # python
  brew install tlrc # homebrew
  

• Usage

  tldr <command>
  

  Example:

  tldr tar
  

• See more options

6. Gping — A Modern Alternative To ping Command

Gping is an alternative to ping command with a graph. Which looks good on screen and gives you a real-time, easy to see graph of the latency between a host. You can also check the latency of a command not just a host. For example benchmarking a program or script.

Features:

• Real-time latency graph
• Supports multiple hosts
• Customizable update intervals
• Easy to use and install

Gping is a great tool for anyone who needs to keep an eye on network performance and wants a more intuitive way to visualize latency.

Try it:

• Linux & MacOS

  brew install gping
  

• Windows via Scoop

  scoop install gping # Scoop
  choco install gping # Chocolatey
  

  Or see releases page

• Usage:

  • Basic

  gping google.com
  

  • Multiple hosts:

  gping google.com cloudflare.com 1.1.1.1
  

  • Using --cmd: Testing the speed of an ssh connection:

  gping --cmd "ssh -o BatchMode=yes user@host -- /bin/true"
  

  • Benchmarking a command:

  gping --cmd "your-command-here"
  

• See more options

7. Lazygit — A Simple Terminal UI For Git Commands

Lazygit is a simple terminal UI for git commands, which allows you to manage your git repositories more easily and efficiently. Although I recommend using git commands directly, but if you are being lazy then you should definitely lazygit.

Features:

• Simple and intuitive interface
• Supports all common git commands
• Easy to install and use
• Customizable keybindings
• Supports multiple git repositories
• Interactive Rebase

Try it:

• Installation

  • MacOS:

  brew install lazygit
  

  • Linux:

  sudo apt install lazygit # Ubuntu
  sudo pacman -S lazygit # ArchLinux
  

  • Windows:

  scoop bucket add extras
  scoop install lazygit
  

  • Or see releases page

• See the docs

8. Delta — A Modern Alternative To diff and git diff

Delta is a syntax-highlighting pager for git, diff, and grep output. If you work with code and use git diff or diff to review changes, Delta will make your workflow much more pleasant and productive.

Features:

• Syntax highlighting for code diffs
• Side-by-side and line-by-line diff views
• Git integration (works with git diff, git log, git show)
• File navigation and hunk jumping
• Customizable colors and themes
• Supports true color and 256 colors
• Works as a drop-in replacement for diff and can be configured as the default pager for git

Delta is especially powerful when configured with git to replace the default diff and pager, giving you beautiful, readable diffs every time you run git diff, git log -p, or git show.

git config --global core.pager delta
git config --global interactive.diffFilter 'delta --color-only'
git config --global delta.navigate true
git config --global merge.conflictStyle zdiff3

Try it:

• Linux & MacOS

  brew install git-delta
  # or
  sudo apt install delta
  # or
  cargo install git-delta
  

• Windows via Scoop

  scoop install delta
  

• See more options and configuration

Final Words

There are many other programs that exist but these are the ones I use myself on my daily workflow.

Reference: Modern-Unix