Linux power users often live in the terminal, but even the most seasoned developers might miss out on some hidden gems. Here are 10 command-line tools that can dramatically boost your efficiency, streamline workflows, and enhance your system interactions. These tools go beyond grep, awk, and htop—they’re designed to make your terminal experience smarter, faster, and more productive.

1. fd – A Simpler, Faster Alternative to find

fd is a user-friendly, blazing-fast alternative to the classic find command. It supports regex, colors, smart case matching, and respects .gitignore by default. Its syntax is incredibly simple:

fd config ~/projects

This would search for any file containing “config” under your projects directory—clean, intuitive, and quick.

2. bat – Syntax-Highlighting cat Replacement

bat enhances cat by adding syntax highlighting, line numbers, and Git integration for modified lines. It’s ideal for previewing scripts, configs, and logs:

bat ~/.bashrc

Use it with tools like fzf or delta for even more power.

3. tldr – Community-Curated Command Examples

man pages are comprehensive but often overwhelming. tldr provides simplified, community-driven examples:

tldr tar

You’ll instantly see real-world usage examples instead of scrolling through pages of flags and options.

4. dust – A Smarter du for Disk Usage

dust visualizes disk usage with a colorful tree structure. It’s much easier to digest than du -sh:

dust ~/Downloads

Great for quickly identifying space hogs.

5. ripgrep (rg) – Lightning Fast Text Search

ripgrep is like grep on steroids. It recursively searches directories with blazing speed and smart filtering:

rg "class MyService" ./src

It’s especially powerful in codebases, where speed and clarity matter.

6. broot – Interactive Tree Navigator with Fuzzy Search

broot is a terminal file navigator with fuzzy search and preview support. It combines the power of tree, cd, and fzf:

br

Use :q to quit, or :p to preview files—totally intuitive and keyboard-friendly.

7. delta – Better Git Diffs with Syntax Highlighting

Tired of boring, monochrome git diff output? delta gives you syntax-highlighted, side-by-side diffs:

git diff | delta

It integrates seamlessly with Git, improving your version control workflow dramatically.

8. httpie – User-Friendly curl for REST APIs

httpie simplifies HTTP requests for humans. It has a clean syntax and colorful output, making RESTful API testing a breeze:

http GET https://api.github.com/repos/httpie/httpie

Much easier to read and use compared to verbose curl commands.

9. fzf – Fuzzy Finder for Everything

fzf is a fuzzy file finder that can be embedded into virtually any command:

cat $(fzf)

It can also enhance tab completion, git, and even ssh. Once you integrate fzf, it’s hard to go back.

10. exa – Modern ls with Git Awareness

exa replaces ls with better defaults, colors, and Git status indicators:

exa -la --git

It even supports tree views and file type icons. It’s ls, reimagined for the 21st century.

These tools may seem small, but together they redefine how efficiently you can interact with your system. Whether you’re managing massive codebases, navigating directories, or debugging systems, there’s always room to sharpen your toolkit.

What are your favorite hidden terminal tools? How many of these have you tried—and which ones are you adding today?