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Nu Shell VS Oh My Zsh

Compare Nu Shell VS Oh My Zsh and see what are their differences

Nu Shell logo Nu Shell

A modern shell written in Rust

Oh My Zsh logo Oh My Zsh

A delightful community-driven framework for managing your zsh configuration.
  • Nu Shell Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-21
  • Oh My Zsh Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-19

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.

Oh My Zsh features and specs

  • Plugin Ecosystem
    Oh My Zsh offers a wide variety of plugins that extend the functionality of your shell, including git integration, syntax highlighting, and auto-suggestions.
  • Themes
    It provides a rich collection of themes that allow you to customize the look and feel of your terminal, making it visually appealing and easier to use.
  • Community Support
    With a large, active community, users can find a wealth of resources, tutorials, and support for troubleshooting and expanding their Zsh configuration.
  • Ease of Use
    Oh My Zsh simplifies the management of Zsh configurations through a straightforward installation process and easy-to-use commands for adding and removing plugins and themes.
  • Highly Configurable
    Even though it simplifies many aspects of Zsh, Oh My Zsh still allows for deep customization tailored to individual workflow needs.

Possible disadvantages of Oh My Zsh

  • Performance Overheads
    Using Oh My Zsh can slow down shell startup time, especially if many plugins or a complex theme are enabled.
  • Over-reliance on Plugins
    Users may become dependent on Oh My Zsh's extensive plugin system, which could discourage them from learning and understanding native Zsh scripting.
  • Potential for Conflicts
    Adding multiple plugins and custom scripts can lead to conflicts and bugs, making the shell environment unstable or unpredictable.
  • Large Install Size
    The framework with all its plugins and themes can take up a significant amount of disk space, which may be a consideration for users with limited storage.
  • Updates and Maintenance
    Regular updates are necessary to keep the system secure and up-to-date, which can be a hassle for users who prefer a 'set it and forget it' approach.

Analysis of Oh My Zsh

Overall verdict

  • Oh My Zsh is generally considered a good choice for those who frequently use the command line, offering both convenience and powerful customization options. However, some users might find it to be overly complex if they prefer a minimal or lightweight setup.

Why this product is good

  • Oh My Zsh is a popular framework for managing the Zsh configuration. It offers a wide range of plugins and themes that enhance and customize the user experience of the terminal. It simplifies many complex tasks through its extensive set of features and is maintained by a large community, which ensures its reliability and frequent updates.

Recommended for

  • Developers who want to improve their command line experience with additional features.
  • Users who appreciate having a wide selection of themes and plugins to personalize their terminal environment.
  • Individuals looking for a community-supported and regularly updated framework.

Nu Shell videos

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Oh My Zsh videos

You Really Don't Need Oh My Zsh And Here's Why (Rant)

More videos:

  • Review - Working with Linux - Terminal, Zsh & Oh My Zsh
  • Review - Uninstall Oh My ZSH Right Now And Do This Instead

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Nu Shell and Oh My Zsh)
Cryptocurrencies
61 61%
39% 39
Developer Tools
15 15%
85% 85
Blockchain
100 100%
0% 0
Programming
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Nu Shell and Oh My Zsh

Nu Shell Reviews

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Oh My Zsh Reviews

  1. Stan
    · Founder at SaaSHub ·
    Indispensable

    This has become an indispensable tool for me. One of the first thing to install on a new computer.

    🏁 Competitors: GNU Bourne Again SHell, fish shell

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Oh My Zsh should be more popular than Nu Shell. It has been mentiond 74 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.

Nu Shell mentions (41)

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Oh My Zsh mentions (74)

  • Installing Terraform
    To start this re-learning journey, I feel like I should start with setting up a VPC on my AWS account. I already have an account so I will not be writing about that. However, since I want to do all of this via IaC, I need to setup Terraform. Luckily for me, this is a new laptop so I have nothing setup on it, besides iTerm2. Btw, I am using https://ohmyz.sh/ for my shell, so shout out to that team. This is what... - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Bash vs. Zsh: Key differences and when to use each
    Oh My Zsh is an open-source Zsh framework used to add extra functionalities for Zsh, turbocharging the entire Zsh user experience. Oh My Zsh’s extra advanced features cause users who frequently use the terminal to gravitate towards Zsh. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • Switching from tmux to Zellij
    That's it! Happy CLI mastery with Zellij, Oh My zsh and Alacritty! - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • The easiest way to set up and configure your AWS CLI
    If you are using Oh My ZSH as your shell of choice, you can add plugins=(... Aws ) to your .zshrc / profile and besides having autocomplete for the AWS CLI you will also immediately see in the terminal window what is the current AWS profile you are logged in. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • My Terminal Setup for 2025 🚀
    ZSH and Oh My ZSH offer superpowers to your terminal thanks to its customization and wide variety of plugins. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Nu Shell and Oh My Zsh, you can also consider the following products

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

Prezto - Prezto is the configuration framework for Zsh; it enriches the command line interface environment...

fish shell - The friendly interactive shell.

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.

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.

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