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regular expressions 101 VS rubular

Compare regular expressions 101 VS rubular and see what are their differences

regular expressions 101 logo regular expressions 101

Extensive regex tester and debugger with highlighting for PHP, PCRE, Python and JavaScript.

rubular logo rubular

A ruby based regular expression editor
  • regular expressions 101 Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-30
  • rubular Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-19

regular expressions 101 features and specs

  • Interactive Learning
    Regex101 provides an interactive environment where users can test and learn regular expressions in real-time, making the learning process more engaging and practical.
  • Extensive Documentation
    The site offers extensive documentation and references for different regular expression flavors (PCRE, JavaScript, Python, and Golang), facilitating easy access to syntax and usage examples.
  • Error Highlighting
    Regex101 highlights errors in your regular expressions and provides explanations, which helps users quickly identify and correct mistakes.
  • Quick Reference
    A quick reference guide is available on the platform, which helps users look up common regular expression tokens and their meanings without leaving the page.
  • Saved Workspaces
    Users can save their regular expressions and test cases in workspaces, making it convenient to revisit and continue working on them at a later time.
  • Community Support
    The platform has community features wherein users can share their regular expressions and get feedback or suggestions from others.

Possible disadvantages of regular expressions 101

  • Limited to Browser
    Regex101 is a web-based tool, and its usage is restricted to browsers with internet access, limiting its offline availability and performance in a development environment.
  • User Interface Complexity
    For beginners, the user interface can be somewhat overwhelming due to the numerous options and features available, leading to a steeper learning curve.
  • Performance Limitations
    While sufficient for most use cases, Regex101 may struggle with very large datasets or extremely complex regular expressions, causing performance issues.
  • Dependency on External Product
    Relying on an external service means users are dependent on the platform's availability and continued maintenance, which can be a risk if the service goes down or changes significantly.
  • Potential Overreliance
    Frequent use of Regex101 for developing regular expressions may lead to an overreliance on the tool, potentially hindering the development of strong, intrinsic regex skills.

rubular features and specs

  • Immediate Feedback
    Rubular provides instantaneous feedback on your regex patterns, making it easier to see if your regular expressions are correct and behaving as expected.
  • Simple Interface
    The website has a straightforward and easy-to-use interface that allows users to paste text and immediately test their regex.
  • Ruby-Based
    Rubular utilizes Ruby for regex testing, which is beneficial for Ruby developers who want to ensure their regex works correctly in that specific language context.
  • Offline Syntax Help
    The site offers a built-in regex syntax help section, which can be invaluable for both beginners and experienced users who need a quick reference.

Possible disadvantages of rubular

  • Limited Language Support
    Rubular is designed for Ruby, which means that regular expressions tested on Rubular may not behave the same way in other programming languages.
  • Lack of Advanced Features
    Advanced functionalities such as detailed debugging, regex optimization tips, and visual explanations are missing, which can be a disadvantage for more complex regex tasks.
  • No Saved Sessions
    The site doesn't offer a way to save your session or patterns, making it harder to manage and share multiple regex tests over time.
  • No Collaboration Tools
    Rubular lacks collaboration features such as shared workspace or real-time editing, which would benefit teams working on regex patterns together.

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to regular expressions 101 and rubular)
Regular Expressions
79 79%
21% 21
Programming Tools
83 83%
17% 17
Productivity
87 87%
13% 13
Development
47 47%
53% 53

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, regular expressions 101 seems to be a lot more popular than rubular. While we know about 881 links to regular expressions 101, we've tracked only 36 mentions of rubular. 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.

regular expressions 101 mentions (881)

  • Regex Isn't Hard (2023)
    In practice, the first unpaired ] is treated as an ordinary character (at least according to https://regex101.com/) - which does nothing to make this regex fit for its intended purpose. I'm not sure whether this is according to spec. (I think it is, though that does not really matter compared to what the implementations actually do.) Characters which are sometimes special, depending on context, are one more thing... - Source: Hacker News / 11 days ago
  • Regex Isn't Hard (2023)
    > unreadable once written (to me anyway) https://regex101.com can explain your regex back to you. - Source: Hacker News / 11 days ago
  • Catching Trailing Spaces - A Superhero's Story!
    To try out our newfound regex, I will use the website called RegEx101. It's a superhero favourite, so you better bookmark it for later 🔖. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • How I accidentally wrote a simple Markdown editor
    Let's break it down a bit. You can use Regex101 to follow me. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • 22 Unique Developer Resources You Should Explore
    URL: https://regex101.com What it does: Test and debug regular expressions with instant explanations. Why it's great: Simplifies regex learning and ensures patterns work as intended. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
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rubular mentions (36)

  • Ask HN: How did you learn Regex?
    I read a lot on https://www.regular-expressions.info and experimented on https://rubular.com since I was also learning Ruby at the time. https://regexr.com is another good tool that breaks down your regex and matches. One of the things I remember being difficult at the beginning was the subtle differences between implementations, like `^` meaning "beginning of line" in Ruby (and others) but meaning "beginning of... - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • Building a syntax highlighting extension for VS Code
    As a ruby developer, I was happy to find that VS Code / TextMate grammar files use the same regular expression engine called Oniguruma as ruby itself. Thus, I could be sure that when trying my regular expressions in my favorite online regex tool, rubular.com, there would be no inconsistencies due to the engine inner workings. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Data cleaning problem
    In my testing on a couple of regex testers (https://rubular.com/ & https://regex101.com/) this seems to select the postcode correctly each time. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Anchor
    Copied from Rubular ( a nice tool to test regexes ):. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Advice on preparing for the Alteryx Advanced Exam?
    To add on to this from a regex perspective - I find regex to be invaluable in my workflows. Once you learn the basics I always test and debug my strings using https://rubular.com because it has string hints at the bottom that are readily available. Source: over 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing regular expressions 101 and rubular, you can also consider the following products

RegExr - RegExr.com is an online tool to learn, build, and test Regular Expressions.

Expresso - The award-winning Expresso editor is equally suitable as a teaching tool for the beginning user of regular expressions or as a full-featured development environment for the experienced programmer with an extensive knowledge of regular expressions.

Regex Crossword - Welcome to the fantastic world of nerdy regex fun!

RegEx Generator - RegEx Generator is a simple-to-use application that comes with the brilliance of intuitive regex and is also helping you out to test the regex.

RegexPlanet Ruby - RegexPlanet offers a free-to-use Regular Expression Test Page to help you check RegEx in Ruby free-of-cost.

i Hate Regex - regex cheatsheet for the haters