ripgrep recursively searches directories for a regex pattern while respecting your gitignore
Recursive search that respects .gitignore, much faster than ack.
alternatives to
ack
ack is a grep-like search tool optimized for source code.
Side by side
| Tool | Fit | Stars | Licence | Terms | Self-hosted | Language | Latest | Last push |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ripgrep | Full replacement | 69k | Unlicense | Open source | No | Rust | 15.2.0 | 2026-08-04 |
| ugrep | Full replacement | 3.3k | BSD-3-Clause | Open source | No | C++ | v7.8.5 | 2026-09-28 |
Every alternative
2 alternatives
🔍 ugrep 7.8 file pattern searcher -- a user-friendly, faster, more capable grep replacement. Includes a TUI, Google-like Boolean search with AND/OR/NOT, fuzzy search, hexdumps, searches (nested) archives (zip, 7z, tar, pax, cpio), compressed files (gz, Z, bz2, lzma, xz, lz4, zstd, brotli), pdfs, docs, and more
Recursive search with grep-compatible options, plus a text UI and fuzzy matching.
- Language
- C++
- Licence
- BSD-3-Clause
- Stars
- 3.3k
- Latest
- v7.8.5
- Last push
- 2026-09-28
Head to head
About ack
- Language
- Perl
- Licence
- Other
- Stars
- 830
- Last push
- 2026-09-06