fish

User-friendly command-line shell with autosuggestions and syntax highlighting out of the box.

Verified facts: 4 of 4
Alternatives ranked: 5
Approved reviews: 0
Visits sent from here: 0

About fish

fish, the friendly interactive shell, is an alternative to bash and zsh that focuses on working well without configuration. As you type, it suggests commands from your history and completions, highlights syntax and errors in colour, and offers rich tab completions generated from man pages. It has a cleaner scripting language with fewer quoting surprises, abbreviations that expand as you type, and a web-based configuration page for colours and prompts. Version 4 rewrote the shell in Rust. fish runs on Linux, macOS, the BSDs and Windows through WSL or Cygwin, and it is free and open source under the GPL. The main trade-off is that fish is not POSIX compatible, so bash scripts and copy-pasted snippets often need changes or must be run with bash, and some tools only ship setup instructions for bash and zsh.

Best for: People who want a helpful interactive shell without spending time on configuration.

What works

Autosuggestions and syntax highlighting with zero setup
Cleaner, more consistent scripting language
Web-based configuration for colours and prompts

Why people leave

Not POSIX compatible, so bash scripts need changes
Some tools document only bash and zsh setup
Smaller plugin ecosystem than zsh

Top fish alternatives

See all 5

1
Zsh
POSIX-like shell that can gain fish-style features through plugins.
66.5
2
Nushell
Modern shell that treats command output as structured data.
62.6
3
Bash
The most compatible choice for scripts and servers.
59.6
4
Starship
Fast prompt that works the same across fish, zsh and bash.
57.2
5
xonsh
Python-based shell for people who think in Python.
55.3

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fish: common questions

Is fish free?

Yes. fish is free, open-source software.

Is fish open source?

Yes. The source code is on GitHub at fish-shell/fish-shell.

What platforms does fish run on?

fish is available for Linux and macOS.

What are the best alternatives to fish?

The highest-ranked fish alternatives right now are Zsh, Nushell and Bash. See the full ranked list for pricing, platforms and verified facts.

See all 5 fish alternatives

fish facts

4 of 4 verified

Description: Smart, user-friendly shell for Linux and macOS; Checked Oct 25, 2026fishshell.com(opens source in a new tab); “fish is a smart and user-friendly command line shell for Linux, macOS, and the rest of the family.”
Autosuggestions: From history and completions; Checked Oct 25, 2026fishshell.com(opens source in a new tab); “Reads Your Mind fish suggests commands as you type based on history and completions, just like a web browser.”
Web configuration: Yes; Checked Oct 25, 2026fishshell.com(opens source in a new tab); “set your colors and view functions, variables, and history all from a web page.”
Out of the box: Syntax highlighting and completions; Checked Oct 25, 2026fishshell.com(opens source in a new tab); “tab completions and syntax highlighting that just work.”