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Alex Spinov
Alex Spinov

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Terminal Tools That Made Me Mass-Uninstall GUI Apps

#beginners #productivity #terminal #tutorial

Six months ago, I used Postman for API testing, a GUI Git client, pgAdmin for databases, and Finder for file management.

Today? All gone. Terminal only.

Not because I'm a purist. Because these terminal tools are genuinely faster.

The Replacements

1. httpie → Replaced Postman 

# Postman: Click... click... click... send... scroll...

# httpie:
http GET api.example.com/users Authorization:"Bearer token123"

# POST with JSON body
http POST api.example.com/users name=John email=john@test.com

# Pretty-printed, syntax-highlighted, auto-formatted
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Why it's better: Zero startup time. Copy-pasteable commands. Shareable in docs. Works in CI.

2. lazygit → Replaced Tower/GitKraken 

brew install lazygit
lazygit
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Full Git UI in your terminal. Stage files, create commits, manage branches, resolve conflicts — all with keyboard shortcuts.

Why it's better: Opens in 0.1s vs 5s for GUI. Works over SSH. Uses 10MB of RAM vs 500MB.

3. pgcli → Replaced pgAdmin 

pip install pgcli
pgcli postgresql://user:pass@localhost/mydb
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PostgreSQL client with:

  • Auto-complete table and column names
  • Syntax highlighting
  • Multi-line editing
  • History search (Ctrl+R)

4. fzf → Replaced Spotlight/Alfred for file finding 

# Find any file interactively
fzf

# Find and open in editor
vim $(fzf)

# Search command history
history | fzf

# Kill a process interactively
ps aux | fzf | awk '{print $2}' | xargs kill
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fzf is the most useful tool you're not using.

5. bat → Replaced preview/cat 

brew install bat
bat config.py
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cat but with syntax highlighting, line numbers, git diff indicators, and paging.

6. eza → Replaced ls/Finder 

brew install eza
eza -la --git --icons
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ls but with colors, icons, git status, tree view, and human-readable sizes.

7. ripgrep (rg) → Replaced grep/spotlight code search 

brew install ripgrep

# Find all TODO comments
rg TODO

# Search only Python files
rg "def process" -t py

# Search with context
rg "error" -C 3
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30x faster than grep. Respects .gitignore. Color output.

8. jq → Replaced JSON viewers 

# Pretty print
curl api.example.com/users | jq '.'

# Extract specific fields
curl api.example.com/users | jq '.[] | {name, email}'

# Filter
curl api.example.com/users | jq '.[] | select(.age > 30)'
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9. tldr → Replaced man pages 

npm install -g tldr

tldr tar
# Shows practical examples, not 500 lines of documentation
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10. dust → Replaced Disk Utility 

brew install dust
dust
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Shows disk usage as a visual tree. Find what's eating your storage in seconds.

My .zshrc Setup 

# Aliases
alias ls='eza -la --git --icons'
alias cat='bat'
alias grep='rg'
alias find='fd'
alias top='btop'
alias du='dust'
alias diff='delta'

# fzf integration
[ -f ~/.fzf.zsh ] && source ~/.fzf.zsh
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The Speed Difference

Task GUI Terminal
API test 30s (open Postman, find request, send) 5s (type command)
Git commit 15s (stage, write msg, click commit) 3s (lazygit: s, c, type, enter)
Find file 10s (Spotlight, type, click) 2s (fzf, type, enter)
Check JSON 20s (open browser, paste, format) 2s (pipe to jq)

Terminal isn't just for show. It's genuinely faster once you learn the tools.

Full List

I maintain a collection of the best developer tools:

What's the one terminal tool you can't live without? Mine is fzf — it changed everything. 👇

More tools at github.com/Spinov001

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