Arul

Posted on Mar 17

cmd-table vs cli-table3 — the best Node.js CLI table library in 2026

#opensource #node #typescript #cli

If you've built a Node.js CLI tool, you've probably used cli-table3 or table to render terminal tables. They work fine — but both haven't been updated in over a year, and they're missing the features modern CLI tools need.

I built cmd-table as a standalone, TypeScript-first alternative. Here's why.

The problem

	cli-table3	table	cmd-table
Last updated	2+ years ago	1+ year ago	This week
Dependencies	3	6	0
Interactive TUI	No	No	Yes
Sparklines / Heatmaps	No	No	Yes
SQL / SQLite browsing	No	No	Yes
CSV / HTML parsing	No	No	Yes
Pivot tables	No	No	Yes
Progress bars	No	No	Yes
Tree view	No	No	Yes
Diff tables	No	No	Yes
Export (MD/CSV/JSON/HTML)	No	No	Yes
TypeScript-first	Partial	Yes	Yes

The top two CLI table libraries have 23M+ weekly downloads combined, mostly from being transitive dependencies of other tools. They're stable but stagnant. If you're starting a new project in 2026, you deserve better.

Install

npm install cmd-table

No extra dependencies. That's it.

Quick start — under 30 seconds

import { Table } from 'cmd-table';

const table = new Table();
table.addColumn('Name');
table.addColumn('Role');
table.addColumn('Status');

table.addRow({ Name: 'Alice', Role: 'Dev', Status: 'Active' });
table.addRow({ Name: 'Bob', Role: 'PM', Status: 'Offline' });

console.log(table.render());

╭────────┬──────┬─────────╮
│ Name   │ Role │ Status  │
├────────┼──────┼─────────┤
│ Alice  │ Dev  │ Active  │
│ Bob    │ PM   │ Offline │
╰────────┴──────┴─────────╯

Or pipe data directly from your terminal:

echo '[{"name":"Alice","age":30},{"name":"Bob","age":25}]' | npx cmd-table
cat data.csv | npx cmd-table --interactive

5 features that cli-table3 doesn't have

1. Interactive TUI

Explore large datasets in your terminal. Search, filter, sort, select rows — all keyboard-driven:

import { Table, InteractiveTable } from 'cmd-table';

const table = new Table();
// ... add hundreds of rows ...

const interactive = new InteractiveTable(table, {
    onSelect: (rows) => console.log('Selected:', rows),
    onExit: () => process.exit(0)
});

interactive.start();

Controls:

Right/Left — page through results
s — sort by column
/ — search and filter
Space — select/deselect rows
Enter — confirm selection

No external TUI framework needed. Just call .start().

2. SQL / SQLite browsing

Browse real database tables interactively — pagination, sorting, and search at the SQL level:

import Database from 'better-sqlite3';
import { Table, AsyncInteractiveTable, SqlDataSource } from 'cmd-table';

const db = new Database('mydata.db');
const source = new SqlDataSource(db, 'employees');
const template = new Table();
template.addColumn('id');
template.addColumn('name');
template.addColumn('department');

const app = new AsyncInteractiveTable(source, template);
await app.start();

It doesn't load your entire database into memory.

3. Sparklines, Heatmaps & Progress bars

Visualize trends directly inside table cells:

import { Table, Sparkline, Heatmap, ProgressBar } from 'cmd-table';

table.addColumn({
    name: 'CPU trend', key: 'cpu',
    formatter: (v) => Sparkline.generate(JSON.parse(v))  // ▂▄█▄▂
});

table.addColumn({
    name: 'Coverage', key: 'coverage',
    minWidth: 15,
    formatter: (v) => ProgressBar.generate(Number(v), 100, { width: 10 })
    // ████████░░ 82%
});

4. Pivot tables & diff comparison

Built-in data analysis:

import { PivotTable, CrossTab, Table } from 'cmd-table';

// Aggregate data
const pivot = PivotTable.create(salesData, {
    groupBy: 'Region',
    targetColumn: 'Amount',
    algorithm: 'sum'
});

// Compare two datasets
const diff = Table.compare(oldData, newData, {
    primaryKey: 'id',
    columns: ['name', 'status', 'score']
});
// Added rows in green, removed in red, changed cells in yellow

5. Parse anything, export anywhere

import { CsvTable, HtmlTable } from 'cmd-table';

// CSV string -> Table
const t1 = CsvTable.from('name,age\nAlice,30\nBob,25');

// HTML table -> Table
const t2 = HtmlTable.from('<table><tr><td>Data</td></tr></table>');

// Export to any format
console.log(t1.export('md'));    // Markdown
console.log(t1.export('csv'));   // CSV
console.log(t1.export('json'));  // JSON

Migrating from cli-table3

If you're already using cli-table3, switching is straightforward:

Before (cli-table3):

import Table from 'cli-table3';

const table = new Table({
    head: ['Name', 'Age'],
    colWidths: [20, 10]
});
table.push(['Alice', 30], ['Bob', 25]);
console.log(table.toString());

After (cmd-table):

import { Table } from 'cmd-table';

const table = new Table();
table.addColumn({ name: 'Name', minWidth: 20 });
table.addColumn({ name: 'Age', minWidth: 10 });
table.addRow({ Name: 'Alice', Age: 30 });
table.addRow({ Name: 'Bob', Age: 25 });
console.log(table.render());

What you gain: interactive TUI, sparklines, formatters, exports, themes, and everything else — for free.

Full feature list

7+ built-in themes (Rounded, Honeywell, DoubleLine, BoldBox, Dots, Void, etc.)
ANSI colors for headers, columns, rows
colSpan, rowSpan, auto-sizing, word-wrap
Responsive column hiding by priority
Tree view with automatic indentation
Auto-merge identical adjacent cells
Header groups (super-headers spanning columns)
Footers and aggregation summaries
Per-column formatter callbacks
Conditional row coloring (rowColor)
Transpose tables (flip rows and columns)
Streaming renderer for large datasets
JSX/React declarative syntax
CLI tool for piping JSON/CSV data
TypeScript-first with full type definitions

Links

If this looks useful, a star on GitHub helps others find it. Contributions welcome

What do you use for CLI tables? Have you hit limitations with cli-table3 or table? Let me know in the comments.

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