11 Fish Shell Features That Make it More Awesome Than Bash

Web browser tab showing various settings for the Fish shell. The prompt settings are in focus, with various settings that can be chosen to change the prompt.

Bash is not the only command line shell out there. There are many other shells available with slightly different feature sets. A few examples are Zsh, Fish, Ksh are Xonsh. You can have more than one shell installed on your system at any given time.

Bash the most common shell. Zsh is the most popular one among developers. But Fish is the most underrated one.

I posted last about Fish in 2020 (and looking now, it was a really basic post that did not do it justice at all). Although Bash can be tweaked a bit, Fish has these various features ready to use by default. It really makes me wonder why Fish is actually not the default bash shell, especially for new Linux users. Some of its useful features make the shell a lot more friendly place to be.

The features that are expanded on in the linked article are:

  • Syntax highlighting
  • Autosuggestions
  • Interactive man page for command options
  • Abbreviations instead of aliases
  • Extensive web-based help
  • Web-based configuration
  • Automatic CD
  • Easier path navigation
  • Interactive history search
  • Universal variables
  • Private Mode
  • Simple Multiline command edit using ALT+Enter

See https://itsfoss.com/fish-shell-features/