Amazing Rust Tools for Non-Rust Developers¶

Rust is slowly and steadily taking over the tools space. It has been the most admired programming language among developers for several years and for a good reason: the blazingly fast speed.

Here are some of my favorites.

File & Directory Operations¶

Tool	Replaces	Why It's Better
bat	`cat`	Syntax highlighting, git integration, line numbers
ripgrep (rg)	`grep`	10x faster, respects `.gitignore`, smarter defaults
fd	`find`	Intuitive syntax, colorized output, ignores hidden files by default
eza	`ls`	Icons, git status, tree view, beautiful colors

Modern Shell Experience¶

Tool	What It Does
starship	Cross-shell prompt that's fast and infinitely customizable
zoxide	Smarter `cd` — learns your habits and jumps to directories by partial name
atuin	Magical shell history with sync, search, and stats

Developer Essentials¶

Tool	What It Does
just	A better `make` for running project commands
delta	Beautiful git diffs with syntax highlighting
hyperfine	Benchmarking CLI commands with statistical analysis
tokei	Count lines of code, fast

Python Tooling (by Astral)¶

The Astral team is rewriting Python's tooling in Rust. If you write Python, these are game-changers:

Tool	Replaces	Why It's Better
uv	`pip`, `venv`, `poetry`	10-100x faster package installs, unified tool for packages + environments
ruff	`flake8`, `black`, `isort`	Linter + formatter in one, 100x faster than alternatives
ty	`mypy`, `pyright`	Type checker that's 10-100x faster, with built-in LSP

Editors¶

Tool	What It Does
fresh	Terminal editor with GUI-like UX — opens 2GB files in 600ms using <40MB RAM

Config & Git Hooks¶

Tool	Replaces	Why It's Better
tombi	`taplo`	TOML language server, formatter, and linter with JSON Schema validation
prek	`pre-commit`	10x faster hook installation, single binary, monorepo support

Data & Text Processing¶

Tool	Replaces	Why It's Better
jq (not Rust, but...)	—	JSON processor (mention for completeness)
jaq	`jq`	Rust clone of jq, faster and more correct
sd	`sed`	Intuitive find-and-replace, no escaping hell
xsv	—	Lightning-fast CSV toolkit

Quick Install (macOS)¶

brew install ripgrep fd eza bat starship zoxide just delta hyperfine sd uv ruff

Quick Install (via uv)¶

If you already have uv, you can install the Python-oriented tools:

uv tool install ruff ty prek

Most Rust tools distribute standalone binaries — no runtime dependencies, no virtual environments, just download and run.

Pro tip: Alias these in your shell config for muscle memory:
alias ls='eza'
alias cat='bat'
alias find='fd'
alias grep='rg'