From the 2022 publication of my article Top-popular Zsh plug-ins, there has been a significant increase in the Awesome Zsh projects . It has grown from 800+ to 1800+. This article lists top-rated tools that may be of interest to Zsh users, or in most cases console users. They can be divided into four groups:

• Tools are general tools that console enthusiasts love, and in most cases they don't limit themselves to Zsh.
• Frameworks – tools to manage Zsh configurations and plugins
• Prompts Projects that allow you to set up shell prompts
• Python Tools - Tools that make it easy to work in Python virtual environments

GitHub Stars is a measure of project popularity

The number of stars is one way to gauge project popularity. Stars are often used by GitHub users to bookmark interesting projects and return to them later. Star gazers are people who mark a project with stars. To extract the most popular plugin projects, I used stars.

The top-rated plugins in November 2022

linkdescription of the Github project repostars thefuck Magnificent app which corrects your previous console command.64.9k fzf A command-line fuzzy finder40.6k bat A cat(1) clone with wings.30.5k ripgrep ripgrep recursively searches directories for a regex pattern while respecting your gitignore28.3k powerlevel10k A Zsh theme22.9k zsh-autosuggestions Fish-like autosuggestions for zsh19.4k solarized precision color scheme for multiple applications (terminal, vim, etc.) with both dark/light modes15.0k diff-so-fancy Good-lookin' diffs. Actually… nah… The best-lookin' diffs.14.8k z z - jump around13.7k powerlevel9k Powerlevel9k was a tool for building a beautiful and highly functional CLI, customized for you. P9k had a substantial impact on CLI UX, and its legacy is now continued by P10k.13.3k autojump A cd command that learns - easily navigate directories from the command line13.2k zsh-syntax-highlighting Fish shell-like syntax highlighting for Zsh.13.1k asdf Extendable version manager with support for Ruby, Node.js, Elixir, Erlang & more12.4k ctop Top-like interface for container metrics12.1k kubectx Faster way to switch between clusters and namespaces in kubectl11.8k tmuxinator Manage complex tmux sessions easily11.0k tig Text-mode interface for git10.4k navi An interactive cheatsheet tool for the command-line10.0k peco Simplistic interactive filtering tool6.6k

1 . diff-so-fancy

It is also known as diff-so fancy and aims to make diffs more human-readable than machine-readable. This improves code quality, helps you spot defects quicker, and does exactly what it says. The screenshot shows vanilla Git diff vs. Git and not-so-fancy .

You may have noticed that there are differences not only at the line level, but also at the character level.

2. tig

Tig is an ncurses-based interface for git. It is primarily used to browse Git repositories, but it can also be used to help with staging commits at the chunk level. Tig can be used to create staging files and interact with them.

You can interact with the main view to browse commit history or jump into inspecting a specific commit.

It is second only to git-gui, but it is my favorite tool to stage git changes.

Frameworks

Here's a quick overview of the most popular frameworks that allow you to configure and add plugins for Zsh. Oh my-zsh has 10x more stars than the closest competitor prezto .

link	description	stars
ohmyzsh	A delightful community-driven (with 1900+ contributors) framework for managing your Zsh configuration. Includes 300+ optional plugins (rails, git, macOS, hub, docker, homebrew, node, php, python, etc), 140+ themes to spice up your morning, and an auto-update tool that makes it easy to keep up with the latest updates from the community.	136.8k
prezto	The configuration framework for Zsh	12.4k
antigen	The plugin manager for Zsh.	6.8k
zimfw	Zim: Modular, customizable, and blazing fast Zsh framework	2.2k
dotzsh	A community-driven framework for Zsh	193
alf	Alf is an out-of-this-world super fast and configurable framework for Zsh; it's modeled after Prezto and Antigen while utilizing Oh My Zsh under the covers; and offers standard defaults, aliases, functions, auto-completion, automated updates, and installable prompt themes and plugins.	88

Prompts

NOTICE: Powerlevel9k and powerlevel10k are popular theme managers that offer highly configurable prompts, but they are not included here.

link	description	stars
starship	The minimal, blazing-fast, and infinitely customizable prompt for any shell!	20.1k
spaceship-prompt	A Zsh prompt for Astronauts	15.6k
pure	Pretty, minimal, and fast ZSH prompt	10.8k
bash-git-prompt	An informative and fancy bash prompt for Git users	6.1k
powerline-shell	A beautiful and useful prompt for your shell	5.7k
liquidprompt	A full-featured & carefully designed adaptive prompt for Bash & Zsh	4.1k
oh-my-git	An opinionated git prompt for bash and zsh	3.5k
kube-ps1	Kubernetes prompt info for bash and zsh	2.5k
powerline-go	A beautiful and useful low-latency prompt for your shell, written in go	2.3k
zsh-git-prompt	Informative git prompt for Zsh	1.5k
gitstatus	Git status for Bash and Zsh prompt	1.2k
geometry	geometry is a minimal, fully customizable, and composable zsh prompt theme	0.8k
typewritten	A minimal, lightweight, informative zsh prompt theme	0.6k

Python tools

Because Python is my favorite language, I added a section that allows me to manage virtual environments.

link	description	stars
pew	A tool to manage multiple virtual environments written in pure python	1.1k
zsh-autoswitch-virtualenv	ZSH plugin to automatically switch python virtualenvs (including pipenv and poetry) as you move between directories	0.3k

Last words

It's amazing to see how many startups are growing. The IT industry includes more people each day. Many of these people want to improve their work environment. For those who work in console, you might want to take a look at the helper tool pages Awesome Zsh plugs and Terminals are Sexy . This article was created to bring attention to projects that have been receiving a lot of attention. It also adds value to the amazing lists that are arranged alphabetically, without any information about the number of stars.