Unix style terminals for Windows

If you like to use Unix style terminals on Windows, it’s pretty sure you would if you have used one, there are many of them for you to choose. Let’s talk about a few great terminals from simple to complicated ones.

For a quick view:

  • Git for Windows or Cmder, if you just want a simple and good-to-use Unix style terminal.
  • Cygwin, if you want more build tool utilities, like GNU make.

Cmder (A handy and portable terminal)

A portable console emulator for Windows. It comes with Git bash.

One big feature is it is portable (unzip and start using it), you can even put it in an USB which is great for workshops.

It is based on some other open-source projects, like:

It has no package manager.

Size: Mini ~7.8MB , Full(with Git for Windows) ~100MB or ~52MB 7z.

Git for Windows (No matter you use Git or not)

If you have installed Git for Windows (which contains Git bash), you already have a good terminal on Windows. In fact, it is more than just a terminal for Git. Git for Windows packages many utilities from GNU and other projects that you can run in Git bash, such as find, curl, perl , even a text editor nano, etc. See more on tricks for Git bash on Windows.

And you can add more utility commands to Git bash to make it a more powerful terminal.

Size: ~50M (v2.28)

Cygwin (a more complete package with build tools)

If you are interested in more complete package with build tools, check Gygwin. Obviously, it has more utilities than Git bash. As its official site says, it is a large collection of GNU and Open Source tools which provide functionality similar to a Linux distribution on Windows.

It has a package manager.

In fact, Git for Windows relies on a modified MSYS2 which then based on a modified version of Cygwin.

More resources

More powerful solutions for a Linux environment

The Windows Subsystem for Linux lets developers run a GNU/Linux environment – including most command-line tools, utilities, and applications – directly on Windows, unmodified, without the overhead of a traditional virtual machine or dualboot setup.

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