ripgrep
Fast recursive command-line search tool (rg) that respects .gitignore, written in Rust.
Commenters like it for very fast plain-text search across large codebases and note collections123, and as a building block for scripts and AI agent tooling.456 Complaints are rare; one commenter went back to plain grep because rg is often missing on servers they SSH into.7
Why people recommend it
Speed · 3
Commenters single out how fast it searches, even across many gigabytes of code.
“Here I use ripgrep to search every piece of code I have checked out, around 11GB of data (more or less) in 0.2s”
“what I really like is how fast it is”
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“stop using grep, RIPGREP IS FASTER!”
Agent tooling · 3
Used as the text-search layer that LLM agents and AI harnesses call directly.
“ripgrep is already showing how much more usable it is this way.”
“FTS5 + BM25 + Ripgrep for text search”
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“They use command-line tools (find, ripgrep) to analyze your vault”
Core CLI kit · 3
Listed among the modern command-line tools people install alongside fd, fzf and fish.
“Fish, zoxide, tmux, helix, ripgrep, fd-find, htop. There are many more, but these are the ones that I enjoy using.”
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“like `rg` instead of GNU grep or `fd` instead of GNU findutils”
Notes search · 3
Used to grep personal text indexes, snippets and note vaults.
“plenty fast even with years of history and ripgrep, and comes in handy often”
“then fd/rg to find what you're looking for”
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“easily searchable later (nvALT/Obsidian, ripgrep, etc.)”
Smart defaults · 2
Sensible defaults and file filtering cut noise from searches.
“what I really like is how fast it is”
“Two I use daily: rg --hidden -g '!*.lock' to skip noise”
Documentation · 2
The author's writing and documentation on how ripgrep works are praised.
“it doesn’t just describe how ripgrep works but also how all the other tools work”
“High level: ripgrep [3].”
Caveats and dissent
Not preinstalled · 1
One commenter returned to grep because rg is often missing on remote servers.
“I tried switching to the latest and greatest replacements, such as ack or ripgrep for grep, or httpie for curl, just to always return to the default options.”
Reimplements grep · 1
One commenter objected that it reimplements grep logic rather than wrapping system grep.
“source-code-aware search tools like ripgrep (rg), ack etc. - But these tools reimplement grep logic!”
Speed rarely matters · 1
One commenter only reaches for rg over grep on very large files.
“I use grep a lot in an ad hoc manner on really large files I switch to rg.”
Often compared with
Who recommends it in their own words
Threads where it came up
- Ripgrep is faster than {grep, ag, Git grep, ucg, pt, sift} 3 mentions
- Small programming tricks 2 mentions
- Local Indexing to reduce tool calling and token usage 1 mention
- Hister: A private search engine for the pages you visit and the files you keep 1 mention
- Bitap: My favorite string matching algorithm 1 mention
- "Code was never the hard part" is an insult to all programmers 1 mention
Data: ripgrep.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 26
“Here I use ripgrep to search every piece of code I have checked out, around 11GB of data (more or less) in 0.2s”
“plenty fast even with years of history and ripgrep, and comes in handy often”
“ripgrep, fdfind”
“Two I use daily: rg --hidden -g '!*.lock' to skip noise”
“High level: ripgrep [3].”
“what I really like is how fast it is”
“source-code-aware search tools like ripgrep (rg), ack etc. - But these tools reimplement grep logic!”
“use ripgrep (Can't beat good ol' plain text search)”
“easily searchable later (nvALT/Obsidian, ripgrep, etc.)”
“With no Emacs, I use `ripgrep` (sometimes with fd for the file candidates) and `less`.”
“ripgrep + tree-sitter implementation”
“FTS5 + BM25 + Ripgrep for text search”
“stop using grep, RIPGREP IS FASTER!”
“there was a post about how ripgrep worked”
“using jq, ripgrep, and the messages[2] flagged in the stop guard script”
“Fish, zoxide, tmux, helix, ripgrep, fd-find, htop. There are many more, but these are the ones that I enjoy using.”
“and then ag (silver surfer) and then rg (ripgrep).”
“I use grep a lot in an ad hoc manner on really large files I switch to rg.”
“I tried switching to the latest and greatest replacements, such as ack or ripgrep for grep, or httpie for curl, just to always return to the default options.”
“after switching to rg everything was plain sailing and I've been happy with it since.”
“it doesn’t just describe how ripgrep works but also how all the other tools work”
“a metrics script which primarily uses ripgrep to search for matches of configured regexes”
“They use command-line tools (find, ripgrep) to analyze your vault”
“then fd/rg to find what you're looking for”
“like `rg` instead of GNU grep or `fd` instead of GNU findutils”
“ripgrep is already showing how much more usable it is this way.”