Bash consoles for windows: Hyper vs Gitbash (my experience so far)

#discuss #webdev

Hi there!

Since a month ago I started working with the command line. I am a windows user (I do not intend to create a debate on Win/iOS) so I went for the two most relevant options I could find:

Pros:

GitBash: simplicity overall. It allows all UNIX commands, including the drag and drop folders to catch the URL directly.
Hyper: highly customizable regarding format, font color, font size, etc in a relatively easy way. It is cross-platform so it allows you to work under any OS. It also supports multi-tab structure so you don't have to open new apps. There are also several plugins for it.

Cons:

GitBash: it does allow some customization although not as easy as Hyper does. It does not support multi-tab so, whenever you run a server and need to keep working, you need to launch again the app.
Hyper: In my case, it keeps on suddenly closing. Which is a bit tricky when you need to quit processes before closing such a mongod. It forces you to find a workaround to close the server, etc. On the other hand, I found hyper to be more memory-consuming even in rest. Hyper also works and needs gitbash, so you will end up with both apps installed. And it needs to be configured previously in order to make it work as a bash console and not just as a Windows cmd.

Conclusion:

I am sure there is a lot more involved. My use of the console is quite basic so far. However, I found the self-closing issue of Hyper very annoying, which makes me prefer to work with gitbash. It also is less memory consuming and more stable, at least on my computer.
However, I must recognize that I like Hyper so bad! It is flexible, customizable and way more visually attractive than gitbash. But right now I have chosen to work more often with gitbash.
If you do not experience these self-closing issues and are not in a memory hurry, then I would definitely recommend Hyper.

Please feel free to share your experience with these apps, and also if you know other apps that could be used as bash consoles for Windows.

Thank you for reading!

Top comments (5)

Chardenal Matthieu • Jul 5 '19

I use cmder with Hyper so i got git-bash in my terminal ;)

Here's the conf in .hyper.js I use to make it work

{
    shellArgs: ['-i','--login', '/k', '%ConEmuDir%/../init.bat'],

    // for environment variables
    env: {
      ConEmuDir: 'C:/cmder/vendor/conemu-maximus5', // path to ConEmu used by cmder
      TERM: 'cygwin',
    },
}