Awesome userland tools

Unix core utilities

BSD versions

• DragonFly BSD
• FreeBSD
• NetBSD
• OpenBSD

GNU/Linux versions

• coreutils
• diffutils
• findutils
• util-linux

Low-memory versions

• BusyBox
• Toybox
• suckless base
• Heirloom Project

Versions written in memory-safe languages

• go-coreutils (Go)
• mesabox (Rust)
• uutils (Rust)

Shells

Bourne-compatible shells

• sh (POSIX shell)
• bash (GNU Bourne-again shell)
• ash (Almquist shell)
• dash (Debian Almquist shell)
• ksh93 (Korn shell)
• pdksh (Public domain Korn shell)
• mksh (MirBSD ksh)
• zsh (Z shell)

Other Unix shells

• rc (Plan 9 shell)
• BSD csh (C Shell)
• tcsh (TENEX-inspired C shell)
• fish (Friendly interactive shell)

Windows/DOS shells

• command.com (MS-DOS shell)
• FreeCOM (FreeDOS version of command.com)
• Microsoft Windows command interpreter (cmd.exe, .bat)
• Microsoft PowerShell (pwsh, .ps1)

Other de facto standard tools

Runoff family text formatters

• groff
• mandoc
• nroff
• troff

Awk language interpreters

• One true awk
• Mawk
• Nawk
• Gawk

Lex/yacc parser generators

• Lex
• Flex
• Bison

Make build tool

• POSIX make
• BSD make
• GNU make (gmake)
• Microsoft Visual Studio nmake
• Open Watcom make

Compression and archiving

• bzip2
• compress
• gzip
• tar
• xz

Internet

• bind-utils (DNS)

Other

• file -- darwinsys, OpenBSD
• patch
• rsync -- original, OpenBSD
• ssh, scp -- OpenSSH

C standard library

• GNU libc (aka glibc)
• BSD libc
  • DragonFly BSD
  • FreeBSD
  • NetBSD
  • OpenBSD
• Lightweight
  • Bionic libc
  • musl libc
  • diet libc
  • uClibc
  • Newlib
  • Public Domain C Library