# Eshell

9 Hacker News commenters recommended Eshell and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Emacs' built-in shell, liked for Elisp customization, tab completion tweaks and staying in the editor's directory.

## Why people recommend it

- Customizable in Elisp and completions (2 comments): "since I can do more in elisp-land without relying on the shitshow of Windows CLI utils" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46195266)) "Eshell hacks better and I can fine tune my tab completions" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47193225))
- Praised as awesome, a killer feature (2 comments): "eshell is awesome and Ghostel is not a replacement for it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48882843)) "It's a real killer feature." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48881932))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Bash](https://hackerapproved.com/p/bash.md): 171 recommend
- [PowerShell](https://hackerapproved.com/p/powershell.md): 156 recommend
- [fish shell](https://hackerapproved.com/p/fish-shell.md): 97 recommend
- [Nushell](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nushell.md): 92 recommend
- [zsh](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zsh.md): 52 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Eshell", https://hackerapproved.com/p/eshell/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).