# fd

20 Hacker News commenters recommended fd and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 9 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** People recommend fd as a faster, more intuitive replacement for find that respects .gitignore by default. Some note it cannot see files with malformed UTF-8.

## Why people recommend it

- Intuitive, pleasant to use (5 comments): "a much faster find with an interface that actually fits how people tend to use the tool" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49363545)) "Being able to use them intuitively trumps ubiquity, speed or features." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46363423)) "a modern replacement that’s a bit friendlier to use" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49731268))
- Faster and easier than find (4 comments): "a much faster find with an interface that actually fits how people tend to use the tool" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49363545)) "now moved everything to just rg+fd+cd+ls, much faster, easier, etc." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47634806)) "find is absolute agony once you get a taste of fd." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49735625))
- Preferred over find and grep (2 comments): "I personally use `fd` and ripgrep more often than `find` these days." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46045073)) "It is a big reason to why I prefer rg and fd over grep and find." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47530226))
- Good with LLM agents (2 comments): "It's amazing the scripts your LLM can make you with, say, fd and fzf." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49057708)) "let agents explore with `fd`/`rg`" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46266425))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [fzf](https://hackerapproved.com/p/fzf.md): 78 recommend
- [jq](https://hackerapproved.com/p/jq.md): 75 recommend
- [grep](https://hackerapproved.com/p/grep.md): 65 recommend
- [Atuin](https://hackerapproved.com/p/atuin.md): 63 recommend
- [GitHub CLI](https://hackerapproved.com/p/github-cli.md): 49 recommend

## Cite as

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