ugrep

What hackers pick instead

• ripgrepA much faster grep replacement for searching codebases, also widely used by AI coding agents; the main caveat is its default skipping of gitignored and hidden files.122recommend
• ast-grepA syntax-aware command-line tool for searching and refactoring code without regex headaches, which people also expose to AI agents as a skill. Some report mixed results.21recommend
• SembleDevelopers recommend Semble for fast local code search that needs fewer tokens and queries than grep. Critics question how the token savings are measured.20recommend
• Graft (Claude Code hooks)People recommend it for giving coding agents a map of the code that searches inside files rather than by names, cutting tokens and latency. Critics say the benchmarks are thin and the README reads as generated.13recommend
• Lat.mdRecommended as a Markdown knowledge graph that helps AI agents search code faster than grep. Main caveat: critics want proof of better performance.11recommend

Every quote

The 5 most detailed of 6 comments. Each links to the original.

1. ugrep will get you most of the way there relative to gnu grep, and should be fully grep compatible in terms of syntax

   Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Is Grep All You Need? How Agent Harnesses Reshape Agentic Search”

2. upgrep, which is quite a good project

   Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Ripgrep is faster than {grep, ag, Git grep, ucg, pt, sift}”

3. This is what my default grep is.

   Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Ripgrep is faster than {grep, ag, Git grep, ucg, pt, sift}”

4. I recall that it was also very close in performance.

   Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Ripgrep is faster than {grep, ag, Git grep, ucg, pt, sift}”

5. approximate matches are insanely useful

   Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Ripgrep is faster than {grep, ag, Git grep, ucg, pt, sift}”