# zsh 52 Hacker News commenters recommended zsh and 27 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 14 years (6 owners). **Verdict:** Shell praised for scripting power, history search and fast prompts; critics find its quirks, brittle heavy configs and bugs frustrating. ## Why people recommend it - Powerful scripting and deep customization (5 comments): "Zsh has a lot of advanced stuff (at least for a shell) that can deliver pretty complex scripting" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46564039)) "Zsh has been more powerful than Bash for literally the entirety of the existence of both." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45962145)) "Zsh's flexibility allows you to trigger a calculator" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47554626)) - History search and autocompletion (4 comments): "zsh + auto complete makes your life a lot easier and you won't forget the commands." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48624539)) "zsh with incremental history search and the like was good enough" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46565118)) "Zsh history with fzf fuzzy searching is fantastic." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49730922)) - Fast startup and responsive prompt (3 comments): "I originally switched to ZSH + Oh My Shell because it opens so fast." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46564332)) "my zsh config grants me a sub 5ms prompt and a sub 1ms input lag" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48451031)) "I can strongly recommend lazy loading in zsh in general" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48449935)) - Good defaults with little setup (2 comments): "In my experience default zsh settings are good enough and require very little customization." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46563868)) "at the moment I miss nothing in my zsh" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46529688)) ## What people warn about - Heavy configs become brittle or slow (3 comments): "I used to spend a lot of time on getting ZSH both fast and feature-rich, and it's brittle." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47947780)) "a zsh maxed up with so much bells and whistles that the terminal looks like Christmas" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50314758)) "on one laptop zsh took 600ms to start. I narrowed it down to a strange "bug"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46564427)) - Quirky features and confusing syntax (2 comments): "Both bash/zsh and powershell are enormously frustrating and quirky in real, practical tasks." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49076885)) "big shells like Bash and Zsh are brutal, especially with their random grab-bags of features" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50050776)) - Bugs that lose history or jobs (2 comments): "zsh has a bug where it doesn't do the job control cleanup properly in some cases" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47419318)) "Running bash inside zsh continuously destroyed my history for the last 3 years" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49317711)) - Unfriendly defaults for completion and comments (2 comments): "some of the ways it tab completes when navigating the filesystem, and not by default allowing comments on the command line" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46563239)) "it wasn't the default behaviour which immediately made me nope from the shell altogether" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47528584)) ## 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 - [Xonsh shell](https://hackerapproved.com/p/xonsh.md): 15 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "zsh", https://hackerapproved.com/p/zsh/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).