Best ls Alternatives in 2026

ls has been listing files the same basic way for decades, and for plain output it’s still fine. But a handful of modern replacements add colored, icon-annotated, Git-aware output while staying just as fast (or close to it) — and they’re common enough now that you’ll see them in a lot of dotfiles repos. Here’s a rundown of the main options.

eza

eza is the most widely used option today, and it’s specifically the community-maintained continuation of exa (more on that below) — exa was declared unmaintained, and a group of contributors forked it as eza to keep development going.

Notable features:

• Drop-in ls replacement — most people just alias ls=eza.
• Git integration (eza --git) shows tracked/modified/staged/untracked status per file.
• Support for extended file attributes, SELinux contexts on Linux, and clickable terminal hyperlinks.
• A theme.yml config file for customizing colors and per-file-type icons (icons render properly once you have a Nerd Font installed).
• Available for Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Install:

# macOS
brew install eza

# Cargo (any platform with Rust installed)
cargo install eza

# Debian/Ubuntu — needs a third-party repo, since eza isn't always in default repos
sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings
wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/eza-community/eza/main/deb.asc | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/gierens.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/gierens.gpg] http://deb.gierens.de stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/gierens.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y eza

# Windows (Scoop)
scoop install eza

Arch Linux, Fedora, NixOS, and several other package managers carry it too — see the official install docs for the full list.

lsd (LSDeluxe)

lsd is another Rust rewrite of ls, and it was explicitly inspired by colorls (see below) but implemented in Rust for speed. Its main differentiator from eza is that it leans further into Nerd Font icons by default rather than as an opt-in — the project’s own docs specifically recommend installing a patched Nerd Font (or Font Awesome) before using it, since icons are a core part of its default output.

Install:

# macOS / Linuxbrew
brew install lsd

# Cargo
cargo install lsd

# Debian sid/bookworm and Ubuntu 23.04+
sudo apt install lsd

# Windows (Scoop)
scoop install lsd

Once installed, alias it the same way as eza:

alias ls='lsd'
alias ll='lsd -l'
alias la='lsd -a'
alias lt='lsd --tree'

exa (legacy — largely superseded)

exa was the original modern ls replacement that both eza and lsd trace their lineage or inspiration back to. It’s the tool that popularized this whole category — colored output, Git awareness, tree view — written in Rust. It has since been marked unmaintained by its original author, which is exactly why the eza fork exists. If you’re starting fresh today, there’s little reason to install exa specifically instead of eza; I’m including it here mainly for context, since you may still see it referenced in older blog posts or dotfiles.

colorls

colorls takes a different approach from the other three: instead of a compiled binary, it’s a Ruby gem that wraps ls output with Font Awesome icons and file-type-specific coloring. It was an early, influential entry in this space and directly inspired lsd’s design.

Trade-offs to know about:

• Requires a Ruby runtime, which adds startup overhead compared to the Rust-based tools.
• Its development pace has slowed relative to eza and lsd.
• If you’re already in a Ruby-heavy environment, though, it integrates naturally and doesn’t require pulling in Rust/Cargo just for a file lister.

Install:

gem install colorls

Picking one

• Want the most actively developed, most feature-complete option with strong Git integration? Go with eza.
• Want icons on by default and a very “at a glance” visual layout? Go with lsd.
• Already have a Ruby toolchain and don’t want another Rust binary on the system? colorls is a reasonable, if slower, choice.
• Found exa referenced somewhere? Substitute eza — same lineage, actively maintained.

Whichever one you pick, install a Nerd Font first — all four of these rely on Nerd Font or Font Awesome glyphs for their icon output, and without one you’ll just see broken-box placeholders instead of icons.