bat
by sharkdp
bat is a command-line tool that shows the contents of files in the terminal with syntax highlighting, line numbers and Git change markers. It is meant as a more readable replacement for the standard cat command.
Ready to useEstablished, openly licensed, and no red flags in its documentation.
- Stars
- 61k +12 a day
- Licence
- Apache-2.0
- Runs on
- Your computer
- Setup
- Easy
- Language
- Rust
- Age
- 3111 days
What you can do with it
- View code, config and log files in the terminal with colour highlighting and line numbers
- See which lines have changed according to Git while reading a file
- Use it as a previewer for fzf, a colourised pager for man pages, or to colour help text
Ways a business could use it
- Speed up code reviews and troubleshooting by reading logs and config files more clearly, saving developer time
- Make server maintenance easier for a small team by previewing files and Git changes in the terminal without paid tools
Can you use it commercially?
Free to use, change and sell, including in paid products. Keep the copyright notice.
Not legal advice. Read the project's licence file before building a product on it.
Getting it running
It is installed as a single program through a package manager or Cargo (Rust), and the README lists install options for each operating system.
Follow the official instructions in the project README.
Checked 27 Oct 2026. Summary drafted by AI from the project's README.
