My favorite lightweight CLI utility is fd, a modern replacement for find. It’s blazing-fast, has sensible defaults, and is incredibly efficient, making it a staple in my toolkit. Here’s why it stands out:

Why fd?

• ·Speed: Parallel traversal ensures it scales linearly with CPU cores, outperforming traditional find by 3–5×.
• ·Simplicity: Intuitive syntax and sane defaults (case-insensitive, respects .gitignore) eliminate the need for complex flags.
• ·Lightweight: The binary is ~1 MB, with minimal dependencies and a runtime footprint of under 10 ms for a 100k-file tree.
• ·Versatility: It handles recursive searches, regex-based matching, and command execution (--exec and --exec-batch) with ease.

Typical Workflow Examples

bash

Find all Python files, ignoring .git and node_modules

fd -e py

Search within found files using ripgrep

fd -e py | xargs rg "def main"

Count lines of code per language

fd -t f | awk -F. '{print $NF}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr

When Not to Use fd

While fd excels in most scenarios, fall back to find in POSIX-only environments or when dealing with complex predicate logic (e.g., time-based filters combined with size).

Installation

bash

macOS / Homebrew

brew install fd

Ubuntu / Debian

sudo apt-get install fd-find

While ripgrep (rg) remains indispensable for text searches, fd is my go-to for file discovery. Its lightweight nature, speed, and simplicity make it a clear winner in 2026.