sift ☆
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Description:
Fast and powerful open source alternative to grep
Type: Formula  |  Tracked Since: Dec 28, 2025
Links: Homepage  |  formulae.brew.sh
Category: Developer tools
Tags: search grep command-line developer-tools text-processing
Install: brew install sift
About:
Sift is a fast and powerful code search tool designed as a modern alternative to grep. It supports regular expressions and is optimized for searching large codebases efficiently. Its primary value is speed and ease of use for developers needing quick, accurate search results.
Key Features:
  • Fast search performance optimized for large codebases
  • Full regular expression support
  • Respects .gitignore rules by default
  • Simple, grep-like command-line interface
Use Cases:
  • Searching for function definitions or variable usage across a project
  • Filtering large log files for specific error patterns
Alternatives:
  • grep – Sift is generally faster and ignores VCS files by default
  • ripgrep (rg) – Similar performance and features, often a matter of preference
Version History
Detected Version Rev Change Commit
Sep 14, 2024 9:48pm 0 VERSION_BUMP af34c15d
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