Oh My Zsh adds bloat

#1

Post by fla » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 4:35 AM UTC

Re: Oh My Zsh adds bloat

#2

Post by Swizec » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 4:50 AM UTC

I installed oh-my-zsh back in early college some 15 years ago, before zsh was even the default on macs, and it is so good I’ve never felt compelled to experiment or try any other shells terminals or configs. It’s the first thing I install on every new computer.

Re: Oh My Zsh adds bloat

#3

Post by metax » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 4:51 AM UTC

Or simply use fish

Re: Oh My Zsh adds bloat

#4

Post by g947o » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 4:58 AM UTC

I use oh my zsh for exactly one reason: I can get a good shell experience out of the box and immediately start working on stuff productively, whether it's a new machine, a new remote host or a container.

I could spend hours figuring out all those things, bit I'd rather use that time for something more important.

Re: Oh My Zsh adds bloat

#5

Post by nickzelei » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 4:59 AM UTC

Like many I installed omz and ran it as the default for a long time. After a while I looked to optimize my shell starts and realized I was only using a fraction of the functionality.

So I figured out what I was using and created my own very paired down version of what I needed. My boot times are much faster and I’ve been totally happy with it. I also learned a lot more about shell configs as a result.

Re: Oh My Zsh adds bloat

#6

Post by anotherpaul » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 5:02 AM UTC

I agree, I used omz a while now but I have since also realised that the features I uses are so basic, it really does not warrant a whole software project as a dependency.

So I went and had Gemini make me a zsh config with the features I actually use. Took 15 minutes to get all the autocompelte, aliases and search functionality and done.

Re: Oh My Zsh adds bloat

#7

Post by srvmshr » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 5:03 AM UTC

I had the same gripe as the author. OhmyZSH seems too bloated for my needs. Added to that, the defaults adds (and oft unnecessary) emojis to prompts & outputs - something I don't find tasteful or appealing.

I stripped out most of the OhMyZsh functions (which is pretty modular given a shell package) and created a smaller, leaner package (leanZSH) having only the known stuff I may use. I have been using it without much complaints.

https://github.com/gradientwolf/leanzsh

Re: Oh My Zsh adds bloat

#8

Post by jbirnick » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 5:04 AM UTC

They complain about a startup time of 380ms, but with the default configuration it's only 60ms on my laptop. That's faster than the final startup time of 70ms of their custom config, and it has all the features that they added to their config. So with all the features they need OMZ should be fast enough for them? I don't get it.

Re: Oh My Zsh adds bloat

#9

Post by __MatrixMan__ » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 5:06 AM UTC

You probably don't need zsh. POSIX shells are holding us back.

Re: Oh My Zsh adds bloat

#10

Post by maxbond » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 5:09 AM UTC

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #9

You probably don't need zsh. POSIX shells are holding us back.

Show me an environment where I can interact with my system programmatically, where I can compose together arbitrary tools, and which will never, ever, ever break on me, and I'll switch! My experience with graphical environments has been that they rarely compose, often break, and constantly make arbitrary changes that break my workflow. So every time I try something else I end up coming back to the terminal.

But I agree that terminal environments have serious shortcomings. I think it's a real shame we haven't created anything else that does what the terminal does, and I think it's mostly for lack of trying.