Oh My Zsh adds bloat • Hacker News Board

Re: Oh My Zsh adds bloat

#61

Post by pixelatedindex » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 6:11 AM UTC

sureglymop wrote: post #56

I agree. And you probably neither need Omarchy, CachyOS, etc. Choose boring and get peace of mind.

CachyOS is basically arch on easy mode. I used to spend countless hours tinkering with arch but then I got older and don’t have much time. Plus there are helpful meta packages for gaming that work great out of the box, which for a gamer like me sans Windows is pretty awesome.

Re: Oh My Zsh adds bloat

#62

Post by theodric » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 6:12 AM UTC

commandersaki wrote: post #47

Are we really quibbling over 400ms startup delay to open a new terminal?

400ms here, 400ms there, and before you know it, you're dead. I've switched terminal emulator and upgraded computers for less.

Re: Oh My Zsh adds bloat

#63

Post by k_bx » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 6:13 AM UTC

I've discovered plugins zsh-autosuggestions and fzf (available out of the box) and OH MY ZSH am I impressed with my quality of life improvement.

Re: Oh My Zsh adds bloat

#64

Post by mmoustafa » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 6:13 AM UTC

I don't think 0.38s is a bad trade-off for convenience when the rest of the tools I need to do my job collectively are another 2s at shell startup. NVM alone adds 0.5-0.6s on my M4 Macbook Air.

Bigger fish to fry if we're being practical.

Re: Oh My Zsh adds bloat

#65

Post by k_bx » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 6:15 AM UTC

ilvez wrote: post #48

For command search I've replaced regular search and fzf with atuin. Works especially well with multiple hosts.. https://atuin.sh/ EDIT: The OP fails to mention zsh profiling: zprof. I discovered that atuin is my biggest waster at the moment with like 20ms and rest of the stuff I could clean up.

I'm using fzf and it's amazing. What does atuin bring additionally? Looks very similar

Re: Oh My Zsh adds bloat

#66

Post by sandreas » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 6:19 AM UTC

FrenchTouch42 wrote: post #38

g947o wrote: post #4

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.

Try https://starship.rs then. Starship gives you the same "drop in and go" experience but without the 200ms+ prompt lag. One curl -> one line in your rc file, works on zsh/bash/fish/whatever. Configuration is straightforward and easy imo: https://starship.rs/config/ Give it a spin, I think you won't regret it.

starship is great. I use it with a powerlevel10k fallback in my dotfiles for systems, starship is not installed yet to not break the shell entirely.

Re: Oh My Zsh adds bloat

#67

Post by aniforprez » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 6:20 AM UTC

k_bx wrote: post #65

ilvez wrote: post #48

For command search I've replaced regular search and fzf with atuin. Works especially well with multiple hosts.. https://atuin.sh/ EDIT: The OP fails to mention zsh profiling: zprof. I discovered that atuin is my biggest waster at the moment with like 20ms and rest of the stuff I could clean up.

I'm using fzf and it's amazing. What does atuin bring additionally? Looks very similar

Atuin also has syncing and backups though I've never really felt the need to use it. I prefer keeping histories separate and when I need to share shell commands I just do the usual methods like putting it in a shared text file, send it to myself on a chat app or just looking at the command and typing it out

Re: Oh My Zsh adds bloat

#68

Post by imcritic » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 6:22 AM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #31

Well yeah, you need antibody https://getantibody.github.io/ and then whatever plugins you desire. Been using it for years and it's never been anything other than fast and reliable.

Why antibody and not any of the 60 alternatives? Is it truly the best among them or is your choice sub-optimal?

Thinking about that I realized I prefer not to use any plugin manager at all.

Re: Oh My Zsh adds bloat

#69

Post by martianlantern » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 6:23 AM UTC

I have given up on any external bash configurator a long time ago, instead I write my own bash prompts these days, they lack a lot of functionalities but I am much happy with them for now, also a shameless plug: https://martianlantern.github.io/2025/11/updating-my-bash-pr...

Re: Oh My Zsh adds bloat

#70

Post by SkyPuncher » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 6:25 AM UTC

MeetingsBrowser wrote: post #32

SkyPuncher wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That misses the point. I don’t even want to think about any of that stuff. It’s a single command to install oh-my-zsh. I can fire it off, check Slack, and come back in 5 minutes. If I have to take 5 minutes to setup it up, I’m just not going to do it.

Caring enough to read a blog post and comment on hackernews, but not enough to copy/paste the changes from the blog post is a very fine line.

Not sure what your point argument is.