Top 20 Best Windows Command Prompt Alternatives

Learn what is the best Windows command prompt alternative? Top 20 best Windows command prompt replacements and alternatives to built-in command prompt

If you want to run commands on your computer, you have to use the command prompt. A command prompt is an entry point for typing computer commands in the Command Prompt window. By typing commands at the command prompt, you can perform any tasks on your computer without using the Windows graphical interface.

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This feature is available in all the operating systems, whether it is a Windows operating system or a Mac OS X. If you are using a Windows computer then you have to open windows command prompt as after that only you will be able to execute MS-DOS commands.

If you are a newbie and don’t know much about Windows command prompt then you can have a look below.

You may also be interested in checking out:

What is Windows Command Prompt?

Basically, Windows Command Prompt is the command-line interpreter on Windows NT, Windows CE, OS/2 and eComStation operating systems. Windows command prompt is an application/feature which you get in all the versions of Windows operating system. With the help of this application, you will be able to run all the MS-DOS commands on your computer. The commands are executed without any graphical user interface.

In order to open Windows command prompt on your computer, you can just enter cmd or cmd.exe and the command prompt will appear. You may also be interested in checking out: How to Run Command Prompt as Administrator in Windows 10 / 8 / 7 operating system.

Top 20 Best Alternatives to Windows Command Prompt

Most of the times, the built-in Windows Command Prompt may suit your specific needs to run command lines instantly. But if you are a huge fan of windows console and willing to get much more than what Windows Command Prompt has to offer, you must look around for the better windows command prompt alternatives.

There are also a lot of Windows command prompt alternatives which you can use if you are not happy with the stock command prompt. If you are looking for some great alternatives to the default Windows command prompt then this guide just perfect for you.

These open source Windows command prompt replacement which we have mentioned below can be used to enter MS-DOS commands on any Windows based computer. Are you ready to check out the list of Top 20 Best Windows Command Prompt Alternatives and similar software? Here we go.

Mintty

Mintty is one of the best alternatives to Windows command prompt and very well popular among the Windows users. You can use this terminal emulator both for Cygwin and MSYS. The alternative will get integrated with native Windows user interface and you don’t need any display server to use it.

Some of the features which you will get in Mintty are the full-screen mode, simple copy and paste, Windows Transparency and much more. Here are a complete list of the most valuable features of Mintty terminal emulator:

Xterm-compatible terminal emulation.
Native Windows user interface with a simple options dialog.
Very easy copy & paste.
Drag & drop of text, files and folders.
Ability to open files and URLs with Ctrl+click.
Comprehensive character encoding support, including UTF-8.
Wide character display and Windows IME support.
Window transparency, including glass effect on Vista and 7.
Total 256 colours.
Option to expand Fullscreen mode.
Options stored in a text file. No registry entries.
Small program size and quick scrolling.

ConEmu

You can also use ConEmu as a Windows command prompt alternative. You can customize the software as per your needs as it is highly customizable. ConEmu is a handy windows terminal emulator as it comes with a user-friendly interface. You can resize the window as per your need and the computer screen.

ConEmu offers an alternative customizable GUI window with plenty of features. Some of them are:

Quite smooth and friendly window resizing
Tabs for editors, viewers, panels and consoles
Run simple GUI apps like PuTTY in tabs
Able to easily run old DOS applications (games) in Windows 7 or 64-bit OS
Thumbnails and tiles in Far Manager
Normal, maximized and full-screen graphical window modes
Various window fonts: family, height, width, bold, italic, etc.
Specially, Chinese versions of Windows supported
Using 24-bit colors in Far Manager 3.x
ANSI X3.64 and Xterm 256 colors
Vertical console buffer scrolling using the keyboard (BufferHeight mode)
Show full output (1K+ lines) of the last command in Far Manager’s editor/viewer
Limited support for BDF fonts
User-friendly text and block selection
Configurable and clickable status bar

Console

Console is quite similar to Mintty. You can use this Windows enhancement tool to execute MS-DOS commands on your Windows computer. There are a lot of amazing features which are present in this windows terminal emulator such as text editor, multiple tables, alpha & color key transparency and multiple window styles.

Powershell

Powershell is automatic management and task configuration tool which is developed by Microsoft. As this Windows command prompt replacement is developed by Microsoft, it is also known as Windows Powershell. The software is built on .Net framework and is ideal for development purposes too.

Windows powerShell’s many features include:

A built-in editor for writing, testing, and debugging scripts
Full IntelliSense tab completion, syntax highlighting, and context-sensitive help
A myriad of keyboard shortcuts
Support for right-to-left languages
Extensible add-ons

KiTTy

KiTTy is a Windows command prompt replacement which is considered as one of the best SSH and telnet clients which are available in the world. You will just love this alternative to Windows command prompt as it comes with many advanced features such as session filters, automatic password system, transparency and a session launcher.

KiTTY is specificlly designed for the Microsoft Windows platform. Some very interesting features of KiTTY are:

Sessions filter options
Shortcuts for pre-defined command
Automatic logon script with the RuTTY patch
Running a locally saved script on a remote session
ZModem integration
An icon for each session
Protection against unfortunate keyboard input
Quick start of a duplicate session
Automatic saving
SSH Handler: Internet Explorer integration
pscp.exe and WinSCP integration
Binary compression
Clipboard printing
New command-line options

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MobaXterm

MobaXterm is an open source windows command prompt replacement. You can use this software on any version of Windows operating system. You can use MobaXterm for getting remote control of other computers too. If you want to manage your devices remotely then you need to use MobaXterm.

Here’s the list of MobaXterm features:

MobaXterm tabbed terminal
Sessions management
Graphical SFTP browser
X11 server
Enhanced X extensions
Multi-execution
Embedded servers
Embedded tools
Remote Unix desktop (XDMCP)
Remote Windows desktop (RDP)
SSH gateway
SSH tunnels (port forwarding)
MobApt package manager
Text Editor
Macros support
Passwords management
Professional Customizer

PuTTY

You can use PuTTY for free on your computer and execute as many as MS-DOS commands you want to. The software can also be used to send files over different networks as Putty supports multiple protocols. You can also connect to a serial port using Putty.

GNOME Terminal

If you are using a GNOME desktop then you can try GNOME Terminal emulator. You can also use this emulator to execute Windows command prompt commands. The software will give full access to the developers of the Unix Shell. Just like windows command prompt there is no graphical user interface in this software too.

Cmder

You will get the best experience on your Windows computer using Cmder. This emulator is actually a console emulator but you can use it for executing Windows command prompt commands too. There are various tools which are available in Cmder which will provide you an enhanced experience overall.

Some most popular keyboard shortcuts of Cmder:

Ctrl + ` : Global Summon from taskbar
Win + Alt + p : Preferences (Or right click on title bar)
Ctrl + t : New tab dialog (maybe you want to open cmd as admin?)
Ctrl + w : Close tab
Shift + Alt + number : Fast new tab:
1. CMD
2. PowerShell
Alt + Enter : Fullscreen
Shift + Up : Traverse up in directory structure (lovely feature!)
End, Home, Ctrl : Traverse text as usual on Windows
Ctrl + r : History search
Shift + mouse : Select and copy text from buffer
Right click / Ctrl + Shift + v : Paste text

MTPuTTY

MTPuTTY (Multi-Tabbed PuTTY) is the tabbed version of Putty Client. You can use this SSH client on Windows operating system for transferring files on the online web servers and also for managing commands. The functioning of MTPutty is a little bit different from Putty. You need advanced network knowledge in order to access MTPuTTY efficiently.

Some of the important features of MTPuTTY are:

Supports all PuTTY protocols – SSH, Telnet, Rlogin, Raw.
Supports PuTTY session.
Can control and change PuTTY command line parameters.
Can run PuTTY configuration from within the program.
Ability to run any script after login.
Can “type” a script in several PuTTY tabs simultaneously.
Easy to use and clear tabbed user interface.
Any PuTTY tab can be detached and converted into a general PuTTY window.
Multithreaded automation tasks – freezing in one PuTTY tab will not freeze the other ones.

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Rxvt-Unicode

If you are looking for an alternatives to windows command prompt which is highly customizable then you should use Rxvt-Unicode. The software consumes very fewer resources as you will be able to run multiple clients using a single process. The VT102 emulator can be used on any version of Windows computer.

The main features of Rxvt-Unicode are:

Stores text in Unicode (either UCS-2 or UCS-4).
Uses locale-correct input, output and width
Embedded perl, for endless customization and improvement opportunities.
Regex-driven customisable selection to select shell arguments, urls etc.
Selection-transformation and option popup menus.
Automatically transforming the selection once made.
Incremental scrollback buffer search.
Automatic URL-underlining and launching.
Remote pastebin, digital clock, block graphics to ascii filter.
Completely flicker-free.
Re-wraps long lines instead of splitting or cutting them on resizes.
Full combining character support (unlike xterm :).
Multiple fonts supported at the same time
Supports Xft and core fonts in any combination.
Can easily be embedded into other applications.
All documentation accessible through manpages.
Locale-independent XIM support.
Encapsulation of privileged operations in a separate process.
Perfectly optimised for local and remote connections.

FireCMD

FireCMD (Fire Command) is one of the best alternatives to Windows command prompt. The enhanced user interface of this software makes it extremely easy to interact with the commands. FireCMD comes with a lot of advanced features which you would love to see a command prompt like console emulator, text editor, command shell etc.

In simple words, FireCMD is the perfect Windows command prompt alternative for developers and system administrators. Some of the very attractive and useful features of FireCMD command line interpreter:

Quck command auto-completion
Recursive and persistent aliases
Command substitution using files
HTML and CSS support
Remembers command history for next session
Remembers last working directory for next session
Copy/Paste using keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V
Enhanced file and directory name completion
Save command session as HTML

Take Command Console

Take Command Console of TCC is the next best Windows command prompt alternatives. TCC was earlier known as 4DOS. The command line interpreter can be downloaded for free for Windows operating system and is developed by JP software. The software was only developed to replace it the default command prompt in Windows computers.

Some most useful features of TCC/LE Windows CMD Replacement Shell are:

Many additional commands
GUI commands (msgbox, querybox, etc.)
Extended functionality of existing commands
Extended batch file processing facilities
Support for command aliases, also in scripts
Enhanced wildcards and the ability to filter by file sizes, date and time stamps, etcetera
Context-specific offline or online help
Colored directory listings
More internal variables and Variable functions
Integrated development environment (IDE)
An interactive debugger for batch files, including a built-in syntax highlighting text editor
Configuration stored in an INI file
Support for several internet communication protocols: File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP), FTPS (FTP Secure), HTTP, HTTPS
Jabber instant messaging
Support for plugins to provide custom functionality
Multiple command shells in tabbed windows

ZOC

If you want to use a professional command prompt alternative on your computer then you can use ZOC. The telnet client is available both for MAC OS X and Windows computers. Using this emulator you will be able to access all the mainframes and hosts. There are other ways also available with which you can interact with your computer.

The most important features which you can enjoy with ZOC SSH/telnet client and terminal emulator are:

Tabbed sessions with thumbnails
Address book with folders and color coded hosts
Customizable to meet your preferences and needs
Scripting language with over 200 commands
Compatible with Windows 10 and OS X El Capitan
Administrator friendly (deployment, configuration)
Extensive logging, full keyboard remapping, scrollback
User defined buttons, automatic actions, macro recorder

OpenSSH

OpenSSH is the next alternative to windows command prompt. The software is available for free and takes help of SSH connectivity for establishing a connection. All the traffic is encrypted which ensures that you get the maximum security on your network. OpenSSH is compatible with all the SSH protocol versions which are available out there.

The following are the important features of OpenSSH:

A complete open source project with free licensing
Strong cryptography (AES, ChaCha20, RSA, ECDSA, Ed25519…)
X11 forwarding (which also encrypts X Window System traffic)
Port forwarding (encrypted channels for legacy protocols)
Strong authentication (public keys, one-time passwords)
Agent forwarding
Interoperability
SFTP client and server support in both SSH1 and SSH2 protocols
Optional data compression

FireSSH

Execute commands on your computer without installing any terminal emulator on your computer. The tool is written in JavaScript and you just have to install the extensions on Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome to use it. FireSSH works with all the security keys effectively. If you want a tool with automation, then you can use FireSSH as you just have to select the files.

ClusterSSH

If you want to manage multiple servers then you can use ClusterSSH. You can also manage multiple SSH sessions using this tool. The software is available for multiple platforms including Windows operating system. You can easily execute the commands as soon as you see cssh commands on your computer screen.

csshX

Another tool which can use be used to manage multiple servers. Using the tool is extremely easy as it comes with user-friendly interface. You can use csshX to establish SSH connection on the multiple numbers of servers. The servers opened can be accessed in multiple tabs. You can also view all the tabs which are opened in one single master window.

SecureCRT

SecureCRT will make sure that all the commands you execute, files you share using its network are safe from hackers. The tool comes with advanced level encryption which makes it impossible for the hackers to penetrate inside your network. File transfer, remote access and data tunneling are some of the amazing feature which come with this tool. You can use this tool both for home and office use.

The key benefits of SecureCRT are:

Securely access business applications on UNIX, Linux, or VMS
Configure, manage, and organize
Access your full array of network devices from one client
Leverage the high-productivity GUI
Open standard Secure Shell (SSH) protocol
Automate repetitive tasks
Transfer files between network devices
Close integration of SecureCRT and the SecureFX

Chrome Secure Shell

Last but not the least is Chrome Secure Shell app. The tool has been developed by chrome Secure shell publishers. Chrome Secure Shell is extremely compatible and can be used on Windows operating system. You can also use this tool on Google Chrome as there is a standalone version available for Google Chrome web browser. The tool will use the native client installed on your computer in order to connect with the SSH servers directly.

Conclusion

You will get a ton of other alternatives to Windows command prompt if you search on Google. But the above mentioned top 20 best Windows Command Prompt alternatives are the best options you can consider. Most of the Windows command prompt replacements which we have mentioned above can be downloaded for free however for some software’s you need to pay a premium fee.

Let us know using the comments section below – Which terminal emulator or alternative to Windows command prompt are you using on your Windows 10, 8, or 7 computers?

You may also be interested in checking out:

What is Windows Command Prompt?

Top 20 Best Alternatives to Windows Command Prompt

Conclusion

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