Starship: A minimal, fast, and customizable prompt for any shell

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Prompt speed and performance

  • Many comments argue prompt speed matters: slow startup or per-prompt delays (100ms–seconds) break flow, especially on heavy systems or large git repos.
  • Git-aware prompts can become very slow with big repos, network mounts, VPNs or Windows antivirus; people cite multi‑second delays on some setups.
  • Starship is praised for being “instant” or “a couple of milliseconds” vs prior shell-script-based prompts; some use its timing tools and timeouts to drop slow modules.
  • Others downplay 100ms delays as negligible for humans, or say they type ahead while the prompt renders.

Minimalism vs maximalism

  • Several commenters dispute the “minimal” branding: default Starship setups often look maximalist with many symbols and segments.
  • A sizeable camp prefers ultra-minimal prompts ($, directory only, or a small arrow) and sees frameworks as bloat.
  • Counterpoint: minimalism can be implemented in Starship by disabling modules; being highly configurable isn’t the same as being maximalist by nature.

Starship’s strengths and features

  • Key positives: single binary, cross-shell (bash, zsh, fish, PowerShell, cmd, etc.), one TOML config shared across environments.
  • People like the clear, documented config vs “arcane” PS1 escape codes or plugin stacks.
  • Popular modules: git status/branch, language/runtime version, AWS/kube context, command duration, exit code, time, hostname, username.
  • Some use conditional segments to only show context when relevant (e.g., non-default user, remote host, env vars, venvs).

Critiques and limitations

  • For some, installing and managing a native binary (especially over SSH/kubectl) is too much vs just copying a dotfile.
  • On Windows via MSYS2, a few report Starship “slows to a crawl” despite being fast on native PowerShell.
  • Requirements for Nerd Fonts or icons are disliked by some; others remove icons in config.
  • One person rejects it outright because it supports fish, arguing professionals should stick to POSIX-like shells.

Alternatives and “roll your own”

  • Alternatives mentioned: powerlevel10k (though seen as unmaintained), oh-my-zsh/oh-my-bash, spaceship, oh-my-posh, Hydro (fish), Pure, custom Go/Rust/shell prompts.
  • Several experienced users report eventually settling on simple, home-grown prompts plus tools like Atuin or nushell history for timing and auditing.