This article spotlights alternative tools to bc.
The software featured here is free and open source. All tools provide a command-line interface (CLI) unless otherwise stated.
| Alternatives to bc | |
|---|---|
| cpc | Text calculator with support for units and conversion |
| eva | Simple calculator REPL |
| bc-gh | Implementation of Unix dc and POSIX bc with GNU and BSD extensions |
| bcal | Storage expression calculator |
| fend | Arbitrary-precision unit-aware calculator |
| Hypercalc | Interpreted calculator program designed to calculate extremely large numbers |
Have we missed any open source alternatives to bc? Please let us know!
For more feature-laden calculators, we’ve compiled the best terminal-based Linux calculators.
All the CLI tools in this series.
| Alternatives to CLI tools |
|---|
| age // awk // bc // cal // cat // cd // chmod // cksum // cloc // cmp // compress // cp // cron // curl // cut // date // dd // df // diff // dig // du // fdisk // file // find // free // ftp // grep // gzip // hexdump // history // jq // kill // less // locate // ls // lsof // make // man // more // mv / ping // ps // psql // rename // rm // sed // split // ssh // stow // strings // sudo // sysctl // tail // talk // tar // telnet // time // top // touch // traceroute // tree // uname // uniq // uptime // vi // watch // Wget // who // whois // xargs |
 Explore our comprehensive directory of recommended free and open source software. Our carefully curated collection spans every major software category.This directory is part of our ongoing series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. It features hundreds of detailed reviews, along with open source alternatives to proprietary solutions from major corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. You’ll also find interesting projects to try, hardware coverage, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Know a useful open source Linux program that we haven’t covered yet? Let us know by completing this form. |
bcal has a bc mode for general-purpose numerical calculations.
Thanks, bcal is now included.
fend is another arbitrary-precision calculator. It’s got good support for complex numbers, trig, and has an Emacs-style CLI shortcuts.
Hi Jez. Thanks for your suggestion. It’s now been added.
You could add HyperCalc
We’ve added HyperCalc. Thanks for taking the time to let us know!