forkrun is a Bash-native streaming parallelization engine for Linux that’s designed as a drop-in replacement for Parallel and xargs -P.
It targets shell-based data preparation and other high-frequency workloads, using a self-tuning architecture and NUMA-aware design to improve throughput on modern multi-core and multi-socket systems while remaining easy to deploy from a single Bash script.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Acts as a drop-in parallelizer for Bash functions and external commands.
- Distributed as a single Bash script with an embedded self-extracting compiled C extension.
- Includes ordered output mode, stdin passthrough mode, and placeholder-based output naming.
- Automatically tunes batch sizes at runtime without requiring manual job configuration.
Website: github.com/jkool702/forkrun
Support:
Developer: Anthony
License: MIT License
Related Software
| Alternatives to xargs | |
|---|---|
| rargs | xargs + awk with pattern matching support |
| rust-parallel | Execute commands in parallel |
| parallel | Shell tool for executing jobs in parallel |
| xjobs | Similar to xargs with enhanced support for multiprocessor machines |
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