this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2026
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Bash is 10-16KB of ram, dash is 3-5KB of ram. Does it really matter at that point?
Dash's more significant feature is its speed. It's not meant to be used in place of bash at all, its meant to be symlinked in place of sh to give you a faster and smaller shell with a simpler and more auditable codebase.
The question is what does OP mean by 'heavy'and what benefit do they hope to get from a 'lighter' shell. Memory or performance seems inconsequential in this case, but how about attack surface? Is there some benefit from a security standpoint of running a simpler shell?
RAM doesn't matter for me. Smaller code base is reducing attack surface for sure.
I don't think anyone is gonna hack you because of bash being a larger codebase
If I absolutely had to pick one as insecure, it would be anything other than bash since it has been around for so long, has its code read by so many people, that there's no way that a major hole exists in it
Overall though I don't think security or performance is a good metric for you to pick something as simple as a shell, just pick the one that gives you the best experience and features. Being compatible with bash is a big plus because it's the industry standard, like zsh for example
I could imagine an it would matter more to people working with embedded devices.
Also some people just like learning or doing random things. Nothing wrong with some exploration, discovery or learning.
That's why I'm asking that question :) A lot of discussions are on Reddit and I hate Reddit so to avoid using it I'm asking here.