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shshemi/tabiew

A lightweight terminal (TUI) app for viewing and querying CSV, Parquet, JSON, Excel, SQLite and other tabular data files.

Open-source alternative to:Excel

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What is it?

Tabiew is a terminal user interface for opening tabular data files and exploring them without leaving the shell. You run `tw` with one or more file paths, and the format is detected from the file extension. It supports CSV, TSV, Parquet, JSON, JSONL, Arrow, fixed-width files, SQLite, Excel, Avro, Logfmt, HTML tables and Markdown pipe tables.

Once a file is open, you can navigate with Vim-style keys, fuzzy-search rows, and run SQL queries against the data. Multiple tables can be open at once and switched between with a tab switcher. Plotting and a set of selectable color themes are also included. A command palette (`:`) lists available actions such as filter, order, select, cast, import and export.

For large files, a `--max-rows` option loads only a sample of rows so you can check the schema before opening the full dataset. Installation is available through shell script, Homebrew, Cargo, and Linux package formats.

Key features

  • 01Vim-style keybindings for navigating tables
  • 02SQL queries against open data files
  • 03Fuzzy search across rows
  • 04Supports CSV, Parquet, JSON, Excel, SQLite, Arrow and more
  • 05Multi-table tabs and plotting
  • 06Row sampling with --max-rows for large files

Use cases

  • Quickly inspecting a CSV or Parquet file on a remote server over SSH
  • Running SQL queries against a local data file without loading a database
  • Checking the schema and sample rows of a large dataset before processing it
  • Browsing SQLite databases or Excel spreadsheets from the terminal

Quick start

  1. 1

    Install via Cargo from crates.io

    cargo install --locked tabiew
  2. 2

    Open a data file with the tw command

    tw <path_to_file(s)>

Things to know

  • Building from source requires Rust 1.95 or higher.
  • Logfmt files need an explicit format flag because they have no file extension.

Topics

#tui#csv#parquet#sql#data-viewer#terminal#rust#excel

FAQ

What is tabiew?
A lightweight terminal (TUI) app for viewing and querying CSV, Parquet, JSON, Excel, SQLite and other tabular data files. Tabiew is a terminal user interface for opening tabular data files and exploring them without leaving the shell. You run `tw` with one or more file paths, and the format is detected from the file extension. It supports CSV, TSV, Parquet, JSON, JSONL, Arrow, fixed-width files, SQLite, Excel, Avro, Logfmt, HTML tables and Markdown pipe tables.
Is tabiew free to use? What license does it have?
tabiew is open source under the MIT license. Check the license terms before using it in commercial products.
Is tabiew still maintained?
Actively maintained. The last commit to tabiew was on Oct 18, 2026.
What can I use tabiew for?
Quickly inspecting a CSV or Parquet file on a remote server over SSH Running SQL queries against a local data file without loading a database Checking the schema and sample rows of a large dataset before processing it Browsing SQLite databases or Excel spreadsheets from the terminal
How do I install tabiew?
Install via Cargo from crates.io: cargo install --locked tabiew Open a data file with the tw command: tw <path_to_file(s)>
Where can I get tabiew?
The source code and installation instructions are on GitHub: https://github.com/shshemi/tabiew

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