Difference Between Ash and Bash

There are various shells that offer different features and better syntax than each other in the UNIX operating system. Ash and Bash are two common shells for this operating system.

What is Ash?

Ash, originally known as Almquist Shell, also known by other names such as “a Shell” or “Sh” is a lightweight UNIX Shell, developed by Kenneth Almquist. The launch of the shell was initially a clone of System V.4. This shell is written in C language. It is virtually compatible, small, and very fast UNIX shell.

Advantages of Ash

• It is compatible, fast, and small UNIX Shell.
• It has standard specifications of the POSIX.

Disadvantages of Ash

• Less functionality
• It is not a default UNIX Shell.

What is Bash?

Bah was developed by Brian Fox as a command language. It is a type of UNIX Shell which was designed as software that was free for the GNU project to replace the Bourne shell. This shell is used as a default login shell for many Linux distributors. This is also written in C language and macOS, Unix-like, and Windows are the operating systems used in the shell.

Advantages of Bash

• It is a quick start.
• Availability of interactive debugging
• It is a fast and quicker mode of writing a shell script.

Disadvantages of Bash

• Execution speed is slow.
• Need of extra focus and care to eliminate harmful circumstances.
• Design and Implementation flaws are there.

Following is a table of differences between Ash and Bash:

Categories	Ash	Bash
Original Name	Shell’s original name is Almquist Shell.	Shell’s original name is Bourne Again Shell
Launch	The first release was on 30th May 1989.	The launch of Bash was on 8th June 1989.
Developed	It is developed by Kenneth Almquist.	It is developed by Brian Fox.
Scripting Type	The scripting of this shell is the type of scripting that can be done in any type of shell.	The scripting in this shell is particularly done for Bash only.
Default Shell	Ash is not the default UNIX shell.	Bash is the default UNIX shell.
Accessibility	The accessibility of Ash is quite easy but still more difficult than Bash.	The accessibility of Bash is very easy.
Operating system	The operating system used in Ash is UNIX-like.	The operating system used in Bash are macOS, UNIX-like, and Windows.
Functionality	This has very less functions.	The functionality of Bash is greater than Ash and can be upgraded if needed.
Shell	It is a POSIX shell.	It is an invalid POSIX shell.

The implementation of both shells is very different from each other as they both possess different POSIX standards.