Suvadu vs McFly: Shell History Features Compared (2026)

McFly is a smart, lightweight upgrade to Ctrl-R — it replaces your default reverse search with a neural-network-ranked one that prioritises commands you're likely to want. It's a good tool. But it's also deliberately narrow: it's a better search box, and not much more. If you're looking for a McFly alternative that does more than rank Ctrl-R results, here's how Suvadu compares.

Suvadu vs McFly at a glance

Feature	Suvadu	McFly
Language	Rust	Rust
Storage	SQLite (WAL mode)	SQLite
Core idea	Full history workspace	Smarter Ctrl-R
Search ranking	Literal word/substring matches + filters	Neural ranking
History interface	Full-screen TUI with filter panel	Ctrl-R search interface
Storage / sync	Local database; no built-in cloud sync	Local database
AI agent tracking	Claude Code, Cursor, OpenCode, Antigravity	—
MCP server	Built-in (21 tools)	—
Risk assessment	Yes	—
Stats / heatmap	Yes	—
Bookmarks & notes	Yes	—
Cross-machine export	Plaintext JSONL/JSON/CSV; JSONL import	—

Where McFly is great

• It's focused. McFly does one thing — ranked history search — and does it well. The neural ranking genuinely surfaces the right command more often than a plain reverse search.
• It's lightweight. If all you want is a better Ctrl-R and nothing else, McFly stays out of your way.
• It's local. Like Suvadu, McFly keeps everything on your machine. No accounts, no servers.

If your only complaint with shell history is that reverse search is dumb, McFly fixes that and you can stop reading here. The case for Suvadu is for everyone who wants more than search.

1. History as a workspace, not just a search box

McFly improves the moment you press Ctrl-R. Suvadu treats your whole history as something you work with: a full-screen search TUI with a filter panel (by directory, time, exit code, session, executor), recency-first arrow-key history, bookmarks, notes, tags, and a stats dashboard with a heatmap.

2. It knows what your AI agents ran

McFly does not add an executor field to its history records. Suvadu records an executor for commands captured through its shell and agent integrations; prompt text is attached only when the selected integration captures it. You can review, search, and replay that captured activity and flag commands with rule-based risk assessment. See agent tracking.

3. Your history becomes agent memory

Suvadu's local MCP server lets a connected AI client query captured history. Returned data is available to the client and may be sent to its provider under the client's settings. McFly does not include an MCP server.

Performance

Both tools are implemented in Rust, but this article does not include a reproducible head-to-head benchmark. Evaluate responsiveness with your own history size and shell configuration rather than treating the title as a performance result.

So, McFly or Suvadu?

• Stick with McFly if you want a minimal, neural-ranked replacement for Ctrl-R and nothing more.
• Move to Suvadu if you want a full history workspace, you work with AI coding agents and want to track what they run, or you want your history available to your agent through MCP.

Installing Suvadu provides the binary; shell recording starts after you add the Zsh or Bash initialization line. The importer accepts Suvadu JSONL exports and raw Zsh history files.

Install Suvadu →  ·  Compare Atuin, fzf, McFly, hstr and Suvadu →