Suvadu vs McFly: A Faster, Smarter McFly Alternative (2026)
Searching for a McFly alternative? Suvadu vs McFly compared on search, ranking, privacy, AI agent support, and what each one is missing.
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 | Frecency + filters | Neural ranking |
| Full-screen TUI | Yes, with filter panel | Inline prompt UI |
| Privacy | 100% local | 100% local |
| AI agent tracking | Claude Code, Cursor, OpenCode, Antigravity | — |
| MCP server | Built-in (15 tools) | — |
| Risk assessment | Yes | — |
| Stats / heatmap | Yes | — |
| Bookmarks & notes | Yes | — |
| Cross-machine export | Encrypted export / 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-Rand 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), frecency-ranked arrow-key history, bookmarks, notes, tags, and a stats dashboard with a heatmap. It's the difference between a better search result and a place you actually manage your command history.
2. It knows what your AI agents ran
McFly has no concept of who ran a command. Suvadu records the executor — human, Claude Code, Cursor, OpenCode, Antigravity, CI — along with the prompt behind each agent command. As more of your terminal activity comes from coding agents, this turns into a real superpower: you can review, search, and replay exactly what an agent did, and flag anything risky. See agent tracking.
3. Your history becomes agent memory
Suvadu's built-in MCP server lets an AI agent query your command history directly — what you ran, what failed, what changed. McFly has nothing like this. If you want your history to help your agent and not just yourself, Suvadu is in a different category.
Performance
Both are Rust and both are quick. Suvadu records commands in under 2ms with SQLite WAL mode, so adding the richer features doesn't cost you a laggy prompt. Treat speed as a tie.
So, McFly or Suvadu?
- Stick with McFly if you want a minimal, neural-ranked replacement for
Ctrl-Rand 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.
Suvadu installs in one line and imports your existing history, so trying it costs you nothing.
Install Suvadu → · Compare all four: Atuin vs McFly vs Hstr vs Suvadu →
Builder of Suvadu. Writes Rust, thinks about shell history more than most people, and believes developer tools should be local-first.