Sites like Cygwin

01 · Entity

About Cygwin

Cygwin cygwin.com

Cygwin

Wikidata: Unix subsystem for Windows machines

Top 10K · #3,276 English 2 technologies Crawled Nov 6, 2026

Visit Cygwin

Summary by Claude

Free, open-source Unix-like environment for Microsoft Windows, consisting of a POSIX compatibility DLL (cygwin1.dll) and a large collection of GNU and open-source command-line tools installable through a setup program.

Who it’s for

Developers and system administrators on Windows

Business model

None (open-source project, support from Red Hat)

• Unix compatibility layer
• POSIX API on Windows
• cygwin1.dll
• GNU tools for Windows
• bash shell on Windows
• porting Unix software to Windows
• Cygwin installer packages
• Cygwin Time Machine

02 · Embedding space

Competitor map

Each alternative by how close its vector is to Cygwin’s (x) and how much traffic it gets, how much of the stack it shares, or where it sits in the embedding space itself (y). Lines split each axis at the median. Hover for the numbers, click to jump to it in the list.

1. 01
   Ollama ollama.com Top 10K

   Ollama · Run AI models locally and in the cloud

   Ollama is the easiest way to run and build with open AI models locally or in the cloud on macOS, Windows, and Linux.

   • Apple Business
   • Cloudflare DNS
   • Google Cloud
   • Google Search Console
   • Google Workspace
   • OpenAI

   0 say Ollama is a good alternative to Cygwin 0 say Ollama isn’t a real alternative to Cygwin

   Comment
   Very close cos 0.903
2. 02
   RustDesk rustdesk.com Top 10K English

   RustDesk: Open-Source Remote Desktop with Self-Hosted Server Solutions

   RustDesk is open-source remote desktop software for your own self-hosted server, a TeamViewer and AnyDesk alternative for Windows, macOS, Linux and Android.

   • Amazon SES
   • Astro
   • Cloudflare
   • Cloudflare DNS
   • Google Analytics
   • Google Search Console

   0 say RustDesk is a good alternative to Cygwin 0 say RustDesk isn’t a real alternative to Cygwin

   Comment
   Very close cos 0.894
3. 03
   FreeBSD freebsd.org Top 10K English

   The FreeBSD Project

   free Unix-like operating system

   • Font Awesome
   • Microsoft 365
   • Plausible

   0 say FreeBSD is a good alternative to Cygwin 0 say FreeBSD isn’t a real alternative to Cygwin

   Comment
   Close cos 0.894
4. 04
   Enlightenment enlightenment.org Top 10K English

   Enlightenment Main

   window manager for Unix-like operating systems

   • Apache HTTP Server
   • Bootstrap
   • Google Fonts

   0 say Enlightenment is a good alternative to Cygwin 0 say Enlightenment isn’t a real alternative to Cygwin

   Comment
   Close cos 0.892
5. 05
   GNOME gnome.org Top 10K

   desktop environment and graphical user interface

   • Google Search Console
   • Microsoft 365

   0 say GNOME is a good alternative to Cygwin 0 say GNOME isn’t a real alternative to Cygwin

   Comment
   Close cos 0.889
6. 06
   GNU gnu.org Top 1K English

   The GNU Operating System and the Free Software Movement

   Since 1983, developing the free Unix style operating system GNU, so that computer users can have the freedom to share and improve the software they use.

   • Apache HTTP Server

   0 say GNU is a good alternative to Cygwin 0 say GNU isn’t a real alternative to Cygwin

   Comment
   Close cos 0.887
7. 07
   7-Zip 7-zip.org Top 10K

   7-Zip

   open-source file archiver and extractor

   • nginx
   • Google Workspace

   0 say 7-Zip is a good alternative to Cygwin 0 say 7-Zip isn’t a real alternative to Cygwin

   Comment
   Close cos 0.885
8. 08
   freedesktop.org Top 10K English

   Checking you are not a bot

   open-source desktop environment software project

   • Apache HTTP Server
   • Google Search Console

   0 say freedesktop.org is a good alternative to Cygwin 0 say freedesktop.org isn’t a real alternative to Cygwin

   Comment
   Close cos 0.884
9. 09
   Linux kernel kernel.org Top 10K English

   The Linux Kernel Archives

   Unix-like operating system kernel, basis for all Linux operating systems

   • nginx
   • Google Search Console

   0 say Linux kernel is a good alternative to Cygwin 0 say Linux kernel isn’t a real alternative to Cygwin

   Comment
   Close cos 0.884
10. 10
    nginx nginx.org Top 100

    nginx

    open source web server and a reverse proxy server

    • nginx
    • Google Search Console

    0 say nginx is a good alternative to Cygwin 0 say nginx isn’t a real alternative to Cygwin

    Comment
    Close cos 0.882
11. 11
    FreeTDS.org freetds.org Top 10K

    FreeTDS.org

    • Apache HTTP Server

    0 say FreeTDS.org is a good alternative to Cygwin 0 say FreeTDS.org isn’t a real alternative to Cygwin

    Comment
    Close cos 0.879
12. 12
    Syncthing syncthing.net Top 10K English

    Syncthing

    open source continuous file synchronization software

    • Bootstrap
    • cdnjs
    • Fastly
    • Font Awesome
    • GitHub Pages
    • Hetzner DNS

    0 say Syncthing is a good alternative to Cygwin 0 say Syncthing isn’t a real alternative to Cygwin

    Comment
    Close cos 0.878
13. 13
    Arch Linux archlinux.org Top 10K English

    Arch Linux

    Linux distribution

    • nginx
    • Google Search Console
    • Hetzner DNS

    0 say Arch Linux is a good alternative to Cygwin 0 say Arch Linux isn’t a real alternative to Cygwin

    Comment
    Close cos 0.878
14. 14
    ImageMagick imagemagick.org Top 10K English

    ImageMagick | Mastering Digital Image Alchemy

    ImageMagick is a powerful open-source software suite for creating, editing, converting, and manipulating images in over 200 formats.

    • Bootstrap
    • Fastly
    • GitHub Pages
    • Google AdSense
    • Google Cloud DNS
    • Google Fonts

    0 say ImageMagick is a good alternative to Cygwin 0 say ImageMagick isn’t a real alternative to Cygwin

    Comment
    Close cos 0.876
15. 15
    MySQL mysql.com Top 1K English

    MySQL

    Open-source relational database management system

    • Akamai
    • Akamai Edge DNS
    • Proofpoint

    0 say MySQL is a good alternative to Cygwin 0 say MySQL isn’t a real alternative to Cygwin

    Comment
    Close cos 0.877
16. 16
    git-scm.com Top 10K English

    Git

    distributed version control system

    • Cloudflare
    • Cloudflare DNS
    • Fastly
    • jQuery

    0 say git-scm.com is a good alternative to Cygwin 0 say git-scm.com isn’t a real alternative to Cygwin

    Comment
    Close cos 0.877
17. 17
    Red Hat redhat.com Top 1K English

    Red Hat - We make open source technologies for the enterprise

    Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of enterprise open source solutions, including high-performing Linux, cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies.

    • NS1
    • Adobe
    • Akamai Bot Manager
    • Apache HTTP Server
    • Apple Business
    • Atlassian

    0 say Red Hat is a good alternative to Cygwin 0 say Red Hat isn’t a real alternative to Cygwin

    Comment
    Close cos 0.875
18. 18
    zlib zlib.net Top 10K

    zlib Home Site

    lossless compression library

    • Apache HTTP Server

    0 say zlib is a good alternative to Cygwin 0 say zlib isn’t a real alternative to Cygwin

    Comment
    Close cos 0.876
19. 19
    PCRE pcre.org Top 10K English

    PCRE - Perl Compatible Regular Expressions

    The PCRE library is a set of functions that implement regular expression pattern matching using the same syntax and semantics as Perl 5. PCRE has its own native API as well as a set of wrapper functions that correspond to the POSIX regular expression API.

    • nginx

    0 say PCRE is a good alternative to Cygwin 0 say PCRE isn’t a real alternative to Cygwin

    Comment
    Close cos 0.873
20. 20
    centos.org Top 10K English

    The CentOS Project

    Linux distribution

    • Apache HTTP Server
    • Bootstrap
    • cdnjs
    • Font Awesome
    • Google Fonts
    • Google Search Console

    0 say centos.org is a good alternative to Cygwin 0 say centos.org isn’t a real alternative to Cygwin

    Comment
    Close cos 0.873

Ranked by score: the cosine similarity of each site’s vector to cygwin.com’s, less a small penalty for generic sites that are close to everything. Highlighted technologies are ones Cygwin uses too. Votes and comments come from visitors and don’t change the ranking.

04 · Fingerprints

Technology

What Cygwin is built with, and what its closest competitors use, from its homepage’s code and its DNS records.