ast-grep vs sqry

ast-grep is a free, open-source tool for structural code search, linting, and rewriting. It matches patterns against syntax-tree nodes, helping developers locate and change code across a codebase rather than searching plain text. Its CLI can preview and apply rewrites interactively, and scan configurable YAML rules with error, warning, info, or hint severity. Rules can combine pattern, kind, regex, relational, and composite conditions, and CLI commands help create and snapshot-test them. The project says it supports more than 20 languages and can load custom languages. JavaScript and WebAssembly APIs allow programmatic syntax-tree work; a browser playground offers a way to try patterns without local installation. Editor options include a VS Code extension and language-server setups, including for Vim and Neovim. The tool is free, has a web interface, and is distributed through package managers or built from source. Its FAQ notes that some advanced static-analysis information is unsupported, and one rule cannot target multiple languages at once.

sqry is an open-source code analysis tool from Verivus Pty Ltd. It parses source code into an abstract syntax tree and a graph of symbols and relationships, then answers structural questions such as which functions call another. Its documented queries cover callers, callees, implementations, dependency cycles and unused symbols. The project lists 37 language plugins: 28 support full relation tracking, while nine extract symbols and imports. Users build an index before querying; it persists so later queries can load the cached graph snapshot. sqry runs locally on Linux, macOS and Windows, under the MIT license. Its maker says source code stays on the machine and the tool has no telemetry. It offers an MCP server for AI assistants, with 39 tools in standalone mode and a curated subset of 16 in daemon mode. An LSP server works with VS Code, Neovim, Helix and LSP 3.17 clients. Installers are listed for the three desktop platforms, as is cargo installation. Windows executables require bundled MinGW runtime DLLs; the release ZIP includes them.