Debuggex vs Retest

Debuggex is an online visual regex tester for JavaScript, Python, and PCRE. It offers visual and text modes, a step-through debugger, and pattern explanations for examining expressions. Users can add unit tests to check matches and subgroups as a regex changes, and browse a repository of pre-built expressions that includes tests. The service generates code snippets, saves patterns, and creates links that reopen expressions; expressions can also be embedded in StackOverflow answers. The Free plan costs nothing and includes two saved unit tests per regex and ten public expressions. Basic costs $5 a month, while Pro costs $15 a month. Enterprise has no listed price and includes options such as private server deployment, denial-of-service prevention, flexible user counts, an OEM license, and on-site training. The free tier excludes snippets based on expressions from the library. The privacy policy says saved or shared expressions can be viewed by anyone with the link, and previous versions are stored after updates. Debuggex is available on the web.

Retest is a free, open-source terminal utility for developing and checking regular expressions on Linux. A subject string can be supplied as an argument or piped through standard input, so it can fit into shell workflows. Retest finds all non-crossing matches and highlights nested capture groups in colors distinct from the whole match. An optional formatted list shows match order and string indexes. Release 0.2.2 added a flag for reading the subject from a file. The project provides Linux release binaries, including a 64-bit Debian installer listed for release 0.2.2. Its README describes compiling from source with Cargo and installing through a Makefile. The source code and documentation are licensed under Apache License 2.0. The project presents Retest as a terminal-based alternative to regex101, for developers building and checking patterns. No paid plans or usage limits are listed.