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Abraham Esandayinze Tanta edited this page Sep 26, 2025 · 2 revisions

Welcome to the comprehensive PortKill documentation! PortKill is a lightweight, zero-dependency port management tool that follows the Unix philosophy of "do one thing and do it well."

Quick Navigation

Getting Started

Core Features

Advanced Usage

Reference

Development

Comparisons & Background

PortKill at a Glance

Metric Value
Size 72KB
Lines of Code 2,106
Dependencies Zero (pure Bash)
Platforms macOS, Linux, Unix systems
License MIT
First Release 2023

πŸ”§ System Requirements

  • Shell: Bash 4.0 or later
  • OS: macOS, Linux, or any Unix-like system
  • Tools: Standard Unix utilities (lsof, ps, kill, netstat)
  • Optional: Docker (for container management)
  • Optional: bc (for advanced benchmarking calculations)

πŸ’‘ Philosophy

PortKill follows the Unix philosophy:

Do one thing and do it well.

In an era of bloated tools requiring multiple dependencies, PortKill stands out by:

  • Zero Dependencies - Pure Bash, no Python/Node.js/Go required
  • Lightweight - 200x smaller than alternatives
  • Reliable - Simple code means fewer bugs
  • Portable - Works anywhere Bash exists
  • Fast - No startup overhead from heavy runtimes

πŸ“ˆ Use Cases

Developers

  • Kill stuck development servers
  • Clear port conflicts during local development
  • Debug networking issues
  • Integrate into build scripts

System Administrators

  • Manage production services
  • Clean up orphaned processes
  • Monitor system resources
  • Automate maintenance tasks

DevOps Engineers

  • Container orchestration cleanup
  • CI/CD pipeline integration
  • Infrastructure monitoring
  • Security auditing

πŸ† Why PortKill?

Feature PortKill Alternatives
Size 72KB ~14MB+
Dependencies None Python, Node.js, Go
Startup Time Instant 100ms+
Memory Usage <1MB 50MB+
Installation Single file Package managers
Reliability Rock solid Dependency issues

Additional Resources


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