Install youplot with Homebrew, apt, Nix

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• uplot
• youplot

Project history

The public repository was created in July 2020 and later moved under the Red Data Tools organization, a Ruby data-processing community. RubyGems metadata identifies the author as kojix2 and describes the gem as a command-line tool for Unicode plotting.

YouPlot grew as a thin, practical CLI layer around UnicodePlot.rb: instead of starting R, Python, Julia, gnuplot, or a graphical plotting environment, users can pipe TSV/CSV-like data into a terminal chart. The README keeps that Unix-pipeline identity front and center with examples based on curl, awk, cut, sort, and stdin.

Adoption history

YouPlot found its audience among developers and data workers who want quick visual checks without leaving SSH, a terminal multiplexer, or a shell pipeline. Its installation docs list Homebrew, RubyGems, Nix, Guix, and conda-assisted Ruby setups, which is broader distribution than many small Ruby CLIs get.

By July 2026 GitHub metadata showed several thousand stars despite the project being small, suggesting that the appeal is the workflow idea: quick terminal plots as a complement to heavier plotting environments.

How it is used

Common commands include barplot/bar, histogram/hist, lineplot/line, scatter, density, boxplot, and count. Users can pass files or stream data through stdin, set delimiters and headers, and optionally output transformed data back into another pipeline.

Typical package-manager usage is installing `uplot` for quick exploratory checks: process lists by user, file sizes, CSV columns, generated numeric data, or small scientific datasets where an inline terminal graphic is enough.

Why package nerds care

YouPlot is a nice example of packaging a tiny ergonomic wrapper that changes a workflow. The heavy idea is not a new plotting engine; it is making Unicode terminal plots feel like `sort` or `awk` in a pipeline.

It also shows the Red Data Tools pattern: Ruby packages that make data work viable from the command line, even in spaces dominated by Python and R.

Timeline

• 2020-07-28: The public YouPlot GitHub repository is created.
• 2020-11: RubyGems metadata shows early YouPlot gem publication.
• 2021-2024: The project gains package-manager coverage beyond RubyGems, including Homebrew and Nix.
• 2026-07: GitHub metadata shows several thousand stars for the terminal plotting workflow.

Related projects

• UnicodePlot.rb is the rendering library behind YouPlot.
• YouPlot2 is an experimental related project with pre-built binaries.
• gnuplot, termplotlib, and terminal-image plotting tools occupy nearby command-line visualization niches.

Sources

• https://api.github.com/repos/red-data-tools/YouPlot
• https://github.com/red-data-tools/YouPlot
• https://github.com/red-data-tools/YouPlot2
• https://github.com/red-data-tools/unicode_plot.rb
• https://rubygems.org/api/v1/gems/youplot.json
• https://rubygems.org/gems/youplot
• https://www.rubydoc.info/gems/youplot/0.3.4