^ this. For common usage of searching for decently long patterns (>3-6 bytes) with several literal characters/limited wildcarding on a text with a largish alpha

^ this. For common usage of searching for decently long patterns (>3-6 bytes) with several literal characters/limited wildcarding on a text with a largish alphabet, it is algorithmically very difficult to do _far_ better than GNU Grep’s Boyer-Moore-based implementation. That situation changes when you have very short patterns, very long patterns, many patterns, or small alphabets (eg DNA). As burnsushi notes, ripgrep’s performance difference for common feel usage comes more from being smarter about its input than from algorithms (its algorithms are solid, of course).