For me, Tabaxi are the closest thing D&D has to Khajiit from the Elder Scrolls series. (minus the whole phase of the moon determining birth deal that Khajiit have going on in ES)
They're also similar enough to Woem, a catfolk race I have in a homebrew setting, that I can update a lot of the old stuff I've written without doing a whole lot of work to convert to 5th. In a similar way, some of the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy stuff I have (which has catfolk) becomes easier to convert.
Others are