"Ghostty is a fast, feature-rich, and cross-platform terminal emulator that uses platform-native UI and GPU acceleration."
If you've been working with command-line interfaces (CLI) across both macOS and Linux, you know how frustrating it can be to find the one terminal emulator that is fast, native, and feature-rich without being bloated.
I just discovered Ghostty and it could transform your experience with terminal emulators. Or maybe improve it just a bit. Either way, check it out.
Most terminal emulators tend to go in one of three directions:
Standards: stick closely to standards but lack flashy or power features.
Features: Sacrifice speed or standards for flashy features or advanced ideas for power users.
Performance: Apps like Kitty, which was my previous choice for a while, aim for speed but might neglect features or compatibility.
Enter Ghostty
Ghosty is more than just a terminal emulator, it's aiming for speed, standards compliance, and native platform features.
It's built in Zig (~80+%) with some Swift for macOS.
Not only is it compiled as a native binary for speed (x86/ARM), they build on OS-specific features and APIs to enhance the user experience and functionality.
Ghosty's can produce over 600 frames per second in rendering tests, far ahead of competitors.
macOS: Native tabs, drag-and-drop support, secure password entry, and window restoration.
Linux: GTK support, compatibility with existing protocols.
Windows: Potential support through the cross-platform library.
Native + Standards
Ghosty aligns with xterm protocols for compatibility, but also offers platform-specific improvements:
Native UI elements (eg. tabs, drag icons)
Keyboard shortcuts
Platform-native fonts and rendering, ligatures
One of the ambitious goals of Ghostty is to provide a fully functional, no-configuration-required experience for 99% of users. This compares very well with many other terminals that require extensive customisation and setup before you can use them comfortably.
Ghosty comes with themes with optimised defaults for font size, padding, and key bindings (like Mac's Option key navigation) plus compatibility with terminal multiplexers like tmux.
Bottom Line: Try it
Ghostty is shaping up to be the terminal app upgrade you need, offering a smooth, fast, and native experience without the usual headaches or long configuration process. Don't take my word for it though, try it out.
Very cool. I don't use MacOS as much as I used to back in the day, but I still have a MacMini down in my basement that I might end up using more in the future. I'll have to bookmarkt this and keep it in mind.
I just tend to use the default one in Ubuntu, but then I don't do anything too advanced. There seem to be a lot of these apps when the audience is not that huge. I expect some do it for fun.
Interesting. I didn't even think about there being options for this.
I used OSX & Linux but only use terminal functions infrequently so having to learn only one interface is attractive.