login
RepoCritics — Review. Share. Archive. Every open-source repo.

← ghostty-org/ghostty

Wiki: ghostty-org/ghostty

Source: https://github.com/ghostty-org/ghostty ↗

Last synced 2026-06-02 · 1022 words · Edit wiki on GitHub →

ghostty-org/ghostty

> A fast, feature-rich, cross-platform terminal emulator with native UI and GPU acceleration.

GitHub repo · Official website · License: MIT

Overview

Ghostty is a terminal emulator written in Zig by Mitchell Hashimoto (co-founder of HashiCorp, author of Vagrant and the original Terraform)[^1]. It targets macOS (AppKit), Linux (GTK 4), with a Windows port in progress. The renderer is GPU-accelerated (Metal on macOS, OpenGL on Linux), and the UI uses native widgets on each platform rather than a shared cross-platform toolkit.

The 1.0 release in December 2024 was the first public release after several years of private beta[^2]. Since then 1.1 (2025-04) and ongoing 1.x point releases have focused on stability, theming, kitty graphics protocol support, configuration ergonomics, and Windows readiness.

Ghostty's positioning is "fast and feature-complete with native UI everywhere". This contrasts with:

  • Alacritty — speed-focused, no tabs/splits, GLFW-based UI, minimal config.
  • WezTerm — Lua-scriptable, GPU-accelerated, cross-platform but with non-native UI on macOS.
  • iTerm2 — feature-rich, mature, but macOS-only and not GPU-accelerated end-to-end.
  • kitty — fast, cross-platform, opinionated kitty graphics protocol pioneer, non-native UI.

The choice of Zig as the implementation language is notable. Mitchell has been a prominent Zig advocate; Ghostty is one of the largest public Zig codebases.

Getting Started

macOS (Homebrew):

brew install --cask ghostty

Linux (Flatpak, snap, distro packages):

flatpak install flathub com.mitchellh.ghostty
# or distro-specific packages

Build from source (Zig 0.13+):

git clone https://github.com/ghostty-org/ghostty
cd ghostty
zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseFast

Configuration lives at ~/.config/ghostty/config:

theme = catppuccin-mocha
font-family = JetBrainsMono Nerd Font
font-size = 14
window-decoration = false
background-opacity = 0.92
keybind = ctrl+shift+t=new_tab

Run with custom config:

ghostty --config-file=~/myconfig

Architecture / How It Works

Ghostty is structured as a layered codebase[^3]:

1. libghostty — the core terminal engine, written in Zig. Parses ANSI/VT escape sequences, maintains screen state, exposes a buffer/cell API. Reusable as a library; in principle other front-ends could embed it. 2. termio — terminal I/O (pty management, child process spawning). 3. Renderer — Metal (macOS) and OpenGL (Linux) backends, both rendering text via signed distance field fonts. 4. Platform UI — AppKit on macOS, GTK 4 on Linux. Tabs, splits, menus, window chrome are platform-native.

The renderer uses GPU instanced rendering for text. Each glyph is a textured quad drawn via instancing; cell attributes (color, bold, italic) are vertex attributes. This is competitive in throughput with Alacritty and kitty.

Configuration syntax is a custom flat key-value format, deliberately simpler than TOML/YAML. Color themes are first-class, with a default set including Catppuccin, Solarized, Nord, Gruvbox, Tokyo Night.

Keybindings are declared as keybind = <chord>=<action>. Actions include new_tab, new_split, next_tab, goto_split, clear_screen, decrease_font_size, etc. Multi-key chords (ctrl+a>c) are supported.

Terminfo. Ghostty ships its own terminfo entry (ghostty or xterm-ghostty). On SSH to remote hosts that don't have it, fall back to TERM=xterm-256color. The ghostty +install-terminfo command installs into the local user terminfo database.

Kitty graphics protocol. Ghostty 1.1+ supports the kitty graphics protocol[^4], enabling tools like kitty +kitten icat, chafa, and nvim's image.nvim plugin to display real bitmaps in the terminal.

Production Notes

Performance vs Alacritty. In simple throughput benchmarks (vtebench), Ghostty and Alacritty are within margin of error. Ghostty wins on UI responsiveness (native widgets, fewer custom event loop quirks); Alacritty wins on minimum memory footprint.

Configuration ergonomics. The config language is simple but the surface area is large (>200 options as of 1.1). The ghostty +show-config --default --docs command dumps the full annotated config — treat it as the canonical reference.

Themes. The shipped themes are good. Custom themes go in ~/.config/ghostty/themes/<name>. Theme switching at runtime via keybind action set_theme.

Shell integration. Ghostty supports OSC 133 prompt marking, automatic shell integration injection for bash/zsh/fish. The integration enables features like "jump to previous prompt" and clickable URLs that respect the cursor position. Bash users may need to opt in manually.

Window decoration on Linux. The Linux GTK build has had several iterations on window decorations (CSD vs SSD). Tiling WM users typically set window-decoration = false. Wayland support is functional but less polished than X11 historically; this is improving rapidly.

Windows. Officially still in development as of 1.1. Community Windows builds exist. Targeting first-class Windows support in a future 1.x release.

Crash recovery. Ghostty stores config and minimal state in ~/.config/ghostty. There is no persistent terminal scrollback across restarts (a deliberate choice). For session restoration, use tmux / zellij inside Ghostty.

Resource use. Idle Ghostty uses 50–100 MB RAM per window (typical for GPU-accelerated terminals with text caches). Heavy SGR (color) output can spike GPU usage on integrated graphics; modern dedicated GPUs are unbothered.

When to Use / When Not

Use when:

  • You're on macOS or Linux and want a native, fast, feature-rich terminal.
  • You want kitty graphics protocol + ligatures + GPU rendering + native UI in one tool.
  • You're willing to be on a 1.x release of relatively new software.
  • You value Mitchell's design taste and the project's stability commitment.

Avoid when:

  • You're on Windows and need rock-solid stability today.
  • You need a Lua-scriptable terminal (use WezTerm).
  • You need the absolute minimum memory footprint (Alacritty wins by ~30 MB).
  • You depend on tmux features that the terminal itself provides (tabs/splits) and want one-tool-does-it-all (WezTerm has more overlap there).

Alternatives

  • Alacritty — minimal, fast, no tabs/splits, GLFW-based.
  • WezTerm — Lua config, cross-platform, more features but non-native UI.
  • kitty — fast, cross-platform, kitty graphics protocol creator, non-native UI.
  • iTerm2 — macOS-only, feature-rich, mature, not GPU-accelerated end-to-end.
  • Warp — Rust-based, AI-features-first, partially proprietary.

History

| Version | Date | Notes | |---------|------|-------| | Private beta | 2022–2024 | Closed beta, invite-only. | | 1.0 | 2024-12-26 | First public release[^2]. | | 1.0.1 | 2025-01 | Stability fixes. | | 1.1 | 2025-04 | Kitty graphics protocol, theme improvements. | | 1.x | 2025 | Ongoing Windows work, config refinement. |

References

[^1]: Mitchell Hashimoto, personal blog. https://mitchellh.com/ghostty [^2]: Mitchell Hashimoto, "Ghostty 1.0" — 2024-12. https://mitchellh.com/writing/ghostty-1-0-reflection [^3]: Ghostty docs, "Architecture". https://ghostty.org/docs [^4]: kitty docs, "Terminal graphics protocol". https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/graphics-protocol/