iTerm2

Our take

iTerm2 is the terminal that most macOS developers have used at some point, and many have never found a reason to leave. It's been in active development for over 20 years, and that maturity shows in the depth of its feature set. Shell integration tracks command status, triggers that fire actions on pattern matches, a Python scripting API for custom automation, and the best tmux integration of any terminal on the market.

The tmux integration deserves special mention because it's genuinely unique. iTerm2's tmux -CC mode maps tmux windows and panes to native iTerm2 tabs and splits. You get tmux's session persistence with iTerm2's native UI. No other terminal does this as seamlessly.

The downside is performance. iTerm2 doesn't use GPU acceleration, and the difference is measurable. Ghostty benchmarks at roughly 3× the throughput on macOS. If you tail large log files, scroll through build output, or run TUI apps that redraw frequently, you'll feel the gap. With enough splits open tailing active logs, the rendering bottleneck becomes noticeable.

For developers who are happy with their tmux workflow and don't want to change anything, iTerm2 remains a perfectly solid choice. For anyone setting up a new Mac or re-evaluating their terminal stack, Ghostty or Kitty offer better performance with most of the same features. The tmux -CC integration is the one feature that genuinely keeps people on iTerm2, and if you don't use it, the performance trade-off is harder to justify in 2026.