Kitty

Our take

Kitty occupies the sweet spot between Alacritty's minimalism and iTerm2's feature richness. It's GPU-accelerated and fast, but unlike Alacritty, it ships with built-in tabs, splits, and layouts, so you can use it as a standalone terminal without tmux if you prefer. The Kitty graphics protocol, which enables inline images and rich graphics in the terminal, has become a de facto standard adopted by Ghostty and other terminals.

The scripting system (kittens) is the deepest in the category. You can write custom terminal tools in Python that integrate directly with Kitty's rendering and input pipeline. The built-in kitten ssh replaces standard SSH with a version that carries your Kitty configuration and shell integration to remote servers automatically. These are power-user features, but they're the kind that save meaningful time once you've set them up.

Linux is where Kitty is strongest. It's the developer's primary platform, and it shows in the polish and performance. macOS support works but feels like a secondary concern. Ghostty is a better choice if you want a terminal that feels native on a Mac. Windows isn't supported at all.

For Linux developers who want speed, features, and scriptability in one package, Kitty is hard to beat. The learning curve is steeper than Ghostty's (there's more to configure and understand), but the ceiling is higher. If you find yourself wishing your terminal could do something custom and specific, Kitty's scripting system probably makes it possible.