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ghostty-org/ghostty

Fast, native, feature-rich terminal emulator with platform-native UIs and GPU rendering, plus a libghostty library for embedding terminals.

Open-source alternative to:iTerm2Terminal.app

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What is it?

Ghostty is a terminal emulator that aims to combine speed, a rich feature set, and native user interfaces. It ships as a standalone app: a SwiftUI-based application on macOS using Metal rendering with CoreText for font discovery, and a GTK-based app on Linux using OpenGL. The shared core is written in Zig.

Beyond the standalone app, the project provides libghostty, a C and Zig library for building terminal emulators or adding terminal functionality such as escape sequence parsing and terminal state tracking to other applications. The first component, libghostty-vt, targets macOS, Linux, Windows, and WebAssembly.

Ghostty supports tabs, splits, and multiple windows, along with modern sequences such as the Kitty graphics protocol and synchronized rendering. On macOS it exposes AppleScript and Apple Shortcuts integration, and on Linux it integrates with systemd when available.

Key features

  • 01Native SwiftUI app on macOS with Metal rendering
  • 02GTK-based app on Linux with OpenGL rendering
  • 03Multi-window, tabs, and splits with tab renaming and coloring
  • 04Support for modern sequences such as the Kitty graphics protocol and synchronized rendering
  • 05libghostty C and Zig library for embedding terminal functionality

Use cases

  • Daily terminal use on macOS or Linux with native windowing
  • Embedding a terminal emulator core into another desktop application
  • Building a custom terminal app on top of libghostty-vt
  • Running terminal programs that rely on modern graphics or clipboard sequences

Quick start

  1. 1

    Download the app from the download page on the Ghostty website

  2. 2

    Read the documentation on the Ghostty website

Things to know

  • The README does not give a package-manager install command; installation is via the website download page.
  • libghostty's C API is not yet tagged with a version and its API signatures are still in flux.

Topics

#terminal#terminal-emulator#zig#gpu-rendering#libghostty#macos#linux#cli

FAQ

What is ghostty?
Fast, native, feature-rich terminal emulator with platform-native UIs and GPU rendering, plus a libghostty library for embedding terminals. Ghostty is a terminal emulator that aims to combine speed, a rich feature set, and native user interfaces. It ships as a standalone app: a SwiftUI-based application on macOS using Metal rendering with CoreText for font discovery, and a GTK-based app on Linux using OpenGL. The shared core is written in Zig.
Is ghostty free to use? What license does it have?
ghostty is open source under the MIT license. Check the license terms before using it in commercial products.
Is ghostty still maintained?
Actively maintained. The last commit to ghostty was on Oct 21, 2026.
What can I use ghostty for?
Daily terminal use on macOS or Linux with native windowing Embedding a terminal emulator core into another desktop application Building a custom terminal app on top of libghostty-vt Running terminal programs that rely on modern graphics or clipboard sequences
How do I install ghostty?
Download the app from the download page on the Ghostty website Read the documentation on the Ghostty website
Where can I get ghostty?
The source code and installation instructions are on GitHub: https://github.com/ghostty-org/ghostty

Summary generated by AI from the project's README. GitHub stats refresh daily.

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