Terminal (Emulator)

macOS builtin terminal: very slow, no ligature support.
iTerm2
- relatively slow, rich features (but can be distracting)
- with ligature support, transparent title bar available
- macOS native.
- Great integration with Tmux, ideal for terminal multiplexing/session management with native GUI, specially helpful in SSH sessions, where we don’t have tmux configured as we like.
- Builtin AI command Q&A.
Alacritty: claimed to be the fastest, no ligature support. Cross-platform.
Kitty
- Fast, ligature support, good image support.
- Title bar can’t be set to be transparent along with the window.
- Heavily relying on Python.
Wezterm
- Fast, ligature support.
- Cannot pin to dark mode yet
- Implemented in Rust and is cross-platform.
- Lua based configuration.
- Multiplexing is under construction.
- Good words about WezTerm
Rio, “a modern terminal for the 21st century”. Implemented in Rust. Still in early stage. Can apply CRT shader effects.
Ghostty, implemented in Zig. A macOS native app.

INFO

In fast Neovim scrolling tests, Kitty and Ghostty and iTerm2 outperformed Wezterm. That said, no terminal is comparable to Neovide.

Smooth Scrolling

It’s not possible to achieve smooth scrolling in most terminal emulators since we can’t get steps less than a line.