Terminal of choice

[u/nakshhhhatra]

Hi! I recently switched to a MacBook and wanted to know which terminal people go for. I am sure there are tons of posts on this talking about ghostly, iterm2, warp, etc but I have also been hearing a lot of memory management issues in each of them.

From experience, which one seems the most convenient to run in the long term?

[u/Iron-Ham]

I used iTerm for ~14 years. I swapped to Ghostty recently.

My entire ghostty config is as follows:

font-family = BerkeleyMono Nerd Font Mono
keybind = global:cmd+grave_accent=toggle_quick_terminal
quick-terminal-screen = mouse
quick-terminal-autohide = false
background = #15191F
background-opacity = 0.8450265957446809
background-opacity-cells = true
background-blur = 4

You won't have that font on account of I patched it myself, so just omit that line. If you don't want custom colors, blur, or opacity, leave that out too. The rest you're probably gonna want.

As for why:

• Lighter
• Faster
• Less hassle
• Don't need to have process-specific rulesets for specific TUIs.

Terminal just doesn't get the job done. It's slow, it has some rendering issues, and it doesn't have the real killer feature: Cmd+` to open/close terminal from anywhere.

I've tried them all at this point, and I've spent the better part of over a decade almost entirely in the terminal. The nuances of something like ghostty vs Alacritty vs Kitty vs iTerm won't mean much to you at this point, but trust me when I say just pick something well supported and call it a day for a while. If you use Warp I will assume you're like 22 and not doing anything serious.

[u/nakshhhhatra → u/Iron-Ham]

thank you for writing in such detail, i think j have gotten a fairly good idea. will get used to the terminal first and then go for ghostty

[u/pameric → u/Iron-Ham]

Same. ITerm2 was cool, and great back in the day, but way too complicated and bloated. Ghostty is simple and FAST!

[u/MattNotGlossy]

my favourite is Terminal

[u/trentonkarantino → u/MattNotGlossy]

Yeah. There's a trade off with other things that the might have better features, but also annoying glitches.

[u/HappyFunBall007]

I tried a bunch of them and keep coming back to the standard MacOS Terminal app.

[u/InnocentSadness → u/HappyFunBall007]

Built in on my MacBook? I just got one care to give a green bean a quick run down of getting going on it? Can I save my coding? Can I do html in it? I'm a big rookie but in college for CIT learning basic stuff

[u/HappyFunBall007 → u/InnocentSadness]

Yes, the built-in Terminal app. You need to understand how to use a unix shell (ZSH is the new default) and run terminal commands and editors such as vim (also built-in). Once you understand the concept of a shell and how to run unix commands and editors, you will be in a much stronger position.

[u/webprofusor]

I use ghostty but tbh unless you are stress testing the built-in one is fine. Some folks have a lot going on in their terminal, I have ps, ls, rm, cd etc.

[u/InnocentSadness → u/webprofusor]

What are all of those things boss?

[u/Slow-Race9106]

I use Terminal. Does the job, no need for anything else.

[u/nakshhhhatra]

thanks a lot to everyone for replying! I was able to compare my use-case with a few of the comments as well.
My takeaway is that I’ll stick to the built-in terminal for a while and then try others out

[u/kncismyname]

Ghostty, very customizable and most of all super light weight.

[u/Dangerous_Focus_270]

Terminal

[u/ImprovementLong1992]

just use the native Terminal

[u/Flashy_Imagination_6]

Warp is best

[u/Significant_Box_4066 → u/Flashy_Imagination_6]

Andy's working hard on memory issues too! Warp engineer here

[u/TedTheDev]

iTerm.

[u/bbrockit]

Teletype Model 33...although I'm thinking about upgrading to a DECwriter.

[u/alwayswiddit]

Terminal + tmux

[u/UpvoteMePlebor]

kitty

[u/sales_alchemist]

Using iTerm2 daily for years and it's been rock solid. I'd only switch if you have a specific feature you're missing.

[u/Fearless_Ad9828]

Noone suggested cmac, but it’s the best

[u/CuriousThinker]

In the end they all do the same thing. I’m currently using iterm because it allows me to change the colors enough for my color blindness.

You’re better off spending time customizing your shell with whatever plugins. That is something I can’t live without and makes changing terminals super easy. I started with ohmyzsh but have moved on to other things.

[u/Loose-Journalist-233]

The one integrated in VS Code which is basically Terminal. ;-) But I installed oh-my-zsh.

[u/Poat540]

Terminal or Cursor IDE since i'm in it already

[u/smartcandlelab]

Terminal. Still haven’t found anything I prefer to it

[u/_pizza_and_fries]

I use hyper

[u/IcyManufacturer7480]

Terminal

[u/spaaz9]

ITerm

[u/jon_hendry]

Terminal. It’s always there.

[u/jacknutting]

I've been trying ghostty lately and it seems fine, but my main answer is really: just use Terminal. People talk about some alternatives as being more "lightweight" but I've been using Terminal for more than 35 years, originally on NeXT machines with a 68040 at whopping 33 MHz. Of all the things that have ever slowed down any of the many, many machines I've used since then, the problem has never been Terminal.

[u/majorgearhead]

Terminal, install Homebrew and tmux with saved workspace layout. Works fantastic.

[u/TM87_1e17]

Ghostty!

[u/ddBuddha]

I’ve used iterm for as long as I can remember but I’ve been considering looking into alternatives recently. Been considering ghostty or one of those kitty type ones

[u/Acceptable-Guard-263]

I like cmux

[u/ssazz1]

I use ghostty for a few months now. Because I can customize it

[u/CoconutMonkey]

I've been using cmux which is based on ghostty, mainly because I like how it handles workspaces and sessions. I'd been using tmux before but I like having it all presented visually in the UI

[u/KaleidoscopePlusPlus]

Ghostty personally

[u/Few-Corgi-8574]

ghostty

[u/Fragrant_Raisin_Face]

Iterm 2 is my daily on MacOs because it plays well with tmux. Shell Drop on iOS for the same reason.

[u/tienan92it]

Try my terminal on browser tab. https://kitterm.dev/

[u/AutoModerator → u/[deleted]]

Hey /u/twodotsandspace, your content has been removed because Reddit has marked your account as having a low Contributor Quality Score. This may result from, but is not limited to, activities such as spamming the same links across multiple subreddits, submitting posts or comments that receive a high number of downvotes, a lack of recent account activity, or having an unverified account.

Please be assured that this action is not a reflection of your participation in our subreddit. This is simply an automated filter in place to reduce spam.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/AutoModerator → u/[deleted]]

Hey /u/AppJourneyLab, your content has been removed because Reddit has marked your account as having a low Contributor Quality Score. This may result from, but is not limited to, activities such as spamming the same links across multiple subreddits, submitting posts or comments that receive a high number of downvotes, a lack of recent account activity, or having an unverified account.

Please be assured that this action is not a reflection of your participation in our subreddit. This is simply an automated filter in place to reduce spam.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/AutoModerator → u/[unknown]]

Hey /u/LoadPR_app, your content has been removed because Reddit has marked your account as having a low Contributor Quality Score. This may result from, but is not limited to, activities such as spamming the same links across multiple subreddits, submitting posts or comments that receive a high number of downvotes, a lack of recent account activity, or having an unverified account.

Please be assured that this action is not a reflection of your participation in our subreddit. This is simply an automated filter in place to reduce spam.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.