Ghostty
- Category
- Terminal Emulator
- Platform
- macOS, Linux
- Pricing
- Free (Open Source / MIT)
- GitHub Stars
- 50,000+
- Contributors
- 440+
- Written In
- Zig (core + Linux), Swift (macOS)
- Creator
- Mitchell Hashimoto
Ghostty is a fast, feature-rich, and cross-platform terminal emulator that uses platform-native UI and GPU acceleration. It's the rare terminal that doesn't force you to choose between speed, features, or native feel.
Why Developers Choose It
Most terminal emulators make you pick two: fast, feature-rich, or native. Ghostty delivers all three. Created by Mitchell Hashimoto — co-founder of HashiCorp and creator of Vagrant and Terraform — Ghostty is a passion project that has grown to 50,000+ GitHub stars and is used by millions of developers daily.
Native by Design
Ghostty isn't a web app wrapped in a shell. On macOS, the GUI is written in Swift using AppKit and SwiftUI. On Linux, it uses Zig with the GTK4 C API. Both sit on top of libghostty, a shared cross-platform core written in Zig that handles terminal emulation, font rendering, and GPU-accelerated drawing. The result is a terminal that looks, feels, and behaves exactly like your OS expects.
Key Features
- GPU Accelerated — hardware-accelerated rendering for smooth scrolling and high framerates
- Native Tabs & Splits — platform-native window management, not custom widgets
- Kitty Graphics Protocol — inline image rendering for tools like Neovim and terminal apps
- Hundreds of Themes — built-in themes with automatic light/dark mode switching
- Drop-down Terminal — system-wide quick terminal on macOS
- Zero Config Start — works out of the box, hundreds of options when you want them
- libghostty — embeddable C-ABI library so other projects can build on the same core