Question 1

Which terminals support GPU acceleration?

Accepted Answer

Multiple terminal emulators support GPU acceleration for rendering. Use the GPU Acceleration filter in the comparison table to see all terminals with this feature.

Question 2

Which terminals have image/graphics support?

Accepted Answer

Several terminal emulators support image and graphics protocols. Use the Image Support filter in the comparison table to identify them.

Question 3

Which terminals support Sixel?

Accepted Answer

A number of terminal emulators support the Sixel graphics protocol. Use the Sixel filter in the comparison table to find them.

Question 4

What is the best open source terminal emulator?

Accepted Answer

Many excellent terminal emulators are open source with various licenses. Use the Source column in the comparison table to identify open source terminals.

Question 5

Which terminals are cross-platform?

Accepted Answer

Several terminal emulators support macOS, Windows, and Linux. Use the Platforms column and filter to find cross-platform terminals.

Question 6

What is GPU acceleration in a terminal emulator?

Accepted Answer

GPU acceleration uses the GPU for rendering terminal output instead of the CPU. This enables smoother scrolling, faster text rendering, and support for visual effects like transparency and animations without lag.

Question 7

What is the Sixel graphics protocol?

Accepted Answer

Sixel is a legacy graphics protocol originally developed by DEC that allows terminals to display raster images inline. It is supported by many terminal emulators and command-line tools like img2sixel.

Question 8

What is the Kitty Graphics Protocol?

Accepted Answer

The Kitty Graphics Protocol is a modern graphics protocol created by the Kitty terminal that supports PNG, animated GIFs, and GPU-accelerated rendering. It offers better performance and features than Sixel.

Question 9

What is true color support in terminals?

Accepted Answer

True color (24-bit color) allows terminals to display 16.7 million distinct colors using RGB values. It is essential for modern CLI tools, syntax highlighting themes, and accurate color reproduction in terminal-based editors.

Question 10

What are font ligatures in a terminal?

Accepted Answer

Font ligatures render programming multi-character sequences like ->, =>, and != as single combined glyphs. This requires a ligature-capable font like Fira Code or JetBrains Mono and a terminal that supports ligature rendering.

Question 11

What is OSC 52 clipboard access?

Accepted Answer

OSC 52 is an escape sequence protocol that lets terminal applications directly access the system clipboard. It is essential for copying text in remote SSH sessions where the local clipboard is otherwise inaccessible.

Question 12

What are OSC 8 hyperlinks in terminals?

Accepted Answer

OSC 8 hyperlinks allow terminal applications to render clickable links in terminal output, similar to HTML anchor tags. CLI tools can emit links that open in the default browser on click.

Question 13

What is the Kitty Keyboard Protocol?

Accepted Answer

The Kitty Keyboard Protocol is an extended keyboard protocol that reports key press, repeat, and release events with modifier disambiguation. It enables terminal applications to handle complex key combinations that traditional terminals cannot distinguish.

Question 14

What is synchronized output in terminals?

Accepted Answer

Synchronized output is a protocol that batches terminal output to prevent partial or torn renders. The application signals begin and end update so the terminal only repaints once per frame, which is critical for smooth TUI applications.

Question 15

What is shell integration in a terminal emulator?

Accepted Answer

Shell integration gives the terminal built-in awareness of shell state including current working directory, command boundaries, and exit codes. It enables features like click-to-rerun commands, smart scrollback, and breadcrumb navigation.

Question 16

What is drop-down (Quake-style) terminal mode?

Accepted Answer

Drop-down mode is a feature where a system-wide hotkey summons the terminal as a drop-down overlay from the top of the screen, similar to the console in the Quake game. The terminal slides away when dismissed, staying ready in the background.

Question 17

What is a built-in terminal multiplexer?

Accepted Answer

A built-in terminal multiplexer provides session persistence, detach/reattach capability, and pane/tab management natively within the terminal, reducing or eliminating the need for external tools like tmux or GNU Screen.

Question 18

What are styled underlines in terminal emulators?

Accepted Answer

Styled underlines extend basic underline support with curly, dashed, dotted, and double underline styles, plus custom underline colors. They are used by editors like Neovim for diagnostic markers and spell checking.

Question 19

What is iTerm2 inline image support?

Accepted Answer

iTerm2 Images is a proprietary inline image protocol developed by iTerm2 for macOS. While originally macOS-only, several cross-platform terminals now support it. It works with tools like imgcat for displaying images in the terminal.

Feature	Ratty	Ghostty	Alacritty

Tagline	A GPU-rendered terminal emulator with inline 3D graphics 🐀🧀	Fast, native, feature-rich terminal emulator pushing modern features.	A fast, cross-platform, GPU-accelerated terminal emulator.
Website	https://ratty-term.org	https://ghostty.org	https://alacritty.org
Language	rust	zig	rust
Date Created	May 10, 2026	March 29, 2022	January 6, 2017
Platform	macos linux	macos linux	macos windows linux bsd
File Size	~47.0 MB	~33.8 MB
Image / Terminal Graphics Protocol Support	Yes	Yes	No
Sixel Support	No	No	No
GPU Acceleration	Yes	Yes	Yes
True Color (24-bit)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Font Ligatures	Yes	Yes	No
Tabs	No	Yes	No
Split Panes	No	Yes	No
OSC 52 Clipboard	Yes	Yes	Yes
OSC 8 Hyperlinks	Yes	Yes	Yes
Unicode Support	Yes	Yes	Yes
Notifications	No	Yes	No
Kitty Graphics Protocol	Yes	Yes	No
iTerm2 Inline Images	Yes	No	No
3D Mode	Yes	No	No
Inline 3D Support	Yes	No	No
Ratty Graphics Protocol	Yes	No	No
Glyph Protocol	No	No	No
Kitty Keyboard Protocol	Yes	Yes	Yes
Synchronized Output	No	Yes	Yes
Styled Underlines	Yes	Yes	Yes
Shell Integration	No	Yes	No
Drop-down Mode	No	Yes	No
Built-in Multiplexer	No	No	No
Config Format	—	custom	toml
Source Code Availability	Open Source (MIT)	Open Source (MIT)	Open Source (apache-2, mit)
Source Code	https://github.com/orhun/ratty	https://github.com/ghostty-org/ghostty	https://github.com/alacritty/alacritty
Development State	active	active	active

Ratty vs Ghostty vs Alacritty

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