Kitty vs. zt

Feature	Kitty	zt

Tagline	Cross-platform, fast, feature-rich, GPU based terminal.	The fastest terminal emulator. 88 MB/s throughput. 5.5ms startup.
Website	https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/	https://github.com/midasdf/zt
Language	python	zig
Date Created	January 7, 2017	March 31, 2026
Platform	macos bsd linux	macos linux
File Size	~15.0 MB	~1.0 MB
Image / Terminal Graphics Protocol Support	Yes	No
Sixel Support	No	No
GPU Acceleration	Yes	Yes
True Color (24-bit)	Yes	Yes
Font Ligatures	Yes	Yes
Tabs	Yes	No
Split Panes	Yes	No
OSC 52 Clipboard	Yes	Yes
OSC 8 Hyperlinks	Yes	Yes
Unicode Support	Yes	Yes
Notifications	Yes	No
Kitty Graphics Protocol	Yes	No
iTerm2 Inline Images	No	No
3D Mode	No	No
Inline 3D Support	No	No
Ratty Graphics Protocol	No	No
Glyph Protocol	No	No
Kitty Keyboard Protocol	Yes	No
Synchronized Output	Yes	Yes
Styled Underlines	Yes	Yes
Shell Integration	Yes	No
Drop-down Mode	Yes	No
Built-in Multiplexer	Yes	No
Config Format	conf	Source / compile-time (config.zig)
Source Code Availability	Open Source (GPL-3)	Open Source (MIT)
Source Code	https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty/	https://github.com/midasdf/zt
Development State	active	active