Ghostty, My new daily driver

Most developers use a terminal in their daily lives, and chances are, it works just fine the way it is. It’s just a terminal after all, which has only one job: to be a frontend to your shell.

So why are people so hyped about Ghostty?

After asking the community, the main reasons are:

• It’s written in Zig, a language known for its efficiency and performance, making Ghostty blazingly fast®

• Developed by Mitchell Hashimoto, a highly respected figure in the developer community

• Offers a native-looking UI on each platform, including seamless tab support

• Has limited access, which builds excitement, with many content creators producing videos on it

• Shader support for improved graphics and visuals

• Unique “squiggly lines” feature that adds a modern aesthetic

About Mitchell Hashimoto

Mitchell Hashimoto is a renowned software engineer and entrepreneur, best known as the co-founder of HashiCorp, the company behind popular DevOps tools like Vagrant, Terraform, and Vault. His reputation for creating robust, developer-focused tools has earned him widespread respect in the software community. Ghostty, his latest creation, is a terminal emulator that embodies his commitment to innovation, efficiency, and user experience. Hashimoto’s involvement in Ghostty has drawn significant attention, as he has a proven track record for releasing high-quality developer tools.

Is Ghostty actually better?

In my experience, Ghostty brings several tangible benefits over other terminals:

• Supports image rendering directly in the terminal

• Delivers impressively fast and smooth performance, even under load

• Has a clean configuration file that’s easy to manage|

• Offers a native UI that feels right at home on any operating system

• Simple, flexible theming options to suit any style

Previously, I used Wezterm, which is a strong terminal emulator in its own right, but it can feel sluggish at times, particularly when scrolling in tools like Neovim. In Wezterm, achieving a minimal configuration requires adjusting several options, which isn’t necessary in Ghostty. This simplicity makes Ghostty more streamlined and enjoyable to use.

Here’s a comparison of my configurations:

local wezterm = require("wezterm")
local padding = 24

return {
  font_size = 14,
  font = wezterm.font("GeistMono Nerd Font"),
  scrollback_lines = 10000,
  enable_tab_bar = false,
  audible_bell = "Disabled",
  line_height = 1.4,
  adjust_window_size_when_changing_font_size = false,
  window_decorations = "RESIZE",
  window_close_confirmation = "NeverPrompt",
  -- window_background_opacity = 0.85,
  -- macos_window_background_blur = 20,
  term = "xterm-256color",
  color_scheme = "Ayu Dark (Gogh)",
  -- color_scheme = "ayu_light",
  max_fps = 160,
  window_padding = {
    left = padding,
    right = padding,
    top = padding,
    bottom = padding / 2,
  },
  send_composed_key_when_left_alt_is_pressed = true,
  send_composed_key_when_right_alt_is_pressed = false,
}

font-family = "GeistMono Nerd Font"
font-size = 13
 adjust-cell-height = 20%

window-colorspace = display-p3

cursor-style = block
cursor-style-blink = false

shell-integration-features = no-cursor
mouse-hide-while-typing = true
shell-integration = zsh
macos-titlebar-style = tabs 

window-padding-x = 4
window-padding-y = 4
window-padding-balance = true

background = #181818
foreground= #D4D4D4

# black
palette = 0=#686868
palette = 8=#686868
# red
palette = 1=#FA2C3A
palette = 9=#FA2C3A
# green
palette = 2=#5B9B4C
palette = 10=#5B9B4C
# yellow
palette = 3=#DCDCAA
palette = 11=#DCDCAA
# blue
palette = 4=#3794FF
palette = 12=#3794FF
# purple
palette = 5=#C586C0
palette = 13=#C586C0
# aqua
palette = 6=#4EC9B0
palette = 14=#4EC9B0
# white
palette = 7=#a89984
palette = 15=#fbf1c7

I just love how lightweight this config is, and for proof, I will show you what both terminals look like:

(Ghostty on the left, Wezterm on the right)

For some reason, Wezterm is a tad more vibrant but that doesn’t really matter to me.

Conclusion

Ghostty is shaping up to be an excellent terminal, combining the rendering performance of Kitty with the smooth, native feel of iTerm2, but available across all platforms. This combination makes Ghostty my perfect terminal. I look forward to its public release in December, and if you’re eager to try it sooner, access may be available through their Discord server.

Thank you for reading!