What is the project about?

Ghostty is a fast, feature-rich, and native terminal emulator. It aims to be competitive in all three aspects without forcing users to choose between them.

What problem does it solve?

Existing terminal emulators often require users to compromise between speed, features, or native UI. Ghostty provides a solution that offers all three, along with modern features for enhanced CLI tool development.

What are the features of the project?

• Standards-compliant terminal emulation.
• Competitive performance with multi-renderer architecture (OpenGL on Linux, Metal on macOS).
• Basic customizability (fonts, background colors, etc.).
• Richer windowing features (multi-window, tabbing, panes/splits).
• Native platform experiences (SwiftUI-based app on macOS, GTK on Linux).
• Cross-platform libghostty for embeddable terminals (C-compatible library).
• Built-in crash reporter (reports are saved locally, not sent automatically).

What are the technologies used in the project?

• Zig: Primary programming language for the shared core.
• SwiftUI: For the native macOS application.
• Metal: Rendering engine on macOS.
• OpenGL: Rendering engine on Linux.
• GTK: For the Linux application.
• C: For the libghostty API.
• Nix: Package manager.
• Prettier: Code Formatter
• Alejandra: Nix Formatter

What are the benefits of the project?

• High performance: Fast rendering and IO.
• Feature-rich: Supports modern terminal features and aims to push boundaries.
• Native experience: Provides a native feel on each supported platform.
• Embeddable: libghostty allows integration into other projects.
• Standards-compliant: Compatible with existing shells and software.
• Customizable: Offers options for personalization.

What are the use cases of the project?

• Primary terminal emulator for daily use.
• Development environment for building CLI tools.
• Embedding a terminal emulator within other applications (using libghostty).
• Potentially, Windows terminals (including PowerShell, Cmd, WSL) in the future.