Meet this terminal emulator written in Zig

Ghostty is a fast and feature-rich multiplatform terminal emulator developed in Zig. Its distinguishing feature is that it combines performance, a native interface and compliance with modern standards, without compromising any of these aspects.

Main Features

Performance: Uses GPU rendering (OpenGL on GNU/Linux, Metal on macOS), maintaining 60fps even under intense load. In benchmarks, it outperforms terminals such as iTerm and Terminal.app in I/O speed.
Native Interface: On macOS, it is a complete SwiftUI application with support for menus, preferences, and system integration. On Linux, it uses GTK4 and libadwaita, offering a visual experience consistent with the environment.
Standards Compliance: It extensively implements xterm control sequences, in addition to supporting modern protocols such as Kitty graphics and keyboard. It is compatible with existing shells and tools.
Advanced Features: Support for multiple windows, tabs, screen splitting, typographic ligatures, and inline graphics rendering.
Embeddable Library: Provides libghostty, a C library compatible for integration into other projects. The macOS application itself is a consumer of this library.

Current Status

Available for macOS and Linux.
Version 1.0 released after two years of private testing with about 2,000 users.
Open source code under MIT license.
Over 30,000 stars on GitHub.
Windows version still under development.

Installation

On Ubuntu I installed using the AppImage: Ghostty-1.1.4-main+38445dc-x86_64.AppImage

wget https://github.com/pkgforge-dev/ghostty-appimage/releases/download/tip/Ghostty-1.1.4-main+38445dc-x86_64.AppImage
chmod +x Ghostty-1.1.4-main+38445dc-x86_64.AppImage
./Ghostty-1.1.4-main+38445dc-x86_64.AppImage

I did this because I tried via snap, but It’s bugged!

See below installation for other operating systems:

brew install --cask ghostty # Brew/macOS
sudo snap install ghostty --classic # Snap/Ubuntu[BUGGED]
sudo pacman -S ghostty # Pacman/Arch
emerge -av ghostty # Gentoo

# Fedora
dnf copr enable pgdev/ghostty
dnf install ghostty

More here: https://ghostty.org/docs/install/binary

Building from Scratch

Install Zig via this post

Use the latest stable version (not the development branch) that according to this post until current date is version: 0.14.0.

To compile Ghostty:

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/ghostty-org/ghostty
cd ghostty

Compile:

zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseSafe

After compiling Ghostty, install it with:

zig build install

By default, it installs in ~/.local/bin. You can change the location with:

zig build install --prefix /desired/path

If you want, you can create an icon for the launch:

Here is a simple example of .desktop for Ghostty:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Ghostty
Exec=/home/your-username/.local/bin/ghostty
Icon=utilities-terminal
Type=Application
Categories=Utility;TerminalEmulator;

Save it as ghostty.desktop in ~/.local/share/applications/ and run it:

update-desktop-database ~/.local/share/applications

For more information, visit the official repository

zig terminal

YouTube channel