Ghostty
Fast, native, GPU-accelerated terminal app for macOS and Linux, plus libghostty for building terminals into other apps; MIT.
Ghostty (v1.4.0, ~63k stars) is a terminal emulator that aims to be fast, feature-rich and native at once: a SwiftUI app with a Metal renderer on macOS and a GTK app with OpenGL on Linux, with multiple windows and tabs. libghostty is a separate C and Zig library for putting a terminal inside your own software. MIT, free, with official Mac downloads; on Linux it relies on distro packages. No Windows app is mentioned on its download or install pages, though libghostty itself is described as compatible with Windows.
The facts
| Question | Answer | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| Runs on my machine? | Yes. Yes; a native app on your own computer | ghostty.org | Checked 2 days ago |
| Code licence | Open source. MIT | github.com | Checked 2 days ago |
| Commercial use | Yes. Yes; MIT allows commercial use | github.com | Checked 2 days ago |
| Paid services needed? | None required; downloads are free and donations are optional | ghostty.org | Checked 2 days ago |
| Hardware | Draws with the GPU: Metal on macOS, OpenGL on Linux; no CPU or RAM figures | github.com | Checked 2 days ago |
| Operating systems | macOS and Linux apps; Windows is not mentioned for the app | ghostty.org | Checked 2 days ago |
| Setup effort | Easy on macOS with the official download; on Linux it depends on your distro's packages | ghostty.org | Checked 2 days ago |
Each fact has its own date. Unknown means nobody has published it. We read their documentation; we didn’t install it. Running it yourself costs your hardware, electricity and setup time. Report a correction.
No licence changes since we started watching. Licence changes: follow Ghostty and we email you if its terms change.