The fast, feature-rich, GPU-based terminal emulator for power users.
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4 reviews trackedThe Bottom Line
Entry price
Free, no paid tier
Biggest pro
Fast GPU-accelerated terminal
Biggest con
Configuration file-based only
TL;DR - Kitty
- Fast, GPU-accelerated terminal emulator for high performance.
- Feature-rich with graphics, ligatures, emojis, and advanced window management.
- Highly scriptable and extensible with Python-based "kittens" for customization.
Pricing: Free forever
Best for: Individuals & startups
What is Kitty?
Kitty is a high-performance terminal emulator designed for users who spend a lot of time in the terminal. It leverages GPU and SIMD vector CPU instructions for best-in-class speed and uses threaded rendering to minimize latency. This focus on performance ensures a smooth and responsive experience, even with demanding tasks.
Beyond speed, Kitty offers a rich set of features including graphics support for images and animations, ligatures, emoji with per-glyph font substitution, variable fonts, and hyperlinks with configurable actions. It's highly scriptable and extensible via "kittens" (Python-based extensions), allowing users to customize and automate their workflows. Kitty also provides advanced window management with programmable tabs, splits, and layouts, and innovative features like browsing command history in pagers and editors, and editing remote files in SSH sessions. It's cross-platform, supporting Linux, macOS, and various BSDs, and has pioneered several terminal protocol extensions.
Available on: Windows, macOS, Linux
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Fast GPU-accelerated terminal
- Built-in tabs, splits, multiplexing
- Image rendering support
- Highly configurable
- Cross-platform
Cons
- Configuration file-based only
- Documentation can be dense
- Learning curve
- Some compatibility issues
- Font rendering varies
Ratings Across the Web
5(4 reviews)
Ratings aggregated from independent review platforms. Learn more
Key Features
GPU-accelerated terminalExtensible with PythonImage supportLigaturesMultiple layoutsCross-platform
Pricing Plans
Free
Free
- GPU-accelerated terminal
- Kitty protocol
- Tabs and splits
- Font ligatures
- GPL-3.0 license
- Open source
Reviews
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Kitty FAQ
What is Kitty?
Kitty is a fast, GPU-accelerated terminal emulator that supports images, ligatures, tabs, splits, and many other features out of the box.
Is Kitty better than Alacritty?
Kitty has more features (tabs, splits, image support) while Alacritty is simpler and slightly faster. Choice depends on your needs.
Can Kitty display images?
Yes, Kitty has a graphics protocol that allows displaying images directly in the terminal.
Source: sw.kovidgoyal.net