Terminal · Companies & Products
From the 35-lb DEC VT100 to AI-powered shells written in Rust. The hardware and software that shaped how six billion people interact with computers.
1963 – 1990
Before terminal emulators, there were terminals: dedicated hardware devices wired directly to mainframes and minicomputers. These machines defined the protocols every modern terminal still speaks.
The most important terminal ever built. Fully implemented ANSI X3.64, defining the escape sequences every terminal emulator still uses today. Sold over 6 million units. The VT100 is why your terminal responds to \e[2J in 2025.
IBM's workhorse for mainframe access. Unlike the VT100's character-at-a-time streaming, the 3270 used block mode — the entire form filled out before transmitting. Still running in banks, airlines, and insurance companies today. TN3270 emulation is alive in 2025.
The terminal on which Unix was born. Not a screen — a printer. 110 baud (10 chars/second). Paper tape in, paper tape out. Every Unix design decision — short command names, pipes, stdin/stdout — traces directly back to this machine's limitations. The most influential terminal ever made.
The amber-phosphor icon of 1980s office computing. Sharp, readable text on a warm amber CRT. VT52 and VT100 compatible. Widely used in database terminals and point-of-sale systems. The amber glow is still emulated in retro terminal themes today.
1984 – 2010
When graphical desktops arrived on Unix workstations, the terminal went software. These emulators carried the VT100 standard into the GUI age.
The original X11 terminal emulator, written in 1984 and still actively maintained. The reference implementation for VT102, VT220, and Tektronix 4014 emulation. Ships with every Linux desktop. Ugly by default; infinitely configurable via ~/.Xresources. The immortal reference standard.
The default terminal on Ubuntu, Fedora, and most GNOME desktops. Built on VTE (Virtual Terminal Emulator) library. Tabbed interface, profile system, 256-color support. Used daily by tens of millions of Linux users. Not fast, not fancy — but there, reliably, everywhere.
The KDE Plasma terminal. Profiles, bookmarks, split-view, custom themes, and a notification system that alerts you when long commands finish. Tightly integrated with the KDE ecosystem. The terminal of choice for Kubuntu and KDE users worldwide.
2001 – Present
macOS brought Unix to the mainstream. These terminals cater to developers who demand beauty and performance in equal measure.
Apple's built-in terminal, shipping with every Mac since 2001. Decent, reliable, and there. Default shell switched from bash to zsh in macOS Catalina 2019. Sufficient for casual use; developers quickly graduate to iTerm2 or Alacritty.
The macOS developer's terminal of choice for over a decade. Split panes, instant replay (scroll back through the last 4 minutes of output), shell integration (semantic history, marks), inline images, tmux integration, and a feature set that feels overwhelming until you realize you use it all daily.
2016 – Present
The GPU-accelerated terminal generation solved a real problem: 4K displays at 144Hz exposed the CPU rendering bottleneck. These terminals are fast enough to scroll 50,000 lines per second.
Written in Rust from scratch with a single goal: the fastest terminal emulator possible. GPU-rendered via OpenGL. No tabs, no splits — intentionally minimal (use tmux for that). YAML/TOML config. Sub-millisecond input latency on any modern GPU. The benchmark everyone else chases.
GPU-accelerated with the broadest feature set in the category. Kitty's protocol extensions allow inline image rendering, ligature fonts, Unicode input, tiling windows built-in, and a rich Python plugin system. The "no compromises" terminal — fast and full-featured.
GPU-rendered, Lua-scriptable, multiplexer built-in (no tmux needed), SSH client built-in, and the most configurable terminal in existence. If you want tabs, panes, images, and GPU rendering in one binary, WezTerm delivers. Config is Lua — a real programming language, not YAML.
2019 – Present
After 40 years of legacy command prompts, Microsoft built a modern terminal. It was an admission that the terminal had won.
GPU-accelerated, tabbed, with support for PowerShell, CMD, WSL2, Azure Cloud Shell, and SSH — all in one window. Unicode, emoji, custom themes, background images, and full JSON configuration. Shipped by default on Windows 11. The moment Microsoft admitted the terminal isn't going anywhere.
2022 – Present
The terminal's newest generation rethinks the fundamental interface: what if the terminal talked back?
Reimagined from scratch for the AI age. Blocks replace the scrollback buffer — every command and its output is a discrete unit you can share, copy, or reference. Built-in AI translates natural language to shell commands. Context-aware suggestions. Collaboration features. GPU-rendered in Rust. The most ambitious rethinking of the terminal interface since xterm.
Written by the creator of Vagrant and co-founder of HashiCorp using the Zig programming language. The fastest terminal on macOS by benchmark. Native rendering on macOS (Metal) and Linux (OpenGL). Opinionated: no plugin system, no electron, just absolute performance and correctness. The terminal for people who care about craft.
Not a terminal emulator — a multiplexer that runs inside any terminal. Sessions that survive SSH disconnects. Split panes. Named windows. Scriptable sessions with tmux new-session. The missing piece that makes any terminal into a complete IDE. Used by virtually every serious backend developer on Earth.
| Terminal | GPU Render | Tabs/Splits | Images | Ligatures | Cross-Platform | AI | Config | License |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alacritty | ✓ | — (use tmux) | — | ✓ | ✓ | — | TOML | MIT |
| Kitty | ✓ | ✓ built-in | ✓ kitten | ✓ | Linux/macOS | — | Conf | GPL-3 |
| WezTerm | ✓ | ✓ built-in | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — | Lua | MIT |
| iTerm2 | Metal | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | macOS only | via AI | GUI/JSON | GPL-2 |
| Windows Terminal | ✓ | ✓ | partial | ✓ | Windows only | Copilot | JSON | MIT |
| Warp | ✓ Rust | ✓ | partial | ✓ | Mac/Linux | ✓ built-in | YAML | Freemium |
| Ghostty | ✓ Metal/GL | ✓ | partial | ✓ | Mac/Linux | — | Conf | MIT |
| xterm | CPU only | — | — | — | X11 only | — | Xresources | MIT |