12 hours ago
- Ghostty 1.0, an open-source terminal emulator under the MIT license, will be released in December 2024 after nearly two years of private beta testing with around 2,000 testers.
- The project aims to be the best drop-in replacement for current terminal emulators on macOS and Linux, focusing on speed, feature-richness, and a platform-native GUI without forcing trade-offs.
- Key features include fast performance (achieved through optimizations like those in a 5-minute lightning talk), extensive support for xterm escape sequences, modern specifications like styled underlines and Kitty keyboard protocol, and native GUI toolkits (macOS native and GTK/libadwaita on Linux).
- The first public release is version 1.0, not a ZeroVer version, due to extensive private testing, which was motivated by family priorities and a nostalgic desire to release software when ready.
- Future plans include libghostty as a standalone library for ecosystem growth (e.g., embedded terminals, web-based terminals) and expanding terminal functionality (e.g., security, modern input methods), but Ghostty 1.0 will not have a stable libghostty API.
- The project is a non-commercial passion project funded by the creator's past successes, with long-term sustainability plans involving a not-for-profit structure.