New year, new terminal: Exploring Ghostty - a speedy, minimalist terminal emulator

As the new year begins, it’s the perfect time to refresh your toolkit. After years of relying on iTerm2—a feature-packed but sometimes a little sluggish terminal—I’ve decided to try something new. Enter Ghostty, a recently launched terminal emulator that promises speed, customization, and seamless OS integration.

Unlike other options I’ve tried, like Warp (which threw me off with mandatory sign-ins and telemetry), Ghostty keeps things refreshingly simple. With a lightweight design and configuration managed via a sharable file, it’s an exciting alternative for anyone seeking a faster, more flexible terminal experience.

Why Ghostty?

Ghostty takes a minimalist approach that feels refreshingly focused. Here are the standout features that convinced me to give it a shot:

• Speed: Ghostty is lightweight and blazing fast, making it a great choice for users who value performance.

• Customization-First: Instead of a graphical interface for configuration, Ghostty uses a configuration file. While this may seem daunting at first, it’s a breath of fresh air for users who appreciate the ability to replicate their setup across multiple machines.

• Native: Ghostty is designed to feel like a natural extension of your operating system, rather than a standalone app.

Getting started with Ghostty

Installing Ghostty is a straightforward process. You can grab it from their official website or via a package manager (e.g., Homebrew on macOS). I used Homebrew:

$ brew install --cask ghostty

Once installed, I wanted to replicate my current look and feel, so I went looking for my favorite theme Night Owl - with success. Using this Github repo, I was able to download the theme for Ghostty:

$ mkdir -p ~/.config/ghostty/themes
$ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/m1yon/ghostty-night-owl/refs/heads/main/NightOwlDark -P ~/.config/ghostty/themes

To customize Ghostty, simply open the configuration file in your favorite text editor and start tweaking. On a Mac, you can use the CMD+, shortcut.

Here’s a snippet of my configuration to get you started:

theme = NightOwlDark

window-padding-x = 4
window-padding-y = 4
window-width = 120
window-height = 45

font-size = 14
font-family = Hack
font-thicken = false

adjust-cell-width = -3%
adjust-underline-position = 40%
adjust-underline-thickness = -60%

cursor-style = block
cursor-style-blink = false

copy-on-select = true

shell-integration = zsh
shell-integration-features = no-cursor

macos-icon = custom-style
macos-icon-ghost-color = FFFFFF
macos-icon-screen-color = 000000,00E000
macos-non-native-fullscreen = true
macos-titlebar-style = tabs

This setup embraces the NightOwl theme with the excellent Hack font, a tabbed window style and a block style cursor.

First impressions

While I’ve only just started exploring Ghostty, I’m already impressed by its speed and minimalist design. The idea of managing configurations through a file instead of a GUI feels both challenging and liberating—it’s exciting to have complete control over my terminal’s setup.

That said, I’m eager to see how Ghostty handles my daily workflow, especially with tasks like managing tabs and handling large outputs. Its simplicity and performance focus make me optimistic, but I’m also curious to discover any quirks or missing features that might come up.

I’m also looking forward to seeing how Ghostty evolves as it gains traction. For now, it’s already a welcome addition to my daily workflow, and I’m excited to continue exploring its capabilities.