Open Source Mac Terminal Emulators
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Terminal Emulators for Mac
View 26 business solutionsBrowse free open source Terminal Emulators and projects for Mac below. Use the toggles on the left to filter open source Terminal Emulators by OS, license, language, programming language, and project status.
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eDEX-UI
Customizable science fiction terminal emulator
eDEX-UI is a fullscreen, cross-platform terminal emulator and system monitor designed with a customizable science fiction computer interface. Inspired by the TRON Legacy movie effects, eDEX-UI presents a futuristic look and feel while still being able to function as a full-featured terminal emulator. eDEX-UI offers advanced monitoring support for real-time systems and networks. It also offers full touchscreen support; a directory viewer; and for a completely unique sci-fi experience, advanced customization options via themes, on-screen keyboard layouts, CSS injections, and even optional sound effects. If you’re a science fiction fan or are just looking for something different in a terminal emulator, eDEX-UI will surely satisfy and give you a cool and unique experience. -
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Alacritty
A cross-platform, GPU-accelerated terminal emulator
Alacritty is the fastest open source terminal emulator there is. How is it the fastest? With such a strong focus on simplicity and performance, Alacritty’s included features are very carefully considered, ensuring that it remains blazingly fast. It’s got a GPU for rendering that makes a whole lot of optimizations possible. In various benchmarked terminals, Alacritty has shown to be either faster, or way faster than others. Alacritty requires no additional setup, but still allows configuration of many aspects of the terminal. It supports Windows, macOS, Linux and BSD. -
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cool-retro-term
A good looking terminal emulator which mimics the old cathode display
cool-retro-term is a terminal emulator which mimics the look and feel of the old cathode tube screens. It has been designed to be eye-candy, customizable, and reasonably lightweight. It uses the QML port of qtermwidget (Konsole). This terminal emulator works under Linux and macOS and requires Qt 5.2 or higher. Settings such as colors, fonts, and effects can be accessed via context menu. Just grab the latest AppImage from the release page and make it executable and run it. Make sure to install the dependencies first. Once you installed all dependencies (Qt is installed and in your path) you need to compile and run the application. Also, before the building process, remember to install Xcode and agree to the licence agreement. -
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Netcatty
SSH workspace, SFTP, and terminals in one
Netcatty is a modern SSH workspace, SFTP client, and terminal manager for macOS, Windows, and Linux. It is built with Electron, React, and xterm.js, giving users a graphical environment for managing remote shell sessions rather than relying only on separate terminal windows. The application supports multiple connections, split terminals, vault-style organization, and SFTP workflows for browsing and moving files. It also includes an AI agent feature intended to assist with terminal work and remote operations. Netcatty is best suited for developers, system administrators, and DevOps users who want one workspace for SSH access, file transfer, and terminal organization. Its main value is combining remote access, file management, and a polished desktop interface into a single cross-platform tool. -
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WezTerm
GPU-accelerated cross-platform terminal emulator
WezTerm is a GPU-accelerated, cross-platform terminal emulator and multiplexer built in Rust by Wez Furlong. Designed for speed and modern hardware, WezTerm offers smooth rendering and excellent performance on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It supports multiple tabs and panes, configurable keybindings, and integrates well with shell environments. WezTerm is highly customizable and focuses on providing a powerful, flexible terminal experience for developers and system administrators. It also supports serial terminal emulation, making it useful beyond just local shells. The project is open source and maintained actively, with a vibrant community available for support via GitHub Discussions and chat platforms. With over 21,000 stars on GitHub, WezTerm is recognized for its speed, robustness, and developer-friendly features. -
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EQEmulator Core Server
Open Source Fan-Based EverQuest Emulator Server project
EQEmulator is a custom completely from-scratch open source server implementation for EverQuest built mostly on C++. -
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Kitty
Fast, Featureful, GPU based terminal emulator
Kitty is a fast GPU based terminal editor that allows you to offload rendering to the GPU for lower system load. Kitty works on Linux and macOS and uses OpenGL for rendering which makes it portable to other platforms similar to Unix. -
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Rio Terminal
A hardware-accelerated GPU terminal emulator
Rio is a hardware-accelerated GPU terminal emulator built with Rust and WebGPU. It is designed to run across desktops and browser-oriented environments while keeping performance and usability at the center of the experience. The project supports modern terminal expectations such as 24-bit true color, tabs, split panes, font ligatures, and terminal graphics. Rio can display images through protocols such as Kitty, iTerm2, and Sixel, which makes it more capable for visual terminal workflows. It is cross-platform, with support for Windows, macOS, Linux, and FreeBSD. Its main value is offering a modern, GPU-powered terminal that combines speed, visual polish, and broad platform reach. -
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iTerm2
iTerm2 is a terminal emulator for Mac OS X that does amazing things
iTerm2 is a modern, feature-rich terminal emulator for macOS. It extends and improves on the built-in Terminal app by offering advanced features like split panes, profiles, search, autocomplete, instant replay of terminal history, and much more. The repository contains the full source code (primarily in Objective-C / Swift) along with UI components, extensions, and support tools. It is released under the GPL-2.0 license. The project is quite mature (with many commits and contributors) and supports scripting and automation via an API (including a Python library in the api/library/python/iterm2 path). To build it, you can compile the Xcode project included, and there is documentation and instructions linked from the project’s README (note: issue tracking is handled via GitLab, as the repository refers issues there). The code is organized into modular parts (resources, UI, helpers, submodules), and the project is actively maintained with many releases and tags. -
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Bashish is a theme enviroment for text terminals. It can change colors, font, transparency and background image on a per-application basis. Additionally Bashish supports prompt changing on common shells such as bash, zsh and tcsh.
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Ratty
A GPU-rendered terminal emulator with inline 3D graphics
Ratty is a GPU-rendered terminal emulator that experiments with inline 3D graphics inside the terminal experience. It supports both traditional 2D terminal use and a 3D mode that reveals a warped terminal surface. The project includes inline 3D object support through its own Ratty Graphics Protocol, allowing objects to be registered, positioned, animated, scaled, and displayed in terminal space. It also supports GPU-backed text rendering and image display through terminal graphics protocols. ratty is written in Rust and uses graphics-oriented components to render the terminal in a more visual and playful way. Its main purpose is to explore what a terminal can become when it is treated as a graphical environment, not just a text grid. -
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xterm.js
A terminal for the web
xterm.js is a TypeScript-based front-end terminal emulation component that lets web applications embed fully-featured terminal interfaces. It powers in-browser terminals in tools like VS Code and browser IDEs. Xterm.js works with most terminal apps such as bash, vim, and tmux, including support for curses-based apps and mouse events. Xterm.js is really fast, it even includes a GPU-accelerated renderer. Xterm.js is not a terminal application that you can download and use on your computer. Xterm.js is not bash. Xterm.js can be connected to processes like bash and let you interact with them (provide input, receive output). -
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iTerm.app
Project on hold. Try http://www.iterm2.com/ instead.
iTerm is an enhanced terminal emulator program for MacOS X written in Objective-C. It features VT100/ANSI/XTERM emulation, full i18n support, full-screen, multi-tab and other convenient GUI features. This project is indefinitely on hold, and we recommend that you try http://www.iterm2.com/ instead. -
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Rio
A hardware-accelerated GPU terminal emulator powered by WebGPU.
Rio is a terminal application that’s built with Rust, WebGPU, Tokio runtime. It targets to have the best frame per second experience as long you want, but is also configurable to use as minimal from GPU. It also relies on Rust memory behavior, since Rust is a memory-safe language that employs The terminal renderer is based on redux state machine, lines that has not updated will not suffer a redraw. Looking for the minimal rendering process in most of the time. Rio is also designed to support WebAssembly runtime so in the future you will be able to define how a tab system will work with a WASM plugin written in your favorite language. Rio uses WGPU, which is an implementation of WebGPU for use outside of a browser and as backend for firefox’s WebGPU implementation. WebGPU allows for more efficient usage of modern GPU’s than WebGL. Applications using WPGU run natively on Vulkan, Metal, DirectX 11/12, and OpenGL ES; and browsers via WebAssembly on WebGPU and WebGL2. -
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Qodem is a a terminal emulator that resembles the BBS-era Qmodem. Includes phonebook, scrollback, capture, X/Y/Zmodem, Kermit, ANSI (+ music) / Avatar / VT102 / Linux emulation, Unicode, and keyboard macros. Connects over serial, ssh, telnet, rlogin.
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SpeedRead
A simple terminal-based open source Spritz-alike
speedread is a terminal-based Spritz-style speed-reading tool that displays text word-by-word to help users read quickly while maintaining comprehension. Inspired by the original Spritz reader, speedread shows one word at a time with alignment to the optimal recognition point (ORP), allowing users to consume content faster than traditional reading methods. -
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argparse4j
Command line argument parser library for Java
The argparse4j is a command line argument parser library for Java based on Python's argparse. -
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A nearly full options telnet 5250 terminal emulator. It includes a programmers API to improve 5250 panels by adding field popups, hints, ...
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Emacs-libvterm
Emacs libvterm integration
emacs-libvterm is a terminal emulator integration for GNU Emacs based on the libvterm C library. It gives Emacs users a fast and capable terminal buffer that behaves more like a real terminal than many older Emacs shell modes. Because it uses compiled libvterm code, it can support full-screen terminal applications, interactive shells, TUI programs, and complex terminal behavior more reliably. The project bridges Emacs Lisp with native terminal emulation so users can keep command-line workflows inside Emacs without losing too much terminal compatibility. It is especially useful for developers who live in Emacs and want to run tools such as shells, editors, REPLs, and terminal dashboards in the same environment. Its main value is bringing modern terminal performance and fidelity into the Emacs workflow. -
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JediTerm
Pure Java Terminal Emulator. Works with SSH and PTY
JediTerm is JetBrains’ pure Java terminal emulator library built for embedding terminal functionality inside IDEs and desktop tools. Its main purpose is to provide a reusable terminal widget rather than a full standalone terminal product. It supports terminal sessions over SSH as well as local PTY sessions on macOS, Linux, and Windows. The library is used across JetBrains IDEs, including IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, WebStorm, PhpStorm, CLion, AppCode, and Rider. JediTerm handles terminal rendering, shell output interpretation, keyboard input, and integration concerns needed for an embedded terminal experience. It is best suited for developers building Java-based tools that need a mature, IDE-grade terminal component. -
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Upterm
Terminal emulator and an interactive shell based on Electron
Upterm (formerly Black Screen) is an IDE in the world of terminals. Strictly speaking, it's both a terminal emulator and an interactive shell based on Electron. Upterm shows the autocompletion box as you type and tries to be smart about what to suggest. Often you can find useful additional information on the right side of the autocompletion, e.g. expanded alias value, command descriptions, value of the previous directory (cd -), etc. All command-line programs (including emacs, ssh and vim) should work as expected. If you experience any glitches, please create an issue. -
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DIET-PC (DIskless Embedded Technology Personal Computer) is a software kitset enabling IT professionals to build an open source GUI appliance based on commodity x86 (PC), PowerPC (Mac) or ARM (handheld) hardware, using an embedded Linux methodology.
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quardCRT
quardCRT is a terminal emulation software.
quardCRT is a terminal emulation software that supports multiple terminal protocols, can be used across platforms without dependencies, and has a completely consistent user experience on windows/linux/mac. It supports multiple tabs and history management. -
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Mrxvt is a multi-tabbed X terminal emulator based on rxvt. It is portable, lightweight and fast. It supports psuedo-transparency, background image (JPEG/PNG/XPM), tinting, NeXT/Rxvt/Xterm/SGI style scrollbar, multi-languages (CJK), XIM, freetype font...
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Open Source port of the X Window System. XFree86 home page is at http://www.xfree86.org. Bugs may be reported here or at http://bugs.xfree86.org. Information about accessing the XFree86 CVS repository can be found at http://www.xfree86.org/cvs/.
