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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Butterfly
A web terminal based on websocket and tornado
Butterfly is a web-based, xterm-compatible terminal emulator written in Python, leveraging WebSockets and Tornado to allow users to access and interact with a terminal via their browser without plugins, featuring robust theming, multi-session support, browser-native features, and security mechanisms. Native browser scroll and search. Theming in css / sass (20 preset themes) endless possibilities. HTML in your terminal! cat images. Multiple sessions support (à la screen -x) to simultaneously access a terminal from several places on the planet. Secure authentication with X509 certificates. -
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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/.
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Termux.apk
Termux is an Android terminal emulator and Linux environment app.
Secure. Access remote servers using the ssh client from OpenSSH. Termux combines standard packages with accurate terminal emulation in a beautiful open source solution. Feature packed. Take your pick between Bash, fish or Zsh and nano, Emacs or Vim. Grep through your SMS inbox. Access API endpoints with curl and use rsync to store backups of your contact list on a remote server. Customizable. Install what you want through the APT package management system known from Debian and Ubuntu GNU/Linux. Why not start with installing Git and syncing your dotfiles? Explorable. Have you ever sat on a bus and wondered exactly which arguments tar accepts? Packages available in Termux are the same as those on Mac and Linux - install man pages on your phone and read them in one session while experimenting with them in another. Portable - With batteries included. Can you imagine a more powerful yet elegant pocket calculator than a readline-powered Python console? -
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FreeHost3270 is a complete 3270-to-web solution, providing single-point deployment of legacy 3270 applications to unlimited clients. It delivers either a java applet-based TN3270 emulator, or a stand alone application with rich GUI.
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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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CULT is an Open Source software-only network bootable thin client Operating System that provides a complete solution for thin clients, PCs or virtualized hardware.
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Bastillion
Bastillion gives you a clean, browser-based way to manage SSH access a
Bastillion is a web-based SSH console and SSH key management tool — a bastion host with a friendly browser dashboard. Register a system once; Bastillion pushes its own SSH key to it, so users never hold long-lived keys to your servers themselves. Authorized users then open live, resizable web terminals to one or more systems at once, with commands optionally broadcast to every open session simultaneously. Highlights: centralized SSH key management (rotate/revoke access to every system instantly); two-factor authentication (Authy or Google Authenticator); every terminal session is recorded and can be replayed for audits (PCI DSS, HIPAA, SOC 2, ISO 27001); Profiles control who can reach which systems; Composite Scripts run the same script across a whole fleet; TLS/HTTPS out of the box with custom certificate support; optional LDAP authentication. Ships as a single self-contained jar with an embedded H2 database. Free for up to 5 systems.