Carbonyl is a Chromium-based web browser designed to render modern websites directly inside a terminal. Unlike traditional text browsers, it supports contemporary browser capabilities including JavaScript, WebAssembly, WebGL, WebGPU, animations, audio, and video. Its rendering engine outputs directly at terminal resolution rather than capturing and downscaling a graphical browser window. Carbonyl can run without a window server, making it suitable for consoles, containers, and remote SSH sessions. The project targets responsive performance, with fast startup, 60 FPS rendering, and minimal CPU usage while idle. It is distributed through npm, Docker, and prebuilt macOS and Linux binaries. Its architecture combines a Rust core with a modified Chromium runtime.
Features
- Chromium-powered terminal web browsing
- JavaScript and WebAssembly execution
- WebGL and WebGPU support
- Audio, video, and animation playback
- Window-server-free SSH operation
- Docker, npm, and native binary distribution