Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Alacritty VS wezterm

Compare Alacritty VS wezterm and see what are their differences

Alacritty logo Alacritty

Alacritty is a blazing fast, GPU accelerated terminal emulator.

wezterm logo wezterm

GPU-accelerated cross-platform terminal emulator and multiplexer made with Rust.
  • Alacritty
    Image date //
    2024-05-25
  • wezterm Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-02

Alacritty features and specs

  • Performance
    Alacritty is known for its excellent performance and speed, leveraging GPU acceleration to deliver a faster terminal experience compared to many other terminal emulators.
  • Simplicity
    Alacritty aims to be simple and focuses on providing a straightforward terminal experience without unnecessary features. This makes it easier for users who prefer minimalistic design.
  • Cross-Platform
    Alacritty is cross-platform, supporting various operating systems including Linux, macOS, and Windows, which makes it versatile for users across different environments.
  • Customizable
    Despite its simplicity, Alacritty offers a range of configuration options through a YAML file, allowing users to tweak the terminal to their preferences.
  • Active Development
    The project is actively maintained, ensuring that it receives regular updates, new features, and bug fixes.

Possible disadvantages of Alacritty

  • Lack of Native Tabs and Splits
    Alacritty doesn't natively support tabs or splits, which might be a limitation for users who rely heavily on these features in other terminal emulators.
  • Configuration Complexity
    While the configuration is powerful, it uses a YAML file which might be intimidating for beginners who are not familiar with YAML syntax.
  • Limited Out-of-the-Box Features
    Alacritty's philosophy of simplicity means it lacks some advanced features available in other terminal emulators, such as built-in SSH integration and terminal multiplexing.
  • No GUI for Configuration
    Alacritty does not offer a graphical user interface for configuration, which may be a drawback for users who prefer a more visual approach to setting up their terminal.
  • Potential GPU Compatibility Issues
    Since Alacritty relies on GPU acceleration, some users may encounter compatibility issues or suboptimal performance on specific hardware or driver configurations.

wezterm features and specs

  • Performance
    WezTerm is known for its high performance and low resource usage, making it suitable for heavy terminal workloads.
  • Cross-Platform
    WezTerm supports multiple operating systems including Windows, macOS, and Linux, allowing for a consistent terminal experience across different environments.
  • Modern Features
    It offers modern features like GPU acceleration, ligature support, and configurable color schemes, providing a better user experience.
  • Extensibility
    WezTerm is highly configurable and extensible through its Lua scripting interface, letting users tailor the terminal to their workflow.
  • Multiplexing
    It has built-in support for terminal multiplexing, which allows users to split windows and manage multiple terminal sessions more efficiently.
  • Active Development
    The project is actively maintained and regularly updated with new features and bug fixes.

Possible disadvantages of wezterm

  • Steep Learning Curve
    The extensive configurability and scripting capabilities can be overwhelming for new users who are not familiar with Lua or advanced terminal configurations.
  • Sparse Documentation
    The documentation, while improving, is still not as comprehensive as some other terminals, which can make initial setup and customization challenging.
  • Young Project
    Being relatively newer compared to some other terminal emulators, it may lack some features that long-established users might expect.
  • Limited Community Support
    Due to its younger status and niche user base, there might be less community support and fewer third-party resources compared to more mature terminal emulators.

Alacritty videos

Alacritty vs iTerm vs Terminal vs Hyper

More videos:

  • Tutorial - How to Use and Configure Alacritty (The Best Terminal Emulator)

wezterm videos

No wezterm videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Alacritty and wezterm)
SSH
40 40%
60% 60
Terminal Tools
51 51%
49% 49
Remote PC Access
100 100%
0% 0
Server Management
32 32%
68% 68

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Alacritty and wezterm

Alacritty Reviews

MobaXterm for Mac: Best Alternatives to MobaXterm for Mac
Alacritty includes some important features and blazing speed to give best performance as a terminal app. It comes with proper default settings, The Alacritty does not require additional setup. You can start using Alacritty right after installation on your Mac.
The 10 Best Linux Terminal Emulators
Alacritty can be considered by some a new kid in the block because of its “beta” phase status. Some features that might be of interest are the ability to click through a URL using a keyboard, perform a search, and copy text to the clipboard. You can also try the Vi search, and search functionality allows you to find anything in the Alacritty scrollback buffer. You can also...
Top 14 Terminal Emulators for Linux (With Extra Features or Amazing Looks)
Alacritty can be installed using package managers says the official GitHub page, but I couldn’t find it in the default repository or synaptic package manager on Linux Mint 20.1.
Source: itsfoss.com
Top 7 Best Linux Terminals
You should be able to find Alacritty in your distribution’s repositories, but you can also download Precompiled binaries from Alacritty’s GitHub releases page. Apart from Linux, Alacritty also runs on Windows, macOS, and *BSD.
Source: linuxhint.com

wezterm Reviews

We have no reviews of wezterm yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Alacritty might be a bit more popular than wezterm. We know about 58 links to it since March 2021 and only 47 links to wezterm. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Alacritty mentions (58)

  • Preview images, videos, fonts, PDFs ... in Vifm.
    The terminal I am currently using is st but I have also tested this "Vifm" enhancement in kitty and alacritty. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Faking the tmux experience on Windows using AutoHotkey
    I chose Alacritty for this. Why? Because it's written in Rust. Is there any other reason? It also has a pretty simple and has an easy to understand settings page and uses TOML. It also has built in support for vi motions. All wins. It's pretty easy to install as well, just follow the link above. I went with the portable version. Just make sure you note where it is going to look for the configuration files. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • I Just Wanted Emacs to Look Nice – Using 24-Bit Color in Terminals
    IME, this is like the golden age of terminal apps in general and macOS-compatible ones in particular. There are several really good terminals for macOS: [iTerm2 app](https://iterm2.com/) [Kitty terminal](https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/) [WezTerm terminal](https://wezfurlong.org/wezterm/index.html) [Alacritty](https://github.com/alacritty/alacritty) -... - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • alacritty-themes not working any more!!!
    # We use Alacritty's default Linux config directory as our storage location here. Mkdir -p ~/.config/alacritty/themes Git clone https://github.com/alacritty/alacritty-theme ~/.config/alacritty/themes. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • what terminal emulator do you use and why?
    For this reason, and because I think the Zellij project is interesting, I currently use a combination of Alacritty and Zellij, as I consider the risk of OSC52 in my use case to be relatively low. Source: about 1 year ago
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wezterm mentions (47)

  • Make Wezterm Mimic Tmux
    A month ago, I came across WezTerm, a new GPU-accelerated, cross-platform terminal emulator written in Rust (and I’m not a Rust fanboy, for real!). It piqued my interest, so I decided to give it a try. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • In your opinion, what is the text-editor equivalent of Openbox?
    2) Examples of text editors that make use of features of the gui window manager the text editor is run under: gvim, gedit, leafpad[5], overleaf[6] 3) text editor with 'run-time' presentation extension of protocols such as html : vim live server[7] 4) write one's own custom interface to use with bashed[8] ---- [0] : intro to terminal multiplexers (part 1) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0upAE692fY [1] :... - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • Executable Blog Posts: Second Take
    I used Lua for years to configure my awesomewm desktop environment. Then, I started using it to configure my Wezterm. Since I bumped into an Emacs bug (lsp-mode bug to be fair), I switched quickly to Neovim after 20 years of Emacs, and I am using Lua to configure my Neovim. Last but not least, OpenResty gives my Nginx superpowers with Lua. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • WezTerm: an actually good config key binding recipe
    While WezTerm is a great terminal with sane defaults, it doesn't provide The default key binding to open the configuration file and edit it. That is Understandable, everyone may have their own preference for that. Here we will Figure out the recipe that would work everywhere and abide by modern standards. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • Superfile – A fancy, petty terminal file manager
    I very well might be in the minority of Linux users, but I don't particularly care about the answers to most of these questions. I just want it to work. Give me solid defaults[0]. I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to override those defaults. That's an important feature of Linux. My first experience running a cool-looking TUI file manager yesterday (I actually ended up trying yazi first) was that I got a lot of... - Source: Hacker News / 8 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Alacritty and wezterm, you can also consider the following products

iTerm2 - A terminal emulator for macOS that does amazing things.

Konsole - Konsole is a free terminal emulator which is part of KDE Software Compilation.

tmux - tmux is a terminal multiplexer: it enables a number of terminals (or windows), each running a...

tilda terminal emulator - Tilda is a GTK+ terminal emulator.

Kitty terminal - Super fast, GPU and OpenGL based terminal emulator with tiling support

MobaXterm - Enhanced terminal for Windows with X11 server, tabbed SSH client, network tools and much more