Back to blog

Ghostty and Modern Terminals: Which Should You Use on Linux?

terminalghosttylinuxdeveloper-tools

The terminal emulator is the application many Linux users spend the most time in, so it is one of the few tools where small differences in speed and comfort add up. For a long time the choices were stable and unremarkable. Recently, newer GPU-accelerated terminals have changed expectations, and Ghostty has become one of the most talked-about. It is now packaged in major distributions, which makes it easy to try.

Where Ghostty stands in 2026

Ghostty is available in the Ubuntu 26.04 LTS universe archive, so on that release it installs with the package manager. The default terminal on Ubuntu remains Ptyxis. Arch Linux carries Ghostty in its official repositories, with version 1.3.1 listed as of April 2026. One comparison article claims a 2.0 version exists, but that figure conflicts with the packaged version and should be treated as unverified.

# Ubuntu 26.04 LTS
sudo apt install ghostty

# Arch Linux
sudo pacman -S ghostty

What reviewers praise

Reviews describe Ghostty as fast, GPU-accelerated and natively integrated with the desktop, with a zero-configuration philosophy: it works well immediately and lets you tweak settings in a simple text file later. That combination is the main selling point. Many people appreciate a terminal that looks good and behaves sensibly without a weekend of configuration.

The main alternatives

GNOME Terminal and Ptyxis

These are the defaults on GNOME-based systems, and Ptyxis is the current default on Ubuntu. They are well integrated, reliable and accessible. Ptyxis was designed around containers, making it handy if you work with toolboxes and development containers.

Konsole

The KDE terminal is feature-rich, with profiles, split views and extensive settings, and it integrates tightly with Plasma.

Kitty

Kitty achieves exceptional speed and low resource usage and supports features such as displaying images in the terminal. Some comparisons note it lacks a few of the polished interface features found in Ghostty and GNOME Terminal.

Alacritty

Alacritty is minimal and very fast. One comparison argues that it can be faster than Ghostty, but it needs extensive configuration, because it deliberately omits features like tabs and splits and expects you to use a multiplexer.

What actually matters when choosing

  • Latency and smoothness while scrolling or printing large outputs. Test with commands that produce a lot of text.
  • Font rendering, ligatures and true-colour support, which affect readability and how editor themes look.
  • Built-in tabs and splits, or the willingness to use tmux or a window manager instead.
  • Configuration style. Some people want a settings dialog, others a plain text file in version control.
  • Wayland behaviour, including clipboard handling, scaling and input.

Configuring Ghostty

Ghostty reads a plain text configuration file, typically stored in your user config directory. A few lines are usually enough to set a font and theme. Because the file is just text, it is simple to keep in a dotfiles repository and copy across machines.

# ~/.config/ghostty/config
font-size = 13
theme = dark
window-padding-x = 8

A sensible recommendation

If your default terminal does what you need, there is no urgency to switch. If you are curious, install Ghostty alongside it, use it for a week and compare the experience. Pick Alacritty or Kitty if you want a lean, scriptable tool, and stay with GNOME Terminal, Ptyxis or Konsole if desktop integration matters more than raw speed. The best terminal is the one you stop noticing.

Common questions

Is a GPU-accelerated terminal worth it? For everyday shell use, any modern terminal feels fast. The difference shows up when you scroll through long logs, run build output or use a text editor inside the terminal, where smoother rendering reduces visible stutter. Does it matter which one you choose for scripting? No. Your shell and your programs behave the same in every terminal emulator, because the terminal only draws text and passes along keystrokes. Can you try several without commitment? Yes, because they are independent applications. Install two, set the one you like best as your default in the desktop's settings, and uninstall the others if you find you do not use them.

Sources