What's the current state of terminal apps? Any suggestions?

Software
1

I’m currently using Core Shell, and since the update to Sonoma I’m getting a lot of text flickering, character distortion, and general “janky” behavior. It’s not updated for Sonoma, and I’m not religiously attached to it or anything - so I’m looking for an alternative.

I know people are talking about Warp, but by my understanding that requires me to make an account and log in to use it. That’s a dealbreaker for me. I’m also not interested in anything related to VSCode, even if it has a perfectly-functional terminal plugin. :slight_smile:

I don’t mind paying for something good though. Recommendations?

2

Take a look at iTerm.

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3

Seconding the iTerm suggestion. As an old *nix guy, I spend most of my day using the terminal and have been very happy with iTerm for many years.

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4

I’d agree with looking at iTerm2 first. The GUI config is reasonably good. Integrate Eternal Terminal to replace auto-reconnect. The built-in tag and profile manager should be familiar enough–I don’t know anything about export/import.

kitty is a fun one if you’d rather use text configuration files and want to minimize resource usage.

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5

I also use iTerm2, it seems enough for me. From time to time I have tried other terminal emulator apps but with some glitches here and there… I have not found any compelling reason to switch from iTerm, but I guess @webwalrus sure knows about iTerm, of course.

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6

Yup, I’m aware of iTerm. I switched to Core Shell back a ways when I was trying SetApp because I wanted to try the apps they offered for various purposes, and I liked it - so I stayed.

iTerm2 is at the top of my list of apps to replace Core Shell with; I just figured there might be something awesome I wasn’t aware of. :smiley:

7

Warp is one of the new kids on the block, but I still prefer iTerm2.

8

I’ve used Warp for about a yaar or so and really like it.

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9

I read quite a few good things about WezTerm lately. Personally I’m still using iTerm2 though. The ability to open profiles directly from Alfred is one of the reasons for me.

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10

Long time iTerm2 user but have fallen in love with Termius. Has everything nicely built-in.

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I use iTerm, but you might want to hold off a bit if you otherwise like your current option - there are some definite windowing bugs in Sonoma that I hope will be cleared up soon. It seems to hit techier software, like R: macos - How can I stop my R console and other R windows "flickering" after I updated my Mac OS to Sonoma 14.0? - Stack Overflow

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I just now discovered Warp. It just does all the things I want right outta the box! And the fonts/colors, etc. are awesome…

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What features have drawn you to Warp over other terminal emulators? I am currently using the macOS Terminal.app as part of a general trend towards using stock apps if they are “good enough”. This is after several years of using Alacritty which, if others are looking for alternatives, I would recommend considering.

Looking at Warp’s website, the first thing I see is “the terminal reimagined with AI”. Perhaps it is how I use my terminal emulator, but I am not sure I have ever wanted it to have more than a standard basic feature set.

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14

Looks like Warp still requires you to create an account and to log in before you can use it.

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15

Hard to describe but the ui/ux is unlike any other terminal emulator I’ve seen in decades. Feels more like a native MacOS app. Auto-completion is automatic. No configuration fiddling required…

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Yes, as collab is a focus. I just logged in w/ my GitHub account so I didn’t have to mess w/ setup. I don’t collab nor have I tried the AI features yet. But it has replaced Kitty…

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The AI feature in Warp is nice for a beginner like me. If you don’t understand how to do something or get an error message it can provide helpful explanations with examples.

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follow-up - in case you’d like a quick overview (3.5 minutes) here is a very nice video from Warp

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