head to head · open source
Alacritty vs Warp
Alacritty has 65,752 GitHub stars, 3,613 forks, 340 open issues and last shipped 18 days ago. Warp has 65,069 stars, 5,563 forks, 5,218 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Alacritty leads on adoption by 1% (65,752 vs 65,069 stars). Alacritty is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; Warp is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0. Alacritty has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, Warp 9%. Warp was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (linux, macos, rust, terminal), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Alacritty | Warp | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 65K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-08-31 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.6K | ⑂ 5.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Alacritty if
- You weight community size — 66K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Warp if
- You want the Warp feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and Warp fits your workflow better
About Alacritty
Alacritty is a cross platform, GPU accelerated terminal emulator written in Rust and released under the Apache License 2.0, aimed at developers and system administrators on BSD, Linux, macOS, and Windows who want fast terminal rendering and are willing to let a window manager or terminal multiplexer handle tabs and splits.
read the full Alacritty overview →
About Warp
Warp is an agentic development environment, born out of the terminal, built for developers and teams who want a modern shell on Linux and macOS with AI coding agents working inside it.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Alacritty or Warp more popular?
Alacritty has 65,752 GitHub stars and Warp has 65,069. Alacritty has the larger community by that measure.
Are Alacritty and Warp free?
Both are open source. Alacritty is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Warp under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Alacritty and Warp?
Alacritty is written in Rust and Warp in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Alacritty or Warp?
Choose Alacritty if you want the larger community (65,752 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Warp if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.