head to head · open source
Alacritty vs Warp
Alacritty has 66,108 GitHub stars, 3,704 forks, 340 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Warp has 65,830 stars, 5,752 forks, 5,218 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Alacritty leads on adoption by 0% (66,108 vs 65,830 stars). Alacritty is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; Warp is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0. Alacritty has attracted 6% 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 | ★ 66K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.7K | ⑂ 5.8K |
| 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 A fast, cross platform, OpenGL terminal emulator About Alacritty is a modern terminal emulator that comes with sensible defaults, but allows for extensive configuration. By integrating with other applications, rather than reimplementing their functionality, it manages to provide a flexible set of features with high performance. The supported platforms currently consist of BSD, Linux, macOS and Windows. The software is considered to be at a beta level of readiness; there are a few missing features and bugs to be fixed, but it is already used by many as a daily driver. Precompiled binaries are available…
read the full Alacritty overview →
About Warp
Website · Code · Agents · Terminal · Drive · Docs · How Warp Works [!NOTE] OpenAI is the founding sponsor of the new, open source Warp repository, and the new agentic management workflows are powered by GPT models. About Warp is an agentic development environment, born out of the terminal. Use Warp's built in coding agent, or bring your own CLI agent (Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, and others). Installation You can download Warp and read our docs for platform specific instructions. Warp Contributions Overview Dashboard Explore build.warp.dev to: Watch thousands of Warp Factory agents triage issues, write specs…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Alacritty or Warp more popular?
Alacritty has 66,108 GitHub stars and Warp has 65,830. 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 (66,108 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.