head to head · open source
Alacritty vs WaveTerm
Alacritty has 65,752 GitHub stars, 3,613 forks, 340 open issues and last shipped 18 days ago. WaveTerm has 22,302 stars, 1,131 forks, 574 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. Alacritty leads on adoption by 195% (65,752 vs 22,302 stars). Alacritty is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; WaveTerm is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Alacritty has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, WaveTerm 5%. WaveTerm was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 5 topic tags (linux, macos, terminal, terminal-emulators), 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 | WaveTerm | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 22K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Go |
| Last push | 2026-08-31 | 2026-09-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.6K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| 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 WaveTerm if
- You want the WaveTerm feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and WaveTerm 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 WaveTerm
Wave Terminal is an open source, AI integrated terminal for macOS, Linux, and Windows. It lives in the developer tools and terminal emulator ecosystem, and it is written in Go under the Apache 2.0 license.
read the full WaveTerm overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Alacritty or WaveTerm more popular?
Alacritty has 65,752 GitHub stars and WaveTerm has 22,302. Alacritty has the larger community by that measure.
Are Alacritty and WaveTerm free?
Both are open source. Alacritty is licensed under Apache-2.0 and WaveTerm under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Alacritty and WaveTerm?
Alacritty is written in Rust and WaveTerm in Go. 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 WaveTerm?
Choose Alacritty if you want the larger community (65,752 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose WaveTerm if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.