head to head · open source
Alacritty vs Ghostty
Alacritty has 66,108 GitHub stars, 3,704 forks, 340 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Ghostty has 63,286 stars, 3,827 forks, 251 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Alacritty leads on adoption by 4% (66,108 vs 63,286 stars). Alacritty is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; Ghostty is written in Zig under MIT. Alacritty has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, Ghostty 6%. Ghostty was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | Ghostty | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 63K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | Zig |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.7K | ⑂ 3.8K |
| 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 Ghostty if
- You want the Ghostty feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Zig
- You evaluated both and Ghostty 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 Ghostty
Ghostty Fast, native, feature rich terminal emulator pushing modern features. A native GUI or embeddable library via libghostty . About · Download · Documentation · Contributing · Developing About Ghostty is a terminal emulator that differentiates itself by being fast, feature rich, and native. While there are many excellent terminal emulators available, they all force you to choose between speed, features, or native UIs. Ghostty provides all three. libghostty is a cross platform, zero dependency C and Zig library for building terminal emulators or utilizing terminal functionality (such as style parsing). Anyone…
read the full Ghostty overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Alacritty or Ghostty more popular?
Alacritty has 66,108 GitHub stars and Ghostty has 63,286. Alacritty has the larger community by that measure.
Are Alacritty and Ghostty free?
Both are open source. Alacritty is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Ghostty under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Alacritty and Ghostty?
Alacritty is written in Rust and Ghostty in Zig. 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 Ghostty?
Choose Alacritty if you want the larger community (66,108 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Ghostty if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.