head to head · open source
Ghostty vs WaveTerm
Ghostty has 63,286 GitHub stars, 3,827 forks, 251 open issues and last shipped yesterday. WaveTerm has 22,641 stars, 1,183 forks, 574 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Ghostty leads on adoption by 180% (63,286 vs 22,641 stars). Ghostty is written in Zig under MIT; WaveTerm is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Ghostty has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, WaveTerm 5%. 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
| Ghostty | WaveTerm | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 63K | ★ 23K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Zig | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.8K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Ghostty if
- You weight community size — 63K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Zig
- 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 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 →
About WaveTerm
Wave Terminal English 한국어 繁體中文 Wave is an open source, AI integrated terminal for macOS, Linux, and Windows. It works with any AI model. Bring your own API keys for OpenAI, Claude, or Gemini, or run local models via Ollama and LM Studio. No accounts required. Wave also supports durable SSH sessions that survive network interruptions and restarts, with automatic reconnection. Edit remote files with a built in graphical editor and preview files inline without leaving the terminal. Key Features Wave AI Context aware terminal assistant that reads your terminal output, analyzes widgets, and performs file operations…
read the full WaveTerm overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ghostty or WaveTerm more popular?
Ghostty has 63,286 GitHub stars and WaveTerm has 22,641. Ghostty has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ghostty and WaveTerm free?
Both are open source. Ghostty is licensed under MIT and WaveTerm under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ghostty and WaveTerm?
Ghostty is written in Zig 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, Ghostty or WaveTerm?
Choose Ghostty if you want the larger community (63,286 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose WaveTerm if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.