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.

What it is

Alacritty is a terminal emulator built on OpenGL. It ships with sensible defaults but allows extensive configuration, and its stated design principle is integration with other applications rather than reimplementation of their functionality. The project lives in the Rust and OpenGL ecosystem, carries the topics rust, opengl, gpu, vte, terminal-emulators, bsd, linux, macos, and windows, and the README describes the software as being at a beta level of readiness: a few features are missing and bugs remain to be fixed, but many people already use it as a daily driver.

The concrete problem it addresses is terminal throughput and rendering cost. Alacritty uses the vtebench benchmark to quantify terminal emulator throughput and, according to its FAQ, consistently scores better than the competition on that measure. It also replaces a specific class of built-in terminal functionality: rather than implementing tabs, splits, or a GUI config editor itself, it defers those to the window manager or to a terminal multiplexer such as tmux.

Key capabilities

• GPU-accelerated rendering over OpenGL, with a minimum requirement of OpenGL ES 2.0.
• Runs on BSD, Linux, macOS, and Windows; Windows builds require ConPTY support, meaning Windows 10 version 1809 or higher.
• Configuration lives in a TOML file at alacritty.toml, searched in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/alacritty/alacritty.toml, $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/alacritty.toml, $HOME/.config/alacritty/alacritty.toml, $HOME/.alacritty.toml, and /etc/alacritty/alacritty.toml, or at %APPDATA%\alacritty\alacritty.toml on Windows. Alacritty does not create the file.
• Configuration is documented in man 5 alacritty and on the project website at alacritty.org/config-alacritty.html.
• Scrollback support, landed and announced publicly in September 2018.
• Deliberate absence of tabs, splits, and a GUI config editor; those are left to a window manager or tmux.
• Precompiled binaries for macOS and Windows published on the GitHub releases page, with package managers covering Linux, BSD, macOS, and Windows.

Who uses it and how

• Developers who already run tmux or a tiling window manager use Alacritty as the rendering layer and get panes and tabs from that tool instead.
• Cross-platform teams use the same terminal on BSD, Linux, macOS, and Windows, accepting that the configuration file lives at platform-specific paths.
• Users who keep terminal settings under version control write their own alacritty.toml, since the application never generates one.
• Users on Windows rely on ConPTY, so Windows 10 version 1809 or later is the practical floor.
• People evaluating throughput run vtebench themselves, which the FAQ recommends over trusting general claims, because latency and frame consistency are harder to quantify than throughput.

Getting started

Install Alacritty through a package manager on Linux, BSD, macOS, or Windows, or download a prebuilt binary for macOS or Windows from the GitHub releases page; detailed instructions live in INSTALL.md.

How it compares

The facts name tmux and window managers as complements rather than rivals, so Alacritty sits below them in the stack: it renders the terminal, and those tools supply tabs, splits, and session persistence. Against other terminal emulators it competes mainly on throughput measured by vtebench, and it differs by design in what it declines to implement, such as tabs, splits, and a GUI config editor. Beyond tmux, window managers, and unnamed competition in the benchmark FAQ, the provided facts name no specific alternatives.

When to use it — and when not to

Alacritty runs as a local application with no service to operate, so there is no database, storage backend, or SMTP setup to maintain; the real requirements are a GPU with OpenGL ES 2.0 and, on Windows, ConPTY support. Do not choose it if tabs and splits must be built in, if a GUI config editor matters, or if the machine cannot supply OpenGL ES 2.0. Note the honest caveats from the project itself: the README labels the software beta with missing features and bugs, the repository carries 340 open issues, and configuration must be written by hand.