Alacritty vs iTerm2
Alacritty
alacritty.org
iTerm2
iterm2.comSide by side
| Figure | Alacritty | iTerm2 |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Terminal Emulators | 8.5 (#7) | 8.0 (#20) |
| Spec score · Terminal apps | 8.3 (#11) | 8.3 (#9) |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| GPU acceleration | Yes | Yes |
| Integrations | Alacritty integrates with other applications instead of reimplementing their functionality, and URL opening applications can be configured. | The documentation lists integrations for tmux, shells, Claude Code, and the iTerm2 Buddy companion app. |
| Intended users | The project describes Alacritty as suited to people who spend a lot of time in a terminal. | The site says people who spend a lot of time in a terminal may appreciate iTerm2's features. |
| Purpose | Alacritty is a modern, cross-platform OpenGL terminal emulator designed for high performance and extensive configuration. | iTerm2 is a replacement for Terminal and the successor to iTerm. |
| Scripting API | Yes | Yes |
| Search | Users can search forward or backward through the scrollback buffer, including while in vi mode. | Its find-on-page feature highlights matches and supports regular expressions, and Global Search searches all tabs at once. |
| Split panes | No | A tab can be divided into vertically or horizontally arranged panes, each showing a different session. |
| Support | The project README points users to the `#alacritty` channel on Libera.Chat for questions or quick help. | The site directs users with problems or ideas to its bug tracker, forum, or the maintainer by email. |
| Supported platforms | Linux,macOS,Windows,BSD | macos |
Plans
In their own words
Alacritty
Alacritty is a free, cross-platform terminal emulator for Linux, macOS, Windows, and BSD. It uses OpenGL and is designed for high performance and extensive configuration, for people who spend substantial time in a terminal. Vi mode supports viewport and scrollback navigation, text selection, and copying with keyboard bindings; users can also search forward or backward through scrollback. Configurable regex hints can recognize visible text or links and pass them to an external application or trigger a built-in action. One instance can run multiple terminal windows, including through the alacritty msg create-window command. Alacritty is designed to integrate with other applications rather than recreate their functions, and URL-opening applications can be configured. Settings use a TOML file that the software does not create automatically. The project describes Alacritty as beta, with missing features and bugs still to address. It has no tabs, split panes, or graphical configuration editor, and requires OpenGL ES 2.0. Windows use requires ConPTY support on Windows 10 version 1809 or higher.