Alacritty vs mintty
Alacritty
alacritty.orgmintty
mintty.github.ioSide by side
| Figure | Alacritty | mintty |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Terminal Emulators | 8.5 (#7) | 8.2 (#17) |
| Spec score · Terminal apps | 8.3 (#11) | 7.9 (#27) |
| Configuration | Alacritty uses a TOML configuration file and does not create that file automatically. | Settings can be supplied on the command line or in a configuration file, and options are stored in a text file without registry entries. |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Integrations | Alacritty integrates with other applications instead of reimplementing their functionality, and URL opening applications can be configured. | Mintty is installed as the default Cygwin Terminal, comes with MSYS2, and is installed by default in Git for Windows as Git Bash. |
| Purpose | Alacritty is a modern, cross-platform OpenGL terminal emulator designed for high performance and extensive configuration. | Mintty is a terminal emulator for Cygwin, MSYS, MSYS2, derived projects, and WSL. |
| Scripting API | Yes | Yes |
| Split panes | No | No |
| Support | The project README points users to the `#alacritty` channel on Libera.Chat for questions or quick help. | The project directs bug reports and enhancement suggestions to its GitHub issue tracker and general Cygwin questions to the Cygwin mailing list. |
| Supported platforms | Linux,macOS,Windows,BSD | Windows |
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.
mintty
mintty is a free Windows terminal emulator for Cygwin, MSYS, MSYS2, related projects, and WSL. It provides xterm-compatible emulation and DEC terminal screen controls, with 256 colours, True Colour, Unicode, bidirectional text, emoji, Arabic shaping, image display, Sixel, ReGIS, and Tektronix 4014 graphics emulation. Input features include configurable shortcuts, Unicode composition, AltGr, Windows IME, mouse modes, selection, copy and paste, drag and drop, and Ctrl-click opening of files or URLs. Window features include virtual tabs, session switching, fullscreen, transparency, multiple monitors, and high DPI. Options can be supplied on the command line or in a text configuration file, without registry entries. mintty is the default Cygwin Terminal, installed by default in MSYS2, included with Git for Windows as Git Bash, and able to host WSL. It omits PuTTY networking functionality; the project points to OpenSSH and inetutils packages instead. The listed latest release is 3.8.3.