Alacritty vs PuTTY
Alacritty
alacritty.orgPuTTY
chiark.greenend.org.ukSide by side
| Figure | Alacritty | PuTTY |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Terminal Emulators | 8.5 (#7) | 7.7 (#29) |
| Spec score · Terminal apps | 8.3 (#11) | 8.1 (#16) |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| License | The project is released under the Apache License 2.0 and MIT licenses. | PuTTY executables and source code are distributed under the MIT licence. |
| Support | The project README points users to the `#alacritty` channel on Libera.Chat for questions or quick help. | The maintainers say they cannot answer all support emails and recommend public forums or local experts for support questions. |
| Supported platforms | Linux,macOS,Windows,BSD | Windows and Unix |
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.
PuTTY
PuTTY has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.