Cmder vs Ghostty

Cmder is a free, portable console emulator package for Windows. It uses ConEmu with Clink enhancements, a Monokai color scheme, and a custom prompt layout. Tabs can run cmd.exe, PowerShell, Bash, and Mintty shells. The package supports split panes, a scripting API, and SSH. Settings, aliases, and history can travel with Cmder on a USB stick or in the cloud. The Full edition includes Git for Windows and its Unix commands in PATH; Mini excludes vendored Git binaries. Aliases are configured with the alias command and stored in config/aliases, while executable files placed in bin are added to PATH. Registering with /REGISTER ALL adds a “Cmder Here” option to File Explorer. The documentation describes starting the vendored SSH agent with start-ssh-agent. Mini is a roughly 7.8MB download; Full is about 100MB or 52MB as a 7z archive. The project is licensed under MIT.

Ghostty is a free, open-source terminal emulator for macOS and Linux. It renders with Metal on macOS and OpenGL on Linux for GPU acceleration, while native interface components provide multiple windows, tabs, and split panes. Its shared libghostty core handles terminal emulation, fonts, and rendering through a cross-platform C ABI. Ghostty includes hundreds of themes and can follow system light and dark modes automatically. It supports the Kitty graphics protocol for terminal images and provides automatic shell integration for bash, elvish, fish, nushell, and zsh. SSH integration can forward environment variables and install Ghostty terminfo entries on remote hosts. macOS Secure Keyboard Entry helps protect passwords from other processes, and official macOS binaries are signed and notarized. Ghostty is licensed under MIT and fiscally sponsored by Hack Club, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Community help is available through GitHub Discussions and Discord; there is no dedicated support team. The Ghostty plan is free, described as free and open source with no commercial backing.