Contour vs Ghostty
Contour
contour-terminal.orgGhostty
ghostty.orgSide by side
| Figure | Contour | Ghostty |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Terminal Emulators | 8.8 (#1) | 8.3 (#11) |
| Spec score · Terminal apps | 8.3 (#12) | 8.2 (#13) |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| GPU acceleration | Yes | Yes |
| Product | Contour is a GPU accelerated terminal emulator designed for everyday use and aimed at power users. | Ghostty is a fast, feature-rich, native terminal emulator. |
| Rendering | Contour supports GPU accelerated rendering and high DPI displays. | Ghostty uses Metal on macOS and OpenGL on Linux for GPU-accelerated rendering. |
| Scripting API | Yes | Yes |
| Split panes | Yes | Yes |
| SSH support | Yes | Yes |
| Support | The site links to the Contour community on Discord. | Ghostty has no support team or dedicated support resources; help is community-provided through GitHub Discussions and Discord. |
| Supported Platforms | Available for Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Windows. | macOS,Linux |
Plans
In their own words
Contour
Contour is a free terminal emulator for everyday use, designed for people who want control over terminal workflows. It runs on Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Windows. GPU-accelerated rendering and high-DPI support accompany text features such as font ligatures, Unicode grapheme clusters, and colored emoji. Users can split panes, use vi-like modes for navigation and selection, and jump through history with vertical markers. Sessions can persist beyond a terminal window and be reattached locally or over a network. Contour interoperates with tmux control mode in both directions, but not its -CC mode. It also supports clickable links, inline Sixel images, OSC 52 clipboard setting, and profiles for color schemes and login shells. TCP connections use TLS encryption and require a token. Daemon mode is experimental, and its command-line flags and wire protocol may change. The project website remains in draft mode. Contour is licensed under Apache License 2.0.
Ghostty
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.