Alacritty

Terminal emulators mostly compete on features. Alacritty competes on what it leaves out: it pairs sensible defaults with extensive configuration, and rather than reimplementing what other tools already do well, it integrates with them and spends the saved effort on throughput.

Rendering goes through OpenGL, and the project runs on BSD, Linux, macOS and Windows. Configuration lives in a TOML file that Alacritty will not create for you, searched across a fixed list of locations under your XDG config directories or home folder, and documented in a manual page.

A few decisions shape what daily use feels like.

• Scope by omission: there are no tabs, no splits and no graphical config editor, since a window manager or tmux covers those.
• Measured throughput: the team uses its own vtebench tool to compare emulators, and asks for a bug report when results disagree.
• Beta readiness: features are still missing and bugs remain, though many people already run it as a daily driver.
• Prebuilt binaries: releases carry macOS and Windows downloads, while package managers cover Linux and BSD.

Requirements are modest: OpenGL ES 2.0 at minimum, plus ConPTY support on Windows 10 version 1809 or later. It suits people who want a terminal that starts quickly, stays out of the way, and hands layout duties to whatever multiplexer they already live in.