The Terminal Emulator Race on macOS Has a New Winner.

For a company obsessed with design and user experience, Apple’s Terminal has always felt surprisingly neglected. It works, sure. But it looks almost identical to how I remember it years ago, while the rest of macOS has evolved around it.

For a long time, iTerm2 was my answer. It still is the terminal I trust most when spending long days connected to remote servers over SSH. It’s mature, packed with features, stable, and battle-tested. The downside? It has slowly become a bit heavy, and visually it no longer feels like a modern macOS application.

With AI-assisted development becoming part of my daily workflow, I started looking around again. Ironically, the future of terminals seems to be less, not more. Less clutter. Less configuration. Less UI getting in the way. I tested quite a few options, but only two managed to stay installed for more than a few days: Cmux and Ghostty.

Cmux deserves a mention. It is fast, clean, and refreshingly simple. But Ghostty eventually won me over. The integration with macOS is excellent. Scrolling feels natural. Text selection behaves exactly how I expect it to. Even Neovim feels better inside it — visual selections and highlighting work in a way that feels surprisingly native. Small details, but the kind you notice hundreds of times per day.

Will Ghostty replace iTerm2 for everyone? Probably not. iTerm2 remains a fantastic choice, especially for heavy SSH and infrastructure work. But if you’re looking for a terminal that feels like it belongs in modern macOS, Ghostty is currently the one to beat.

Give it a try. Worst case, you lose ten minutes. Best case, you stop looking for terminal emulators for the next few years.