Chafa

5 likes

Chafa is a command-line utility that converts image data, including animated GIFs, into graphics formats or ANSI/Unicode character art suitable for display in a terminal. It has broad feature support, allowing it to be used on devices ranging from historical teleprinters to...

Chafa screenshot 1

Cost / License

Free
Open Source (LGPL-3.0)

Application type

Image Viewer

Platforms

Windows
Linux

Chafa screenshot 1

Chafa screenshot 2

+1

Chafa screenshot 3

Chafa alternatives

5likes

0articles

Properties

Lightweight

Features

Works Offline
Portable
No Tracking
No registration required
Built-in viewer
Ad-free
Terminal-based
Image Processing

Tags

Highlights All activities

Recent activities

sheysson miller liked Chafa
3 months ago
Paul added Chafa as alternative to Ratty
5 months ago
Creative_joe liked Chafa
10 months ago
alt-io liked Chafa
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Chafa information

Developed by
hpjansson
Licensing
Open Source (LGPL-3.0) and Free product.
Written in
C
Alternatives
4 alternatives listed
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Supported Languages
- English

AlternativeTo Category

Photos & Graphics

GitHub repository

5,334 Stars
130 Forks
55 Open Issues
Updated Oct 18, 2026

Popular alternatives

Chafa was added to AlternativeTo by Sam Lander on Apr 21, 2024 and this page was last updated Apr 21, 2024.

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AppStores & Other Links

Install from the command line

winget install -e --id hpjansson.Chafa
brew install chafa

Be careful what you paste into a terminal. Check what a command installs before running it.

What is Chafa?

Chafa is a command-line utility that converts image data, including animated GIFs, into graphics formats or ANSI/Unicode character art suitable for display in a terminal. It has broad feature support, allowing it to be used on devices ranging from historical teleprinters to modern terminal emulators and everything in between.

The core functionality is provided by a C library with a public, well-documented API.