Open Source iTerm2 Alternatives for Mac

There are many alternatives to iTerm2 for Mac if you are looking for a replacement. The best open source Mac alternative is Ghostty. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 50 alternatives to iTerm2 and many of them are open source and available for Mac so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting open source Mac alternatives to iTerm2 are Tabby, Hyper, Kitty terminal and Alacritty.

filter to find the best alternatives

iTerm2 alternatives are mainly Terminal Emulators, but if you're looking for Shells or SSH Clients you can filter on that. Other popular filters include Windows, Linux, Mac and iPad. You can also filter by region, for example EU-based alternatives if you prefer software developed in the European Union. These are just examples - use the filter bar below to find more specific alternatives to iTerm2.
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Alternatives list

  1. cmux icon
     3 likes

    Native macOS app built on Ghostty. Vertical tabs, notification rings when agents need attention, split panes, and a socket API for automation.

    51 cmux alternatives

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
     
  2. xterm icon
     30 likes

    The xterm program is a terminal emulator for the X Window System. It provides DEC VT102 and Tektronix 4014 compatible terminals for programs that can't use the window system directly.

    67 xterm alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Linux
    • BSD
     
  3. upterm icon
     22 likes

    A terminal emulator for the 21st century. (formerly) Black Screen is a terminal emulator and interactive shell with auto-completion.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Application type

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Linux
    • Electron / Atom Shell
     
  4. Extraterm icon
     8 likes

    Extraterm is more than just a traditional terminal emulator. It provides a toolbox for working with your terminal and command line applications, allowing you to capture and reuse previous command output across your terminal sessions, preview images and rich media directly, and...

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Cygwin
    • AppImage
    • Typescript
     
  5. TotalTerminal icon
     22 likes

    A system-wide terminal accessible via a hot-key. TotalTerminal is a plugin for Terminal.app. It provides persistent Visor Window which slides down when you press a hot-key. Remember Quake Console?

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Mac
     
  6. MacTerm icon
     7 likes

    MacTerm (was MacTelnet) on OS X is now a complete replacement for Terminal, allowing access to both local and remote applications.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
     
  7. Electerm icon
     2 likes

    electerm is a terminal/ssh/sftp client(linux, mac, win) based on electron/node-pty/xterm/antd and many other libs, it works like a combination of guake and xshell.

    68 Electerm alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Electron
    • Homebrew
    • AppImage
    • npm
    • JavaScript
    • Fedora
     
  8.  Like

    YAET is a terminal emulator built on Xterm.js and Electron. It can interpret escape sequences that allow shell scripts and other programs to write HTML content directly to the terminal, or display content from the web.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Application type

    Platforms

    • npm
    • Node.JS
    • Mac
    • Linux
    • Windows
    • BSD
     
  9. BossTerm icon
     1 like

    Pure Kotlin terminal emulator. Works with SSH and PTY.

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Homebrew
     
  10. Rio Terminal icon
     1 like

    Hardware-accelerated terminal emulator using WebGPU for smooth high frame rates, customizable GPU usage, asynchronous Rust foundation, efficient redux-based rendering, WebAssembly extensibility for tab systems, and both desktop and browser support.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • BSD
    • Flathub
    • FreeBSD
    • Flatpak
     
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