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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iTerm2 alternatives page was last updated

Alternatives list

  1. Ghostty icon
     65 likes

    Cross-platform terminal emulator balancing speed, platform-native UI, and modern features. Designed for an enhanced interactive CLI environment, offering full standards compliance for seamless integration with shells and CLI tools.

    61 Ghostty alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Linux
    • Nix Package Manager
    • Homebrew
     
  2. Tabby icon
     124 likes

    Tabby is an infinitely customizable cross-platform terminal app for local shells, serial, SSH and Telnet connections.

    110 Tabby alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
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    1
    Tabby vs iTerm2 Comments
    Guest
    Positive
    2

    Really exactly the iTerm2 but for Windows!

    Review by a new / low-activity user.
    • Tabby is Free and Open SourceiTerm2 is also Free and Open Source
  3. Hyper icon
     83 likes

    Hyper™ is a beautiful and extensible, cross-platform terminal built on open web standards. It provides an elegant command-line experience that is consistent across all supported platforms which includes macOS, Windows and various Linux distributions like Fedora and Debian.

    101 Hyper alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Electron / Atom Shell
     
  4. Kitty terminal icon
     59 likes

    Kitty ( not to be confused with KiTTY ) is a powerful, cross-platform GPU-based terminal emulator. It offloads rendering to the GPU and uses OpenGL for fast, cross-platform performance with built-in tiling layouts as well as graphic, unicode...

    89 Kitty terminal alternatives

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Linux
     
  5. Alacritty icon
     70 likes

    Alacritty is a blazing fast, GPU accelerated terminal emulator. It’s written in Rust and uses OpenGL for rendering to be the fastest terminal emulator available. Alacritty is available on GitHub in source form.

    89 Alacritty alternatives

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • BSD
     
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    1
    Alacritty vs iTerm2 Comments
    RemovedUser
    Positive
    0

    I'm happy because it works on Linux Mint and has more customization and features than the built-in terminal application.

    Review by a new / low-activity user.
    • Alacritty is Free and Open SourceiTerm2 is also Free and Open Source
  6. WezTerm icon
     21 likes

    A GPU-accelerated cross-platform terminal emulator and multiplexer written by @wez and implemented in Rust

    105 WezTerm alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  7. Termora icon
     8 likes

    Termora is developed using Kotlin/JVM and partially implements the XTerm protocol (with ongoing improvements). Its ultimate vision is to achieve full platform support (including Android, iOS, and iPadOS) through Kotlin Multiplatform.

    61 Termora alternatives

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Homebrew
     
  8. ForceTerm icon
     5 likes

    Fully featured terminal based on JediTerm.

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Windows
    • Mac
    • Linux
    • Java
     
  9. Cool Retro Term icon
     40 likes

    Terminal emulator which mimics the look and feel of the old cathode tube screens, designed for eye-candy with lots of graphic options.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Linux
     
  10. iTerm icon
     30 likes

    iTerm is a full featured terminal emulation program written for OS X using Cocoa. We are aiming at providing users with best command line experience under OS X. The letter i represents a native Apple look and feel of the program interface, and an emphasis on complete...

    76 iTerm alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Mac
     
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