kitty
GPU-based terminal emulator for macOS and Linux with tabs, splits and layouts
In our rankings
Scores on the gpu-accelerated terminal emulators criteria
Evaluated Nov 5, 2026- Published performance evidence ×3 5
5/5 means: Publishes measured figures (latency or throughput) together with the test setup.
Publishes a throughput table in megabytes per second with the hardware and settings used, reports latency measurements, and ships the benchmark tool so you can repeat the test.
6 quotes - Tabs, splits and sessions ×3 4
4/5 means: Windows, tabs and splits built in.
Tabs, windows and tiling layouts with splits are built in; the pages we captured do not describe a multiplexer that keeps sessions running on a remote host.
3 quotes - Operating systems ×2 2
2/5 means: Two operating systems.
Pre-built binaries are offered for macOS and Linux only.
1 quote - Images, ligatures and links ×2 5
5/5 means: All four.
Ligatures, inline images through its own graphics protocol, hyperlinks, and automatic theme changes when the system switches between light and dark.
4 quotes
Evidence (18 quotes)
- 1
“The main goals for kitty performance are user perceived latency while typing and “smoothness” while scrolling as well as CPU usage.”
sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/performance · checked - 2
“The measurements below were taken with the same font, font size and window size for all terminals, and default settings, on the same computer.”
sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/performance · checked - 3
“The numbers are megabytes per second of data that the terminal processes. Measurements were taken under Linux/X11 with an AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5850U .”
sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/performance · checked - 4
“kitty is twice as fast as the next best.”
sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/performance · checked - 5
“Typometer based measurements on Linux show that kitty has far and away the best latency of the terminals tested.”
sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/performance · checked - 6
“To run the tests yourself, run kitten __benchmark__ in the terminal emulator you want to test, where the kitten binary is part of the kitty install.”
sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/performance · checked - 7
“kitty is capable of running multiple programs organized into tabs and windows.”
sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/overview · checked - 8
“The kitty windows can be arranged in multiple different layouts , like windows are organized in a tiling window manager.”
sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/overview · checked - 9
“Programmable tabs, splits and multiple layouts to manage windows”
sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty · checked - 10
“You can install pre-built binaries of kitty if you are on macOS or Linux using the following simple command:”
sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/binary · checked - 11
“Ligatures, emoji with per glyph font substitution and variable fonts and font features”
sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty · checked - 12
“Kitty Graphics Protocol: Live image preview in ranger”
sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty · checked - 13
“Hyperlinks , with configurable actions”
sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty · checked - 14
“Change color themes automatically when the OS switches between light and dark”
sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty · checked - 15
“Uses threaded rendering for absolutely minimal latency”
sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty · checked - 16
“New tab ctrl+shift+t (also ⌘ + t on macOS)”
sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/overview · checked - 17
“Alacritty+tmux is included just to show the effect of putting a terminal multiplexer into the mix (halving throughput)”
sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/performance · checked - 18
“tag_name: v0.50.0, published_at: 2026-11-03T13:56:09Z”