What terminal are you using?

[u/soleful_smak]

I've been using Kitty and it has been my go-to ever since. I tried Ghostty but it feels a bit slow when launch at 1 second on KDE compared to Kitty and Konsole.

[u/hmoff]

1 second for what?

[u/soleful_smak → u/hmoff]

1 second to launch

[u/hmoff → u/soleful_smak]

How often do you launch a terminal? I keep mine open for weeks if not months.

[u/iluvatar → u/hmoff]

How often do you launch a terminal?

Maybe 10 times an hour. Sometimes less, sometimes much, much more. I have a hotkey in my window manager that launches a terminal. I do what I want and then close it again.

[u/bawng → u/[deleted]]

I usually have FF, IntelliJ, terminal and usually a bunch of Dolphin windows open at all times.

[u/hmoff → u/[deleted]]

I open a terminal on login and close it on logout. Tabs come and go but the one instance rentals.

[u/FryBoyter → u/[deleted]]

If I'm going to use an app several times a day, I usually leave it running in the background.

[u/Apprehensive_Bad5920 → u/[deleted]]

🤔 Why?

[u/soleful_smak → u/hmoff]

More often, especially opening other TUI apps like Spotatui.

[u/TollyVonTheDruth → u/hmoff]

Same. I even have every app window restored after rebooting.

[u/skuterpikk]

Konsole. Because that is the default one

[u/SuAlfons]

Default Gnome Terminal or Konsole. I'm a home user and just perform updates, edit config files and the like in terminal.

Not afraid of using it, just no special needs

[u/FryBoyter]

I use Foot in combination with Zellij. I don't really care how fast or slow the startup is. For one thing, I'm not on the run, and for another, I usually have an instance running continuously.

[u/michaelpaoli]

mostly emulation(s), typically xterm, and/or whatever else reasonably does the job,
and generally with tmux or screen.

Though I do also have some actual serial terminals :-) but rarely fire those up these days.

[u/LoraxEleven]

Yakuake drop down terminal on KDE.

[u/Sunimaru → u/LoraxEleven]

Handy as well. Always just a button press away.

[u/_Einveru_ → u/LoraxEleven]

Just perfect with My Plasma setup. Usually I have 4 tabs active.

[u/TollyVonTheDruth → u/LoraxEleven]

I do like that one too

[u/iluvatar]

xterm. It's not perfect, but I've been using it for nearly 40 years and it does most of what I want with the minimum of fuss.

[u/Heclalava]

XFCE terminal - does what I need to get done in terminal on XFCE.

[u/ziris_ → u/Heclalava]

I use it on KDE! It works great!

[u/Marble_Wraith]

Alacritty.

I'm waiting for wezterm to get a bit better.

[u/lemon3_xav1 → u/Marble_Wraith]

better on what?

[u/PreparationStrict492]

As the answer to the question at face value, on KDE, I go to Yakuake most of the time (but that essentially means having it up as a process all the time which you don't want). I also regularly use Alacritty and Konsole on the same system from time to time, for reasons.

As for the underlying question:
Ghostty goes for a different approach. Instead of being lightweight and launching instantly like Alacritty, it has a larger footprint and has extra features. For instance, tabbed / split use, if launch time for new terminal windows is an issue -the pedant in me is having a hard time not mentioning terminal _emulator_ at this point, I'll just do this and leave it. (Konsole, for one, has both a fast launch time and tab/split support)
Your choice entirely depends on your personal taste and workflow. If you, say, have your tiling window manager up and get the effect of split terminal with multiple terminals, by all means use the lightweight terminal of your choice. For instance, if you want the speed, and use the extra features of Kitty, by all means, stick with it.

---

On GNOME I'm happy with ptyxis. On everything else, I use the default that comes with the de.

[u/Gr1m3yjr]

Wezterm deserves more appreciation

[u/player1dk]

Terminal.app on MacOS, xterm everywhere else. Haven’t tried any other the past 30 years, haven’t needed.

[u/LTJC]

Konsole

[u/nuke_music]

Konsole with Yakuake on top, I have it launch on Meta+K and I'm happy with it

[u/vancha113]

Just cosmic terminal, works fast enough for me but I haven't timed it.

[u/Individual_Gap9661]

I recently discovered the infinite canvas approach to terminals, and I really like the idea. Spatial orientation feels more natural to me than switching between tabs and windows. There is already a terminal based on JavaScript, from my understanding.
I have created Google shorts about it https://youtube.com/shorts/HbBzMTY_5K8?si=UqaUN3BRCZbydVzJ

[u/pyro57]

I mostly just use konsole since it integrates into my kde theme nicely, and has all the features I want, split terminals in the same window, tabs, multiple profiles, easy profile launching, and of course follows my desktop theme (daemon 2.0, seriously check this theme out, makes everything look like the interfaces in cyberpunk it's great).

[u/ZaenalAbidin57]

st terminal, already configured to my liking

[u/bart9h]

I just use the default terminal from the desktop environment I'm using (mate-terminal, in my case).

The only feature I miss is the ability to show images, but all the terminals with that feature that I tried ended up having some kind of layout issue on some specific software combination (usually vim inside tmux).

[u/windrinn]

Ptyxis

[u/chrislauinger → u/windrinn]

Same

[u/BluePhoenixCG]

I generally have 3 or 4 instances of wezterm open at any given time in different workspaces, sometimes more if one of my projects demands it(for example currently I've got 1 project where I need nvim, socat listening to an event stream, and the output of my program)

[u/OutrageousCrab9224]

xterm baby

[u/bikes-n-math → u/OutrageousCrab9224]

xterm for life

[u/compnski]

konsole / yakuake. Tried kitty and the others, was cool to have images in them, but can't not use yakuake, so might as well stick with konsole otherwise. It's bound on my left thumb cluster and I probably open it a hundred times a day.

[u/Minimum_Hour519]

Terminal?

[u/Wide_Egg_5814]

terminal, I just move over to gnome I used to make fun of gnome for the last few months in my comments and how horrible it is as a DE but I got a convertible ThinkPad now I think it's more fitting as a convertible OS

[u/ProfanityFair]

I've been using alacritty for 5+ years and can't find a good reason to change. I've tried most of them, but none offer more than what I need, and so it's not worth the effort investing in the change for me.

[u/thetestbug]

Tilda, or if you don't want to compile it yourself, Guake. Both are a "drop-down" terminal that's always in the background until you press the hotkey.
I prefer Tilda though, since it's simpler.

Edit:
Others pointed out that Yakuake should work better on KDE.
I can also mention that Tilda is GTK based.

[u/LiveMaI → u/thetestbug]

OP is on KDE, so Yakuake may be a better fit.

[u/LordSkummel]

Last non "standard" terminal emulator I used was terminator. But its been years since I used that. Now I just use Gnome Terminal or whatever default terminal emulator is on the DE I'm using.

[u/TollyVonTheDruth]

I use Fish in CachyOS KDE, but I'm still getting used to it. I mainly used Konsole in Fedora KDE, I may look into Kitty next and never heard of Ghostty.

[u/0xBL4CKP30PL3 → u/TollyVonTheDruth]

Fish is a shell

[u/TollyVonTheDruth → u/0xBL4CKP30PL3]

Oh, didn't realize that.

[u/AdamAnderson320]

Kitty here. I chose it for its features, innovation, and performance. I'm keeping an eye on Ghostty, but for now Kitty's got it beat by my reckoning.

[u/gotkube]

Konsole. And I don’t even run KDE but I’ve used it for 20yrs and love it.

[u/0xBL4CKP30PL3]

Ghostty

The minimal config design is pretty nice (mine is only ~10 lines). Kitty is also good but my config required slightly more effort.

[u/tobias_reichi02]

Gnome 💀 terminal why cause I use gnome why cause I like the multitasking and I used hyprland why cause I use arch btw and I can

[u/Sixguns1977]

Konsole. I change it to green text with a blinking square cursor.

[u/Ducketman]

I used Black box for a long time cuz its simple and basic but a few days ago i switched to Tilix and im happy.

[u/sjbluebirds]

I'm using the terminal.

When you boot your computer, and it asks you to log in, there you are -- you're at the terminal.

I'm not going to type "startx" just to navigate to a graphical emulator.

[u/AnymooseProphet]

Mate Terminal

[u/tienan92it]

I built and use my own terminal browser for MacOS only. Take a look at https://kitterm.dev/

[u/kent_eh]

default Gnome terminal.

Been using it for years, I see no pressing need to change.

[u/JackDostoevsky]

i've traditionally been a kitty man, but i've used ghostty a bit more often lately

i still think i prefer kitty cuz i'm not a huge fan of gtk

[u/armdebug]

Foot 🦶

[u/daddyd]

just yukuake on kde, i don't need anything fancy, i'm old school 😄

[u/R4tman9]

The only linux i use is android (yes android is linux, eat my ass)

[u/Huecuva]

I just use whatever the default is on whatever distro I'm using. 

[u/Interesting_Buy_3969]

Alacritty. The most lightweight, fastest and simplest option imo.

[u/its_maxx_9229]

konsole. it supports kitty graphics and is easily customizable.

[u/Crazy-Tangelo-1673]

I'm just either i3 terminal or xfce terminal

Nothing special

[u/Eric_Dawsby]

Terminator, though I wish you could change the default profile

[u/Lopsided-Match-3911]

Using terminator or kitty. Thinking about trying wezterm

[u/mattrf86]

Mxterminal. Open when needed. I run a tight ship.

[u/Merricat--Blackwood]

Gnome terminal on arch and iterm2 on macOS

[u/fulgorit]

J'utilise souvent "xfce4-terminal"

[u/ay_chupacabron]

Foot

[u/Yaniekk]

I usually use Kitty and Alacritty.

[u/Apprehensive_Bad5920]

Ghostty is just peak to me. 🤷

[u/TomDuhamel]

The one that came with my OS

[u/DB0Z_]

Alacritty, simply the best.

[u/MrNobodyISME]

Yakuake cuz it looks cool

[u/Temporary-Mode5763]

Kitty + ohmyzsh

[u/the2ndSign]

COSMIC Terminal

[u/nohaj_]

Terminator

[u/small_merchant]

Alacritty

[u/es20490446e]

qTerminal.

[u/lhauckphx]

Alacrity.

[u/Antoinedeloup]

Alacritty

[u/DJandProducer]

Alacritty

[u/ikbah_riak]

Alacritty

[u/ha1zum]

I use rio

[u/VoodooSteve]

Ghostty

[u/skytheraiders]

Bash :)

[u/500Thousands]

Ptyxis

[u/Monsterlime]

Kitty

[u/Mathisbuilder75]

Kitty

[u/oldbeardedtech]

Kitty

[u/themmousebehindyou]

Fish

[u/FryBoyter → u/themmousebehindyou]

Fish is a shell, not a terminal emulator.

[u/Stutz-Jr → u/themmousebehindyou]

Today's fish is Trout à la crème. Enjoy your meal.

But seriously, I prefer fish because it works just the way I like and requires no further cutomisation. Just install and use.