This is a list of notable

terminal emulator A terminal emulator, or terminal application, is a computer program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture. Though typically synonymous with a shell or text terminal, the term ''terminal'' covers all remote termin ...

s. Most used terminal emulators on Linux and Unix-like systems are

GNOME Terminal GNOME Terminal is a terminal emulator for the GNOME desktop environment written by Havoc Pennington and others. Terminal emulators allow users to access a UNIX shell while remaining on their graphical desktop. Features GNOME Terminal (gnome-term ...

GNOME A gnome is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature. Its characte ...

and GTK-based environments,

Konsole Konsole is a free and open-source terminal emulator graphical application which is part of KDE Applications and ships with the KDE desktop environment. Konsole was originally written by Lars Doelle. It ls licensed under the GPL-2.0-or-later and t ...

KDE KDE is an international Free software movement, free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-know ...

, and xfce4-terminal on Xfce as well as

xterm In computing, xterm is the standard terminal emulator for the X Window System. It allows users to run programs which require a command-line interface. If no particular program is specified, xterm runs the user's shell. An X display can show ...

Character-oriented terminal emulators

Unix-like

Command-line interface

Linux console The Linux console is a system console internal to the Linux kernel. A system console is the device which receives all kernel messages and warnings and which allows logins in single user mode. The Linux console provides a way for the kernel and ...

– implements a subset of the VT102 and ECMA-48/ISO 6429/ANSI X3.64

escape sequences In computer science, an escape sequence is a combination of characters that has a meaning other than the literal characters contained therein; it is marked by one or more preceding (and possibly terminating) characters. Examples * In C and man ...

. The following terminal emulators run inside of other terminals, utilizing libraries such as

Curses A curse (also called an imprecation, malediction, execration, malison, anathema, or commination) is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to one or more persons, a place, or an object. In particular, ...

and

Termcap Termcap (''terminal capability'') is a software library and database used on Unix-like computers. It enables programs to use display computer terminals in a device-independent manner, which greatly simplifies the process of writing portable text m ...

: *

GNU Screen GNU Screen is a terminal multiplexer, a software application that can be used to multiplex several virtual consoles, allowing a user to access multiple separate login sessions inside a single terminal window, or detach and reattach sessions from ...

– Terminal multiplexer with VT100/ANSI terminal emulation *

Minicom Minicom is a text-based modem control and terminal emulator program for Unix-like operating systems, originally written by Miquel van Smoorenburg, and modeled somewhat after the popular MS-DOS program Telix but is open source. Minicom includ ...

– text-based modem control and terminal emulation program for Unix-like operating systems *

tmux tmux is an open-source terminal multiplexer for Unix-like operating systems. It allows multiple terminal sessions to be accessed simultaneously in a single window. It is useful for running more than one command-line program at the same time. I ...

– Terminal multiplexer with a feature set similar to GNU Screen

Graphical

=X11 and Wayland

= Terminal emulators used in combination with

X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wit ...

and Wayland: *

Alacritty Alacritty is a free and open-source GPU-accelerated terminal emulator focused on performance and simplicity. Consequently, it does not support tabs or splits and is configured by editing a text file. It is written in Rust and uses OpenGL (for pe ...

– GPU accelerated, without tabs *

– default terminal for

with native Wayland support * guake – drop-down terminal for

* kitty – GPU accelerated, with tabs, tiling, image viewing, interactive unicode character input *

konsole Konsole is a free and open-source terminal emulator graphical application which is part of KDE Applications and ships with the KDE desktop environment. Konsole was originally written by Lars Doelle. It ls licensed under the GPL-2.0-or-later and t ...

– default terminal for

rxvt Rxvt (acronym for our extended virtual terminal) is a terminal emulator for the X Window System, and in the form of a Cygwin port, for Windows. History Rxvt was originally written by Rob Nation and later extensively modified by Mark Olesen, who ...

– lightweight X11 terminal emulator :* aterm (from rxvt 2.4.8) created for use with the AfterStep window manager (no longer maintained) :* Eterm (from rxvt 2.21) created for use with Enlightenment :*

mrxvt The mrxvt program is a terminal emulator for X Window System. It provides DEC VT102 compatible terminals. mrxvt is based on rxvt version 2.7.11 CVS (in 2004), and features most of functionality of rxvt. Unlike rxvt, it provides multiple tabs ...

(from rxvt 2.7.11) created for multiple tabs and additional features (latest version released in 2008-09-10) :* urxvt (from rxvt 2.7.11) created to support

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...

, also known as rxvt-unicode :* Wterm – created for

NeXTSTEP NeXTSTEP is a discontinued object-oriented, multitasking operating system based on the Mach kernel and the UNIX-derived BSD. It was developed by NeXT Computer in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was initially used for its range of proprieta ...

style

window manager A window manager is system software that controls the placement and appearance of windows within a windowing system in a graphical user interface. Most window managers are designed to help provide a desktop environment. They work in conjunction ...

s such as

Window Maker Window Maker is a free and open-source window manager for the X Window System, allowing graphical applications to be run on Unix-like operating-systems. It is designed to emulate NeXTSTEP's GUI as an OpenStep-compatible environment. Window Maker ...

Terminator Terminator may refer to: Science and technology Genetics * Terminator (genetics), the end of a gene for transcription * Terminator technology, proposed methods for restricting the use of genetically modified plants by causing second generation s ...

– written in Java with many novel or experimental features * Tilda – a drop-down terminal *

Tilix Budgie is an independent, Free and open-source software, free and open-source desktop environment for Linux and other Unix-like Operating system, operating systems. Budgie is developed by the Buddies of Budgie organization, which is composed of ...

– GTK3 tiling terminal emulator * xfce4-terminal – default terminal for Xfce with drop-down support *

– standard terminal for X11 *

Yakuake The KDE Gear (also known as the KDE Applications Bundle or KDE Applications) is a set of applications and supporting libraries that are developed by the KDE community, primarily used on Linux-based operating systems but mostly multiplatform, and ...

– (Yet Another Kuake) a drop-down terminal for

= macOS

= Terminal emulators used on

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

* iTerm2 – open-source terminal specifically for macOS * kitty – GPU accelerated, with tabs, tiling, image viewing, interactive unicode character input *

MacWise MacWise is a terminal emulator for the Apple Macintosh, written by Carnation Software and first released in 1996. MacWise emulates terminals including Wyse 50, Wyse 60, Wyse 370, VT100 The VT100 is a video terminal, introduced in August 1978 by D ...

SecureCRT SecureCRT is a commercial SSH and Telnet client and terminal emulator by VanDyke Software. Originally a Windows product, VanDyke later added a Mac OS X version in 2010 with release v6.6 and a Linux version in 2011 with release v6.7. History Sec ...

Terminal Terminal may refer to: Computing Hardware * Terminal (electronics), a device for joining electrical circuits together * Terminal (telecommunication), a device communicating over a line * Computer terminal, a set of primary input and output devic ...

– default macOS terminal *

– default terminal when

X11.app XQuartz is an open-source version of the X.Org X server, a component of the X Window System (X11, or shortened to simply X, and sometimes informally X-Windows) that runs on macOS. It formally replaced Apple's internal X11 app. The name "XQuart ...

starts * ZOC *

ZTerm ZTerm is a shareware terminal emulator for Macintosh operating system. It was introduced in 1992 for System 7 and has been updated to run on macOS. Its name comes from its use of the ZModem file transfer protocol, which ZTerm implemented in a p ...

– serial line terminal

Apple Classic Mac OS

* MacTerminal *

Red Ryder Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondary ...

Android

Termux Termux is a free and open source terminal emulator for Android which allows for running a Linux environment on an Android device. In addition, various software can be installed through the application's package manager. Termux installs a minim ...

Microsoft Windows

AbsoluteTelnet AbsoluteTelnet is a software terminal client for Windows that implements Telnet, SSH 1 and 2, SFTP, TAPI Dialup and direct COM port connections. It is commercial software, originally released in 1999 and is still in regular development by Bria ...

* AlphaCom * ConEmu – local terminal window that can host console application developed either for WinAPI (cmd, powershell, far) or Unix PTY (cygwin, msys, wsl bash) * HyperACCESS (commercial) and HyperTerminal (included free with Windows XP and earlier, but not included with Windows Vista and later) * Kermit 95 *

mintty mintty is a free and open source terminal emulator for Cygwin, the Unix-like environment for Windows. It features a native Windows user interface and does not require a display server; its terminal emulation is aimed to be compatible with xter ...

–

Cygwin Cygwin ( ) is a POSIX-compatible programming and runtime environment that runs natively on Microsoft Windows. Under Cygwin, source code designed for Unix-like operating systems may be compiled with minimal modification and executed. The Cygwin in ...

terminal *

Procomm Plus Datastorm Technologies, Inc., was a computer software company that existed from 1986 until 1996. Bruce Barkelew and Thomas Smith founded the company to develop and publish ProComm, a general purpose communications program for personal computers. ...

PuTTY Putty is a material with high plasticity, similar in texture to clay or dough, typically used in domestic construction and repair as a sealant or filler. Although some types of putty (typically those using linseed oil) slowly polymerise and be ...

Qmodem Pro Qmodem was an MS-DOS shareware telecommunications program and terminal emulator. Qmodem was widely used to access bulletin boards in the 1980s and was well respected in the Bulletin Board System community. Qmodem was also known as Qmodem SST a ...

RUMBA The term rumba may refer to a variety of unrelated music styles. Originally, "rumba" was used as a synonym for "party" in northern Cuba, and by the late 19th century it was used to denote the complex of secular music styles known as Cuban rumba ...

Tera Term Tera Term (alternatively TeraTerm) is an open-source, free, software implemented, terminal emulator (communications) program. It emulates different types of computer terminals, from DEC VT100 to DEC VT382. It supports telnet, SSH 1 & 2 and serial p ...

TtyEmulator TtyEmulator is a Freeware terminal emulator application which can act as a client for the SSH, Telnet, rlogin, and raw TCP computing protocols and as a serial console client. TtyEmulator is written for Microsoft Windows, but it will be port ...

Windows Console Windows Console is the infrastructure for console applications in Microsoft Windows. An instance of a Windows Console has a screen buffer and an input buffer. It allows console apps to run inside a window or in hardware text mode (so as to oc ...

– Windows command line terminal *

Windows Terminal Windows Terminal is a multi-tabbed terminal emulator that Microsoft has developed for Windows 10 and later as a replacement for Windows Console. It can run any command-line app in a separate tab. It is preconfigured to run Command Prompt, Powe ...

* ZOC

MS-DOS

Crosstalk In electronics, crosstalk is any phenomenon by which a signal transmitted on one circuit or channel of a transmission system creates an undesired effect in another circuit or channel. Crosstalk is usually caused by undesired capacitive, induc ...

* Kermit *

ProComm Datastorm Technologies, Inc., was a computer software company that existed from 1986 until 1996. Bruce Barkelew and Thomas Smith founded the company to develop and publish ProComm, a general purpose communications program for personal computers. ...

Qmodem Qmodem was an MS-DOS shareware telecommunications program and terminal emulator. Qmodem was widely used to access bulletin boards in the 1980s and was well respected in the Bulletin Board System community. Qmodem was also known as Qmodem SST and ...

and Qmodem Pro *

Synchronet Synchronet is a multiplatform BBS software package, with current ports for Microsoft Windows, Linux, and BSD variants. Past versions also ran on MS-DOS and OS/2, but support for those platforms were dropped in version 3.0 (circa 2000). History S ...

Telix Telix is a telecommunications program originally written for DOS by Colin Sampaleanu and released in 1986. On October 10, 1988 in the release note for Telix 3.10, Sampaleanu announced the creation of 'Exis Inc.'; name used to develop the software ...

* Terminate

IBM OS/2

* Kermit 95 * ZOC – discontinued support for OS/2

Amiga

NComm NComm is one of the most popular shareware terminal programs used on the Commodore International, Commodore Amiga line of computers, especially for connecting to Bulletin board system, BBS systems via a modem connected to the telephone line. The pro ...

Commodore 64

* CBterm/C64

Block-oriented terminal emulators

Emulators for

block-oriented terminal A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that can be used for entering data into, and transcribing data from, a computer or a computing system. The teletype was an example of an early-day hard-copy terminal and ...

s, primarily

IBM 3270 The IBM 3270 is a family of block oriented display and printer computer terminals introduced by IBM in 1971 and normally used to communicate with IBM mainframes. The 3270 was the successor to the IBM 2260 display terminal. Due to the text ...

, but also

IBM 5250 IBM 5250 is a family of block-oriented terminals originally introduced with the IBM System/34 midrange computer systems in 1977. It also connects to the later System/36, System/38, and IBM AS/400 systems, and to IBM Power Systems systems running I ...

and other non-IBM terminals.

Coax/Twinax connected

These terminal emulators are used to replace terminals attached to a host or terminal controller via a

coaxial cable Coaxial cable, or coax (pronounced ) is a type of electrical cable consisting of an inner conductor surrounded by a concentric conducting shield, with the two separated by a dielectric ( insulating material); many coaxial cables also have a p ...

(coax) or

twinaxial cabling Twinaxial cabling, or "Twinax", is a type of cable similar to coaxial cable, but with two inner conductors instead of one. Due to cost efficiency it is becoming common in modern (2013) very-short-range high-speed differential signaling application ...

(twinax). They require that the computer on which they run have a hardware adapter to support such an attachment. *

3270 and 5250

tn3270/tn5250

These terminal emulators connect to a host using the

tn3270 The IBM 3270 is a family of block oriented display and printer computer terminals introduced by IBM in 1971 and normally used to communicate with IBM mainframes. The 3270 was the successor to the IBM 2260 display terminal. Due to the text ...

tn5250 IBM 5250 is a family of block-oriented terminals originally introduced with the IBM System/34 midrange computer systems in 1977. It also connects to the later System/36, System/38, and IBM AS/400 systems, and to IBM Power Systems systems running ...

protocols, which run over a

Transmission Control Protocol The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is one of the main protocols of the Internet protocol suite. It originated in the initial network implementation in which it complemented the Internet Protocol (IP). Therefore, the entire suite is commonly ...

(TCP) connection. * Eicon Aviva * IBM Personal Communications * Rocket BlueZone *

TN3270 Plus TN3270 Plus is a terminal emulator for Microsoft Windows. It is used for connecting Windows PC users to IBM mainframe, IBM i and UNIX systems via TCP/IP. TN3270 Plus includes terminal emulation for 3270, 5250, VT100, VT220 and ANSI terminals. TN ...

* Tn5250j * x3270 – open-source, multi-platform, TN3270 client * ZOC

References

External links

Linux console escape and control sequences

List of X11 terminals available on Gentoo Linux

List of X11 terminals available on archlinux

Guide to Windows terminals

The Grumpy Editor's guide to terminal emulators
2004
Comprehensive Linux Terminal Performance Comparison
2007
x11-terminals
{{Terminal emulator * Emulators, Terminal