Tabby VS kitty

I would be using Tabby Terminal.

tabby.sh - design, features

iTerm2 is a great terminal for macOS. I use it extensively every day. Despite that, I would gladly try out other terminals because it's fun and because I'm always open to finding something superior to even the great tools I use.

That said, there is exactly 1 feature that seems to only exist in iTerm2, and until another terminal emulator appears that has it, I'm staying put: tmux control mode.

https://github.com/Eugeny/tabby/issues/2715

I've found Tabby does a good job and is Cross-Platform to you can use on Windows too. It can run any installed shell, serial connections and ssh. You can create profiles. It needs some work to be fully functional in Wayland i.e. Autohide feature doesn't work. But that's a graphical issue. Though, if you're just after creating and organising SSH profiles not terminal emulation, Remmina already has you covered. SSH, RDP and VNC.

And kitty is much faster according to this: https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty/issues/2701#issuecomment...

Also typometer based measurements also on Linux. Shrug.

kitty (Linux & Macos)

A terminal with built-in telemetry and a pricing model... Just what I never wanted!

To avoid being too negative, I'll offer the option of Kitty[1]. My current favorite terminal. Supports many features.

Including my personal favorites:

* ctrl+c (as opposed to stupid things like ctrl+shift+c) to copy data only when you have content selected. Otherwise, ctrl+c sends a sigint like normal.

* font ligature support (a controversial feature)

[1] https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/

The ncurses/xterm maintainer also had quite a lot of friction with the developer of the kitty terminal emulator.

https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty/issues/879

IME, this is like the golden age of terminal apps in general and macOS-compatible ones in particular. There are several really good terminals for macOS:

[iTerm2 app](https://iterm2.com/)

[Kitty terminal](https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/)

[WezTerm terminal](https://wezfurlong.org/wezterm/index.html)

[Alacritty](https://github.com/alacritty/alacritty)

My daily driver is WezTerm…

- Runs on Linux, macOS, Windows 10 and FreeBSD

- [Multiplex terminal panes, tabs and windows on local and remote hosts, with native mouse and scrollback](https://wezfurlong.org/wezterm/multiplexing.html)

- [Ligatures](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode#fira-code-monospaced-font...), Color Emoji and font fallback, with true color and [dynamic color schemes](https://wezfurlong.org/wezterm/config/appearance.html#colors).

- [Hyperlinks](https://wezfurlong.org/wezterm/hyperlinks.html)

- [Searchable Scrollback](https://wezfurlong.org/wezterm/scrollback.html) (use mouse wheel and `Shift-PageUp` and `Shift PageDown` to navigate, Ctrl-Shift-F to activate search mode)

- xterm style selection of text with mouse; paste selection via `Shift-Insert` (bracketed paste is supported!)

- SGR style mouse reporting (works in vim and tmux)

- Render underline, double-underline, italic, bold, strikethrough (most other terminal emulators do not support as many render attributes)

- Configuration via a [configuration file](https://wezfurlong.org/wezterm/config/files.html) with hot reloading

- Multiple Windows (Hotkey: `Super-N`)

- Splits/Panes (Split horizontally/vertically: `Ctrl-Shift-Alt-%` and `Ctrl-Shift-Alt-"`, move between panes: `Ctrl-Shift-ArrowKey`)

- Tabs (Hotkey: `Super-T`, next/prev: `Super-Shift-[` and `Super-Shift-]`, go-to: `Super-[1-9]`)

- [SSH client with native tabs](https://wezfurlong.org/wezterm/ssh.html)

- [Connect to serial ports for embedded/Arduino work](https://wezfurlong.org/wezterm/serial.html)

- Connect to a local multiplexer server over unix domain sockets

- Connect to a remote multiplexer using SSH or TLS over TCP/IP

- iTerm2 compatible image protocol support, and built-in [imgcat command](https://wezfurlong.org/wezterm/imgcat.html)

- Kitty graphics support

- Sixel graphics support (experimental: starting in `20200620-160318-e00b076c`)

While researching how to fix the issue I found this GitHub issue with the fun number 606 (almost 666). First, I should say, that there is no easy solution. Shortly you have to specify for each shortcut mapping alternative with your keyboard layout. That means, for example, if your keyboard has Cyrillic "м" instead of Latin "v" then for making work CMD+V you should add also into configuration an additional line with "м".

I haven’t tried this yet (so please take my commentary with a grain of salt), but my initial thoughts are: (1) it looks interesting, (2) it looks overwhelming (there’s a lot going on in those screenshots), and (3) it’s likely slow (I might be completely wrong).

To elaborate a bit…

1. I love good design work and well-designed (UI-wise) software, and it certainly looks like the creators of Wave Terminal have made that a priority.

2. UX-wise, there’s just too much going on. As someone who lives in my terminal (with the exception of browsing the web, I do virtually everything in my terminal), it’s the single most important piece of software on my computer and it can never get in my way. I used the same terminal for many years and only switched to kitty [0] a couple years ago after testing it for months. In all of those years, every single terminal I tested managed to get in my way. Somehow, kitty manages to be packed full of features without ever—not even once—getting in my way, being slow, or freezing up on me.

3. Generally speaking, I think building on open web standards is a great thing and a plus. Unfortunately though, even in 2023, my experience has been that it’s really hard to build performant software meant to be run on native platforms using web technologies; the few who get this right—e.g., Figma—are anomalies and they generally invest an enormous amount of time and engineering capital into squeezing out as much performance as possible. As I explained in #2, for something as critical as my terminal, not being performant is simply not an option, so as much as I love the idea of building on open web standards, it actually scares me for software like this.

That said, I’m obviously judging before trying here, so I’ll make some time to test Wave Terminal.

[0]: https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty

to solve this I run Kitty with a tab bar on the bottom. this has tons of inspo: https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty/discussions/4447

Those existing tools are poorly designed, if you read the article it has a link to the discussion about its design choices, which contains in turn discussion about all the problems with sixel https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty/issues/33#issuecomment-2...