REALLY IMPORTANT MESSAGE: It's not fair to WezTerm that the only disadvantage I found with it is actually a setting that can be changed By default, wezterm has this setting that makes it feel slow, laggy and choppy: max_fps = 60 Instead of that, set it to the following and let me know how it goes: max_fps = 120 I did notice a huge difference, it's as fast as Ghostty, so they're side to side when it comes to performance If you ask me, 120 should be the default and not 60 as I've heard so many people experience the exact same slowness issue with wezterm, but like they say, it was not a bug, it was a feature I'll test WezTerm out and release a follow up video explaining this and my thoughts on if whether I prefer WezTerm or Ghostty, so stay tuned! Started a discussion in the WezTerm repo and asked if max_fps can be set to 120 instead of the default 60, let's see what Wez says. There's several open issues, so I don't expect a response any time soon github.com/wez/wezterm/issues/6334 Here's the follow up video: I was wrong, WezTerm is as fast as Ghostty th-cam.com/video/VMdSJ8d5Aos/w-d-xo.html
Thank you so much for this review. It's an awesome comparative of the best terminal emulators! One thing I always miss when people talk about Wezterm is the programmatic configuration with Lua. IMHO that is what makes Wezterm the best! Same as Neovim vs Vim
Hey, glad you like the video comparing what I also consider them best terminal emulators out there, I haven't used many so I may be wrong though 🤣 Would you mind sharing an example on how you use wezterm's config programatically to help me understand a bit better? I love the fact that I can load the colors from another file, but I can also do that with Ghostty, even though had to play a few tricks
Great detailed walkthrough; thank you! One thing I love about WezTerm is the Lua configuration, and I personally think it's a miss on Ghostty's side to not do something similar, and use a real scripting language for their config. Not sure what the intention behind their "quick terminal" is, but that would be something I'm super interested in, since, on Mac, I need to do Hammerspoon scripts etc to do a Quake-style terminal, but if the terminal has that functionality built-in, it would be nice!
I agree with the config side of things, so far the config has allowed me to do what I need, so no big deal, I'll miss lua, but I can live with this. There's syntax highlighting for the ghostty config by the way, look for a ghostty.lua file in my neobean dir
I think by default wezterm caps the refresh rate at 60fps. But you can go to buttery 120fps on the config. So that sharpness test while scrolling wasn't super fair.
I did leave some options in my config regarding tests I ran with: front_end = "WebGpu", animation_fps = 60, Just 10 min ago I found this setting, based on what you commented: max_fps = 120, And you're right, WezTerm works flawlessly when max_fps is set to 120, I wish I knew this sooner, or that 120 was the default value to avoid issues for so many people I'll add this as the pinned video comment, as it's not fair to WezTerm, I'll consider doing a follow up video
I just did and left it in the video description as well. WezTerm should definitely push for this setting to be 120 by default, it would change so many people's experience and first impressions
@@linkarzu I read it's capped for battery/power saving purposes. Personally I haven't noticed any higher power usage. Same with the blinking cursor, I don't have it enabled and I think it's disabled by default to save power. Being gpu accelerated I'm guessing any time the screen is redrawn the GPU has to be used.
That makes sense, but I think it does more harm than good, as you normally don't tweak and research enough to find that the issue is that specific setting. But I get where you're coming from, a lot of underpowered laptops would probably suffer with this set to 120 and people would start complaining, so I guess you cannot make everyone happy 🤣
Very good review, thank you! About config reload - it is getting better with time. Last time I had osascript that was focusing ghostty, clicking menu item for reloading config and then refocusing previous app. With recently added global hot keys it is a smooth run with osascript now 😁 (I am using it for syncing ghostty theme when os switches between light and dark theme)
Imagine how pissed I'd be if I had configured WezTerm 3 weeks ago with all my keyboard shortcuts, multiplexing settings, etc etc and now I would have to migrate all that to Ghostty, hell nah 🤣
Hey off topic but i want to achieve the same bar as you but im not on Mac os so can i use the same theme on other bars like waybar etc? Or do i have to install sketchybar and this theme? And will it work on Linux or no
Hey there, the bar that I use on macOS is SketchyBar but I think that is only available for macOS, I'm not exactly sure to be honest, you'll have to check, I have a video about it: Install and configure a custom menubar, sketchybar macOS th-cam.com/video/CY0gU_iPRTk/w-d-xo.html Regarding the colors that I use, you can use the colorscheme selector scripts and come up with something useful, I have a video about that too: Colorscheme selector to change the colors in kitty, tmux, starship, neovim, sketchybar and more th-cam.com/video/SBU2YRv02Mc/w-d-xo.html
nice video, thank you. I think you should try aerospace tiling manager for MacOS, it's totally different concept and doesn't use mac desktops at all which I think is way snappier and better.
Hey, I appreciate the advise, I’ll definitely check it out and review it as many people have recommended it. I don't use spaces in macOS, I keep all the apps in the same space and just switch to them, so it's really snappy and there's no animation delay
Could you do a video or share information about memory consumption between the terminal emulators on a basic case (no image rendering needed)? Is the memory consumption about the same with Ghostty and Wezterm?
Your review is the best I've seen so far, I'm glad ghostty isn't just hype. How is the configuration experience? I love using lua for both neovim and wezterm.
The documentation is great, so the configuration experience is also great, I got my configuration basically from the default values file that I generated, just searched for stuff I needed to change, and added those settings to my config file I loved WezTerm's lua config as well, as I'm used to it from Neovim, but that's something I'll have to learn to deal with, as this config is more similar to Kitty's, not bad to be honest, as everything is wonderfully documented
nice video as always & nice setup. I have Ghostty already but applying shaders makes Ghostty laggy and I am not sure if experienced the same. I use your shaders from your dotfiles, 025 specifically
There are only a few things that need a close and re-open, one of them is shaders. If you don't close Ghostty, new shaders are not applied. The rest of the things work with a reload (I think, haven't changed my config too much after the initial setup, so not sure)
Thanks for a nice comparison between terminals. Have you noticed any lag in Ghostty rendering images in Yazi, by any chance, as compared to WezTerm or Kitty? For some reason I experience some lag in macOS sequoia when rendering images, while in WezTerm and Kitty it is quite smooth when scrolling through a folder with many images, in Ghostty a feel a bit of sluggishness, but not so much to be a problem.
Hey there, I haven't tried yazi but it's in my todo list, I only view images when inside neovim and haven't experienced issues. I'm still in Sonoma by the way, I don't want to upgrade yet
16:35 is it possible to have different instances with different shaders? Let's say I want my files navigator to always have a starfield shader for example.
I just raised this question in discord, it’s a private channel so you probably won’t see it if you’re not part of the beta yet, I guess, but I’ll update this thread and let you know what’s going on
I have a video about that app that allows me to navigate without a mouse: Navigate all your apps without the mouse on macOS with Homerow th-cam.com/video/abZP1xFZrRU/w-d-xo.html
i'm surprised that Wezterm is slow...I mean people hyped it to be blazingly fast since it's written in Rust? well I guess there's no such thing as zero cost abstraction.
I loved WezTerm but I did feel that about it a bit, it was not too bad, but if I have to pick between the 2, I pick Ghostty, it just feels a bit smoother
REALLY IMPORTANT MESSAGE:
It's not fair to WezTerm that the only disadvantage I found with it is actually a setting that can be changed
By default, wezterm has this setting that makes it feel slow, laggy and choppy:
max_fps = 60
Instead of that, set it to the following and let me know how it goes:
max_fps = 120
I did notice a huge difference, it's as fast as Ghostty, so they're side to side when it comes to performance
If you ask me, 120 should be the default and not 60 as I've heard so many people experience the exact same slowness issue with wezterm, but like they say, it was not a bug, it was a feature
I'll test WezTerm out and release a follow up video explaining this and my thoughts on if whether I prefer WezTerm or Ghostty, so stay tuned!
Started a discussion in the WezTerm repo and asked if max_fps can be set to 120 instead of the default 60, let's see what Wez says. There's several open issues, so I don't expect a response any time soon
github.com/wez/wezterm/issues/6334
Here's the follow up video:
I was wrong, WezTerm is as fast as Ghostty
th-cam.com/video/VMdSJ8d5Aos/w-d-xo.html
this is way more in-depth than other review videos so far imo, can't wait to december 24th! 😁
You're gonna give it to yourself as a christmas present, have your config ready! 🤣
Just in time for Xmas!
@nickmills8476 My wife would be happy to see me in the computer setting up Ghostty on Christmas 😍
Thank you so much for this review. It's an awesome comparative of the best terminal emulators!
One thing I always miss when people talk about Wezterm is the programmatic configuration with Lua. IMHO that is what makes Wezterm the best! Same as Neovim vs Vim
Hey, glad you like the video comparing what I also consider them best terminal emulators out there, I haven't used many so I may be wrong though 🤣
Would you mind sharing an example on how you use wezterm's config programatically to help me understand a bit better? I love the fact that I can load the colors from another file, but I can also do that with Ghostty, even though had to play a few tricks
Great detailed walkthrough; thank you!
One thing I love about WezTerm is the Lua configuration, and I personally think it's a miss on Ghostty's side to not do something similar, and use a real scripting language for their config.
Not sure what the intention behind their "quick terminal" is, but that would be something I'm super interested in, since, on Mac, I need to do Hammerspoon scripts etc to do a Quake-style terminal, but if the terminal has that functionality built-in, it would be nice!
I agree with the config side of things, so far the config has allowed me to do what I need, so no big deal, I'll miss lua, but I can live with this. There's syntax highlighting for the ghostty config by the way, look for a ghostty.lua file in my neobean dir
I think by default wezterm caps the refresh rate at 60fps. But you can go to buttery 120fps on the config. So that sharpness test while scrolling wasn't super fair.
I did leave some options in my config regarding tests I ran with:
front_end = "WebGpu",
animation_fps = 60,
Just 10 min ago I found this setting, based on what you commented:
max_fps = 120,
And you're right, WezTerm works flawlessly when max_fps is set to 120, I wish I knew this sooner, or that 120 was the default value to avoid issues for so many people
I'll add this as the pinned video comment, as it's not fair to WezTerm, I'll consider doing a follow up video
@@linkarzu Pin 📌 please:)
I just did and left it in the video description as well. WezTerm should definitely push for this setting to be 120 by default, it would change so many people's experience and first impressions
@@linkarzu I read it's capped for battery/power saving purposes. Personally I haven't noticed any higher power usage. Same with the blinking cursor, I don't have it enabled and I think it's disabled by default to save power. Being gpu accelerated I'm guessing any time the screen is redrawn the GPU has to be used.
That makes sense, but I think it does more harm than good, as you normally don't tweak and research enough to find that the issue is that specific setting. But I get where you're coming from, a lot of underpowered laptops would probably suffer with this set to 120 and people would start complaining, so I guess you cannot make everyone happy 🤣
Very good review, thank you!
About config reload - it is getting better with time.
Last time I had osascript that was focusing ghostty, clicking menu item for reloading config and then refocusing previous app. With recently added global hot keys it is a smooth run with osascript now 😁 (I am using it for syncing ghostty theme when os switches between light and dark theme)
Yep, I agree, it's easier now with the keybind, and it would be perfect with a CLI command, hopefully we get one 🤞
Honestly I'm just sold on the shader 😅
21:58 focusing on tmux for panes and sessions is the best advice ever.
Imagine how pissed I'd be if I had configured WezTerm 3 weeks ago with all my keyboard shortcuts, multiplexing settings, etc etc and now I would have to migrate all that to Ghostty, hell nah 🤣
@@linkarzu totally relatable! Same here.
I just discovered that WezTerm can be as fast as Ghostty, I'll make a follow up video because it's not fair to WezTerm
Hey off topic but i want to achieve the same bar as you but im not on Mac os so can i use the same theme on other bars like waybar etc? Or do i have to install sketchybar and this theme? And will it work on Linux or no
Hey there, the bar that I use on macOS is SketchyBar but I think that is only available for macOS, I'm not exactly sure to be honest, you'll have to check, I have a video about it:
Install and configure a custom menubar, sketchybar macOS th-cam.com/video/CY0gU_iPRTk/w-d-xo.html
Regarding the colors that I use, you can use the colorscheme selector scripts and come up with something useful, I have a video about that too:
Colorscheme selector to change the colors in kitty, tmux, starship, neovim, sketchybar and more th-cam.com/video/SBU2YRv02Mc/w-d-xo.html
nice video, thank you. I think you should try aerospace tiling manager for MacOS, it's totally different concept and doesn't use mac desktops at all which I think is way snappier and better.
Hey, I appreciate the advise, I’ll definitely check it out and review it as many people have recommended it. I don't use spaces in macOS, I keep all the apps in the same space and just switch to them, so it's really snappy and there's no animation delay
Could you do a video or share information about memory consumption between the terminal emulators on a basic case (no image rendering needed)? Is the memory consumption about the same with Ghostty and Wezterm?
Good idea, should've tested that in the video, but here is a quick comparison
sharing.linkarzu.com/Fx1z9S3JpqT2C4xrzsTp
Your review is the best I've seen so far, I'm glad ghostty isn't just hype. How is the configuration experience? I love using lua for both neovim and wezterm.
The documentation is great, so the configuration experience is also great, I got my configuration basically from the default values file that I generated, just searched for stuff I needed to change, and added those settings to my config file
I loved WezTerm's lua config as well, as I'm used to it from Neovim, but that's something I'll have to learn to deal with, as this config is more similar to Kitty's, not bad to be honest, as everything is wonderfully documented
nice video as always & nice setup. I have Ghostty already but applying shaders makes Ghostty laggy and I am not sure if experienced the same. I use your shaders from your dotfiles, 025 specifically
Hey, glad you liked the video. I didn't feel lag with shaders on vs off. Are you also on macos or is it linux? I'm still in Sonoma by the way
21:17 ah, if it's possible to reload the config via key binding why did you have to close and reopen it sometimes?
There are only a few things that need a close and re-open, one of them is shaders. If you don't close Ghostty, new shaders are not applied.
The rest of the things work with a reload (I think, haven't changed my config too much after the initial setup, so not sure)
Thanks for a nice comparison between terminals. Have you noticed any lag in Ghostty rendering images in Yazi, by any chance, as compared to WezTerm or Kitty? For some reason I experience some lag in macOS sequoia when rendering images, while in WezTerm and Kitty it is quite smooth when scrolling through a folder with many images, in Ghostty a feel a bit of sluggishness, but not so much to be a problem.
Hey there, I haven't tried yazi but it's in my todo list, I only view images when inside neovim and haven't experienced issues. I'm still in Sonoma by the way, I don't want to upgrade yet
@@linkarzu Thanks for letting me know. Yazi is great btw, you should definitely check it out.
I promise I will, several folks have asked me to check it out, but I always find something else to procrastinate with
16:35 is it possible to have different instances with different shaders? Let's say I want my files navigator to always have a starfield shader for example.
Oh, I see what you mean, you can actually run 2 ghostty instances by pressing cmd+n on macOS, you mean each of those with a different shader?
@@linkarzu yes, exactly. But I guess the second I would open with a special command perhaps using a different config..? If possible
Not quite sure if possible, buuuuuuut, I'd recommend you to ask in discord, the community is very supportive and responsive
20:03 this behavior is ever growing image count and memory usage had got to be a bug right?
I just raised this question in discord, it’s a private channel so you probably won’t see it if you’re not part of the beta yet, I guess, but I’ll update this thread and let you know what’s going on
1:56 howd you do that?
I have a video about that app that allows me to navigate without a mouse:
Navigate all your apps without the mouse on macOS with Homerow th-cam.com/video/abZP1xFZrRU/w-d-xo.html
@@linkarzu Sorry boss, i looked at some videos but didnt do enough research. Thank you for the response
No worries, always ask and I'll try to help 🙂
i'm surprised that Wezterm is slow...I mean people hyped it to be blazingly fast since it's written in Rust? well I guess there's no such thing as zero cost abstraction.
I have been saying this forever, wezterm just feels slow compared to alacritty and ghostty etc.
I will say it's not that noticeable, also wezterm has more features than any other terminal emulator there is
I loved WezTerm but I did feel that about it a bit, it was not too bad, but if I have to pick between the 2, I pick Ghostty, it just feels a bit smoother
Programming language doesn't guarantee speed, no matter if it's Rust or even assembly.
I just discovered that WezTerm can be as fast and snappy as Ghostty, I'll make a really short follow up video as it's not fair to WezTerm
i need ghostty can u share it ??
I can't, that's basically the only requirement by the repo owner as of now, but I'd recommend you to join discord and follow the regular process
terminal star field. All I need to know to ignore this nonsense. Nobody needs this crap.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
To be fair, the starfield thing is completely community made. It does not come with ghostty
@@foggylight187 Fair comment. I’m an old school naysayer who thinks even mildly transparent is sacrilege. 🤣🤣
@@osogrande4999 What about:
mildly transparent + neon flashy shader + bright colors = success
media3.giphy.com/media/l4Ep3mmmj7Bw3adWw/giphy.gif