Okay, I Like WezTerm

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Overall Sentiment & Adoption

  • Many commenters report switching from iTerm2, Kitty, Alacritty, or default terminals to WezTerm and being very satisfied.
  • Common praise: good defaults, fast enough on most setups, “gets out of the way,” and works identically across macOS, Linux, and Windows.
  • Several people sponsor the project and praise the maintainer’s responsiveness and tone; a few report issues or comments being ignored or closed and left.

Configuration, Features & Workflow

  • Lua-based config is a major selling point: expressive, scriptable, and good for cross‑platform conditionals.
  • Popular features:
    • Tabs and panes built-in (for some, removing the need for tmux/zellij locally).
    • SSH “domains” and WezTerm’s own multiplexer, providing tmux/mosh‑like reconnection and shared layouts over SSH.
    • Command palette, “quickselect” / copy modes, infinite or large scrollback, search, and get-text for dumping scrollback.
    • Hardware-accelerated rendering and ligatures; fine-grained control over opacity/blur and fonts.
  • Some users disable most built‑ins and just use WezTerm as a good host for tmux or zellij.

Comparisons to Other Terminals

  • iTerm2: liked for features like split panes and hotkey/“quake” windows; several note performance and latency issues and switch to WezTerm. Quake-style behavior can be recreated via tools like Hammerspoon or tdrop, but isn’t native.
  • Kitty: praised for speed and configurability, but many are put off by the maintainer’s attitude, terminfo/SSH friction, and some design decisions. Others stay with Kitty because it feels faster or renders fonts better.
  • Alacritty: valued for speed, but missing features (e.g., scrollback dump, ligatures) and bugs push some toward WezTerm.
  • Default terminals (Terminal.app, gnome-terminal, etc.) are seen as “good enough” by some; others move when they need true color, hyperlinks, multiplexing, or better UX.

Performance, Bugs & Limitations

  • Mixed reports on speed: many find WezTerm much faster than iTerm2; others find Kitty or even Windows Terminal noticeably faster, especially for large buffers or rapid scrolling.
  • Reported issues:
    • Freezes or lag with large scrollback; GPU/GL conflicts with some graphics apps; Wayland/X11 quirks.
    • Copying wrapped lines inserting unwanted newlines (a showstopper for some; said to be fixed in nightly builds).
    • Font rendering quality disputes; some find it worse than alternatives.
    • Missing or non‑default UX features: pane broadcasting, select‑all, perfect “quake”/hotkey window parity.
  • Overall, many consider it the best balance of power, cross‑platform support, and configurability, but not universally superior for all setups.