Kitty – a fast, featureful, GPU based terminal emulator
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2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
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HN comment orderI've been using Kitty for a month now. I really like it. It's slightly less usable out of the box than iTerm 2. The default shortcuts are very counterintuitive (no CMD T for new tab or CMD W to close tab). But editing the preferences is straightforward. I prefer it to iTerm because it's so. Damn. Fast. It's the only software (besides Sublime) I run on my laptop that actually feels like it's using the 40 years of transistor improvements…
I rarely use anything new because my work environment is holy, but I tried Kitty because it had a Unicode menu built-in. I like to send unicode smileys to friends on IRC. :) Anyways here are my impressions after 1 month. 1. You have to transfer terminfo to all ssh servers because the kitty term does not exist there. 2. By default mouse selection with double click + drag to select multiple lines is not normal. I believe this could…
My progression has been st -> kitty -> ghostty. I wanted to love st, but found too many unpolished corners. Kitty was great, but it felt like the exact opposite of st. Very large and opinionated. ghostty, at least originally, was new and something between st and kitty. With claude code I wonder where the landscape of personalized software will land. st and others may be on to something in this era.
Afaik the director has been a dbag with his projects re contributors. Calibre and kitty. It is his project and he doesnt owe any one anything, bit i would take my Limited OSS Aattention elsewhere.
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 3
- Total points
- 1031
- Total comments
- 633
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-09-05 | Kitty – a fast, featureful, GPU based terminal emulatorFirst breakout · Best thread | Ayey_ | 452 | 315 |
| 2020-09-30 | Kitty – A fast, featureful, GPU based terminal emulator | Gedxx | 385 | 195 |
| 2021-02-26 | Design philosophy: kitty – the fast, featureful, GPU based terminal emulator | jasim | 5 | 0 |
| 2022-01-18 | Kitty terminal productivity features [video] | juancampa | 4 | 1 |
| 2022-03-23 | Kitty: The fast, feature-rich, GPU based terminal emulatorHall induction | varbhat | 62 | 31 |
| 2023-08-09 | Kitty – a fast, feature-rich, GPU based terminal emulator | whalesalad | 22 | 6 |
| 2024-11-26 | Kitty: The fast, feature-rich, GPU based terminal emulator | Kerrick | 3 | 1 |
| 2025-09-20 | Kitty – GPU based terminal emulatorLatest 20+ point return | andsoitis | 98 | 84 |