kitty

Judgement

What it is

Developer tool

What it does

A GPU-based terminal emulator for Linux and macOS with built-in tabs, split layouts, inline image display and scriptable extensions called kittens.

Adopt it when

You live in the terminal on Linux or macOS and want splits, images and remote control without adding a multiplexer.

Watch out

There is no Windows support, its custom terminfo can cause trouble over SSH on remote hosts, and it is effectively a single-maintainer project.

Ready for

Production-ready

Runs as

Desktop app

Built with

Python, C, Go and OpenGL

How established

Established: started 10 years ago, latest release v0.50.0.

What the license allows

Use inside your business is unrestricted, but anything you distribute that includes it must be released under the same license.

Judged on 2026-11-06 from the project's README and GitHub data. The license and age lines are worked out directly.

Built from

Follow it down: kitty → CPython → GCC → LLVM project → runs on a microchip

How compilers were built, back to punched paper tape

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