What's the best theme for Oh My Zsh?

Question

DevelopmentLinuxOpen Source

What's the best theme for Oh My Zsh?

20

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Considered

2.2K

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Feb 5, 2024

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Updated

11 Options Considered

What's the best theme for Oh My Zsh	Price	Cost	Video chat
81 Powerlevel10k	FREE	-	-
57 Pure	-	-	-
56 Dracula	-	-	-
51 Spaceship	-	-	-
51 Powerlevel9K	FREE	-	-

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score 749 · Answer 1

Powerlevel10k

Top Pro

Extensible

If there is no prompt segment that does what you need, implement your own. Powerlevel10k provides public API for defining segments that are as fast and as flexible as built-in ones. See More

Top Con

Not included in Oh My Zsh by default

You must clone Powerlevel10k repository before you can use it with Oh My Zsh: git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k.git $ZSH_CUSTOM/themes/powerlevel10k See More

DebonairHaurvatat's Experience

Nice setup menu and a look that fits nearly everybody's wishes! See More

Top Pro

Built-in configuration wizard

Type p10k configure to access the builtin WISIWIG configuration wizard right from your terminal. See More

Top Con

Requires Zsh >= 5.1

If you are using an old version of Zsh and unable to upgrade, you cannot use Powerlevel10k. See More

Paul E Graham's Experience

I am a longtime advanced Zsh user but to me I've swapped over to Powerlevel10k and never looked back. If you just configure the shell using the wizard, you can get almost everything you want. I've only added about 20 custom lines to .zshrc for customizations to Zsh and plugins instead of the 400 line customization file I had before. See More

Top Pro

Backward-compatible with Powerlevel9k

Powerlevel10k understands all Powerlevel9k configuration parameters. Migration from Powerlevel9k to Powerlevel10k is a straightforward process. All your POWERLEVEL9K configuration parameters will still work. Prompt will look the same as before but it will be much faster. See More

Top Con

The implementation is very complex

The implementation of Powerlevel10k is packed with advanced Zsh techniques. You must be an expert in Zsh scripting if you want to understand it. To an average Zsh user it's impenetrable. See More

MagicalOlodumare's Experience

good theme See More

Top Pro

Extremely customizable

Powerlevel10k can be configured to look like any other Zsh theme out there. The full range of Powerlevel10k appearance spans from spartan to extravagant. See More

ClassyWosret's Experience

sda See More

Top Pro

No prompt lag

Other Zsh themes capable of displaying the same information either produce prompt lag or print prompt that doesn't reflect the current state of the system and then refresh it later. With Powerlevel10k you get fast prompt and up-to-date information. See More

BraveSelene's Experience

Customizable and aesthetically pleasing See More

Top Pro

Batteries included

Powerlevel10k comes with dozens of built-in high quality segments. See More

ThoroughRosmerta's Experience

new zsh user seeking a good fast prompt, as moving from many years of bash experience See More

Top Pro

Removes Zsh startup lag even when it's not caused by a theme

Powerlevel10k has a feature called Instant Prompt. Once enabled, it'll do what it says on the tin -- print prompt instantly upon Zsh startup allowing you to start typing while plugins are still loading. See More

EncouragingKuninotokotachi's Experience

Itś hard to install, but it worths!!! See More

Top Pro

Can display the same prompt as Pure

Type p10k configure and select Pure style. You can still use Powerlevel10k features such as transient prompt or instant prompt when sporting Pure style. See More

Top Pro

Current directory that just works

Powerlevel10k goes to great length to highlight the important parts of the current directory in prompt and to truncate it with the least loss of information when horizontal space gets scarce. See More

Top Pro

Displays information when it's relevant to the command you are typing

Show on command feature can display prompt segments dependent on what you are typing. For example, once you type kubectl, the current kubernetes cluster will show up in prompt. See More

Top Pro

Transient Prompt mode for clean scrollback and minimalist look

When Transient Prompt is enabled through p10k configure, Powerlevel10k will trim down every prompt when accepting a command line. Transient prompt makes it much easier to copy-paste series of commands from the terminal scrollback and saves vertical space. See More

See All

score 368 · Answer 2

Pure

Top Con

Inflexible

Configuration options are very limited. If the defaults don't work for you, you have to either patch the code or look for a different theme. See More

Top Pro

Minimalistic

Uses a combination of colors to differentiate between different elements in the prompt. No brackets or unnecessary special characters. See More

DeliberateGnowee's Experience

Too simple. Only a colorful prompt with git status support. Nothing else. Who the hell uses this shit. See More

Top Con

Requires a custom color scheme to look decent

It looks awful with all builtin color schemes. I couldn't make it look the way it does on the screenshot. See More

Top Pro

Very simple and clean + clear

ThoughtfulBelenus's Experience

i think its better than other theme "nothing"，this has current path See More

Top Con

Git prompt stops working after some time

See here. See More

Top Pro

Git integration

Shows which git branch you are currently on and whether the branch is dirty (in that case it shows a * next to the branch name). See More

EmpatheticUridimmu's Experience

Simple and elegant. Doesn't have bunch of unnecesary characters and junk. Easy to install and configure. See More

Top Con

No number of background processes

You won't see if there are background processes running (or how many). See More

Top Pro

Included in oh-my-zsh

This plugin is included in the base installation. See More

See All

score 86 · Answer 3

Dracula

Top Pro

Perfect color pitch

Colors are perfectly pitched, easy to focus on scripts and shells. See More

Top Con

Consistency

Some colors are too vibrant and bright. See More

Top Pro

Well designed

Top Pro

Available for many popular editors, terminals, etc.

Sublime, Atom, Vim, iTerm, Terminal.app, Zsh, Slack, TextMate, Emacs, Visual Studio Code/Visual Studio, Xcode, IntelliJ, and more. See More

See All

score 116 · Answer 4

Spaceship

Top Con

Really slow when working with kubernetes or big repositories

Top Pro

Easy installation

Spaceship isn't included in Oh My Zsh by default, but the repo includes an install script that takes less than a second to get it up and running. See More

KindheartedMacha's Experience

The lag on every command is jarring. See More

Top Con

npm install empties your zshrc file without even making a backup

Top Pro

Node and nvm integration

When using the spaceship theme and you use nvm so switch to an older version of Node, the prompt will show the version of Node you are currently using. See More

Top Con

Not included in Oh My Zsh

You have to install this script manually, or with the provided installation script. See More

Top Pro

Git integration

If you're inside of a directory that has a Git repository setup, Spaceship shows you information like what branch you're on, if your repository has changes and if there are unpushed commits or upstream commits. See More

Top Con

Doesn't support older zsh

Doesn't work on debian jessie with zsh 5.0.7. See More

Top Pro

Easily customizable

Spaceship has lots of options to let you customize it to your heart's desire with variables set in your .zshrc file. See More

Top Pro

Notifies on non-zero exit codes

The cursor turns red if the command executed exited with a non-zero exit code. See More

Top Pro

Ruby and rvm integration

When using Spaceship, you also get a nice little gem showing the Ruby version currently used in RVM. See More

Top Pro

Available through the AUR

If you are on Arch this ensures an easy install. Just search for spaceship-prompt-git! See More

Top Pro

Looks good

See All

score 328 · Answer 5

Powerlevel9K

Top Con

Very slow

Powerlevel10k is a fast reimplementation of this theme. See More

Top Pro

Interfaces seamlessly with oh-my-zsh

While notably more complex than most other oh-my-zsh themes, the developer has taken care to ensure that the two function naturally together, though the implementation can appear unwieldy at first. See More

KindheartedMacha's Experience

Looks pretty but way too slow. See More

Top Con

Project seems dead

GitHub issues don't get attention. No new features added in the last year. See More

Top Pro

Excellent documentation

Not only are all the possible variables clearly defined, most have visual examples as well. The gallery of screenshots shared by users is also well-curated and provides no end of inspiration for what you yourself might want. See More

Peter J. Mello's Experience

My transition from a bash user to a very precise and demanding zsh practitioner has seemed to occur in spurts, a few being when I first made the jump, and again when I grew comfortable with oh-my-zsh. The one that felt most like receiving a black belt in a martial art though was when I first configured Powerlevel9k on my personal laptop. I had known all of these capabilities for information display were present in zsh itself, but to find a tool that walked me through selecting and organizing the ones most relevant to me was truly to unearth buried treasure. I feel handicapped now when I use a terminal without it, and though I've seen many beautiful custom shells in use by friends and colleagues, all of the most visually striking and feature-rich seem to have been touched by Powerlevel9k at some point. See More

Top Con

Does not support 24-bit true color

Top Pro

Support for all major families of patched font methods

Not only are the standard Powerline fonts supported, but so too are the Awesome fonts and the Nerd fonts, all offering a different approach to adding more glyphs to your standard mono-spaced terminal typography. See More

TruthfulIzanagi's Experience

Clean, clear, functional See More

Top Pro

Keeps terminal responsiveness high

One sad realization often encountered shortly after testing a new terminal theme or framework is that suddenly a noticeable lag is present when working in it. While it can happen with Powerlevel9k too, if you're deliberate in the elements you place in your prompt, it can also be mostly sidestepped. See More

GenuineHina's Experience

Slow See More

Top Pro

Plays well with almost every existing zsh framework or add-on

Powerlevel9k lists step-by-step instructions for integrations into a plain zsh shell, as well as how to intergrate it with: oh-my-zsh, NixOS, Prezto, antigen, Zplug, Zgen, Antibody, ZPM, and zim. No matter what you've already found to enhance your zsh terminal, this theme will complement rather than displace them. See More

CapableSaturn's Experience

Just awesome! See More

Top Pro

Sensitive to an extremely broad set of contextual environments

Powerlevel is capable of recognizing all of the following conditions and altering your prompt automatically to alert you or provide more relevant information to suit them: logged in as default user, logged in via SSH, low battery, background jobs running, whether the working directory is read-only or writable, VPN in use, operating with elevated privileges (sudo), vi mode (editing), working in a version-controlled directory tree, logged into AWS profile, dynamic display of Wi-Fi signal strength in the prompt itself, current partition free space, and so many more it's nearly obscene. See More

See All

score 48 · Answer 6

Bureau

Top Pro

Changes color when you are logged in as root

Top Con

Uses two lines

Top Pro

Has current date/time

Top Pro

Has git/mercurial integration

Top Pro

Beautiful and meaningful colors

Top Pro

Comes with ohmyzsh

See All

score 66 · Answer 7

Bullet Train

Top Con

Can get slow on big Git projects

Top Pro

Info and prompt on 2 separate rows

SupportiveCinteotl's Experience

good looking and using multiline prompt. it makes the command still readable when went on large directory and git string See More

Top Pro

Git and Mercurial supported

Top Pro

Working directory name truncated when long

Top Pro

Version info for Python/NodeJS/Ruby/Elixir/Perl

See All

score 66 · Answer 8

robbyrussell

Top Pro

The default theme for oh my zsh

You don't need to change anything to use this. It's the default theme. See More

Top Con

Does not show your current directory

Plain PROMPT='%~ ' has a big advantage over this theme. See More

RealisticYopaat's Experience

Not much worse than the default prompt. See More

Top Pro

Very simple

Shows the folder you are in and if there's a git repository it shows the current branch. See More

Top Con

Slow when working with large Git repositories

IncredibleGyges's Experience

best theme for oh my zsh See More

Top Pro

Nice color

Nice color codes. See More

Top Con

Prompt screws up cursor

The right arrow used in the prompt seems to be larger than 1 character, but slightly smaller than two. As such, your cursor will either be very slightly offset, or so offset that it is unworkable. See More

See All

score 41 · Answer 9

agnoster

Top Con

Poor contrast

Text is impossible to read under dark blue theme. See More

Top Pro

Graphics

Quick-to-process icons. See More

CharmingAnnona's Experience

A really clean shell. See More

See All

score 7 · Answer 10

af-magic

Top Pro

Included with oh-my-zsh

Top Con

Sometimes the path gets in the way

Even though it abbreviates paths with ~ when they are in the home directory, deeply nested files or long paths often force the prompt to be squished against the width of the CLI, or in extreme cases wraps around multiple lines. See More

Tom's Experience

A simple solid all-rounder. I've used this on many different systems from a Raspberry Pi, a Linux workstation and a MacBook, and it's worked on each. Occasional small improvements added over time too. See More

Top Pro

Great for skimming through lines of output

The colors and extra line of hyphens makes it very easy at a glance to see where one command ends and another begins. See More

Top Con

Better options for 'full-screen' cli use

Out of the box it misses out on features like battery remaining, time/date, etc. If you're using a terminal emulator with a normal desktop environment, this is typically done by a status bar, but if you don't have this you may be better off with alternatives. See More

Top Pro

Shows directory and git branch where applicable

Top Pro

Reliable

No incompatibilities between many different systems, fonts and OSes. See More

See All

score 3 · Answer 11

Refined

Top Pro

No Powerline glyph used

Works with every font. See More

Top Pro

Easy to setup

Included in Oh-My-Zsh, nothing to add. See More

score 12 · Answer 12

11 Options Considered

My Recommendation for Powerlevel10k

My Recommendation for Powerlevel10k

Extensible

Not included in Oh My Zsh by default

Built-in configuration wizard

Requires Zsh >= 5.1

Backward-compatible with Powerlevel9k

The implementation is very complex

Extremely customizable

No prompt lag

Batteries included

Removes Zsh startup lag even when it's not caused by a theme

Can display the same prompt as Pure

Current directory that just works

Displays information when it's relevant to the command you are typing

Transient Prompt mode for clean scrollback and minimalist look

My Recommendation for Pure

My Recommendation for Pure

Inflexible

Minimalistic

Requires a custom color scheme to look decent

Very simple and clean + clear

Git prompt stops working after some time

Git integration

No number of background processes

Included in oh-my-zsh

My Recommendation for Dracula

My Recommendation for Dracula

Perfect color pitch

Consistency

Well designed

Available for many popular editors, terminals, etc.

My Recommendation for Spaceship

My Recommendation for Spaceship

Really slow when working with kubernetes or big repositories

Easy installation

npm install empties your zshrc file without even making a backup

Node and nvm integration

Not included in Oh My Zsh

Git integration

Doesn't support older zsh

Easily customizable

Notifies on non-zero exit codes

Ruby and rvm integration

Available through the AUR

Looks good

My Recommendation for Powerlevel9K

My Recommendation for Powerlevel9K

Very slow

Interfaces seamlessly with oh-my-zsh

Project seems dead

Excellent documentation

Does not support 24-bit true color

Support for all major families of patched font methods

Keeps terminal responsiveness high

Plays well with almost every existing zsh framework or add-on

Sensitive to an extremely broad set of contextual environments

My Recommendation for Bureau

My Recommendation for Bureau

Changes color when you are logged in as root

Uses two lines

Has current date/time

Has git/mercurial integration

Beautiful and meaningful colors

Comes with ohmyzsh

My Recommendation for Bullet Train

My Recommendation for Bullet Train

Can get slow on big Git projects

Info and prompt on 2 separate rows

Git and Mercurial supported

Working directory name truncated when long

Version info for Python/NodeJS/Ruby/Elixir/Perl

My Recommendation for robbyrussell

My Recommendation for robbyrussell

The default theme for oh my zsh

Does not show your current directory

Very simple

Slow when working with large Git repositories

Nice color