What are the best Linux terminal emulators?

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score 79 · Accepted Answer

Konsole

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Top Pro

Directory and SSH bookmarking

Konsole can bookmark ssh and telnet sessions, directories, and it can open tabs in a folder for easy access. See More

Top Con

Uses a lot of memory

Although it's very fast, konsole has to use a lot of resources in return. It may use up to 30 MB per instance, depending on the number of tabs and the task at hand. See More

Sayyid Hamid Mahdavi's Experience

easy to use and feature full See More

Top Pro

Supports split-view

Konsole supports split-view which splits the window into two (or more) konsole instances. This is very useful for people who work a lot on the terminal and don't want to spend time navigating between different windows or tabs. See More

Top Con

KDE Library dependencies

While not an issue if using KDE, when trying to use this terminal in other desktop environments or window managers, there will be a large amount of dependencies tied to the app, making for a large install size. For those trying to keep their desktop lean, this may be an issue. See More

Top Pro

Support in Dolphin file manager

Konsole can be accessed by pressing F4 in Dolphin, which is convenient for when the user needs to open the terminal in a particular spot of the file structure. See More

Top Con

Can mess terminal keybinds

Most the of the time, the terminal keybinds are just ignored to obey the kde keybinds. Can be configured though. See More

Top Pro

Export of output in plain text or HTML format

By going to file > save output, you can send all screen output to a text file. See More

Top Con

Lack of DECSCUSR support

Konsole don't allow changing the cursor shape with extended DECSCUSR sequences, using instead the temporary-profile hack. This causes pain when working in (neo)vim inside Konsole. See More

Top Pro

Embeddable into the desktop

Konsole can be embedded into desktop so it's always easily accessible, but not in the way of other windows. See More

Top Con

No support for double-width characters

Konsole no supports double width characters. For powerline users, you need to add a space after powerline glyph. See More

Top Pro

Notification alerts about activity in a terminal

Konsole can monitor activities and notify the user through system notifications when a certain activity happens. This is a very customizable feature too: you can write scripts that can use this feature and notify you for whatever you want. See More

Top Con

No good support for powerline character even with patched fonts

Top Pro

Customize and save profiles

Profiles containing different settings can be created, saved, and loaded. Color schemes, window transparency, scroll bar, key bindings, start-up commands, window border, and menu bar can all be customized according to the user's needs. See More

Top Pro

Exceptionally fast

Konsole is usually very fast. It boots up very quickly and takes less than a second (averages to 0.25-0.59 seconds) to display files of up to 600 MB. See More

Top Pro

True color and Smooth font

Konsole supports true color and smooth font. This made konsole more fanstatic than other terminal emulators. See More

Top Pro

Supports advanced color schemes

In particular solarized. See More

Top Pro

Helps to identify tabs using custom icons

Users can associate each bookmark or SSH session with a custom icon, thus giving a visual hint to quickly identify a tab when a lot of tabs are open. See More

Top Pro

Supports font ligature

Most terminals in Linux don't support font ligature, while many modern fonts such as PragmataPro or Fira Code already have decent coverage of font ligature. Support for font ligature makes user experience and font management much easier (i.e. you don't need to keep two copies of the same font just to use in the console) See More

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The Best 8 of 35 OptionsWhy?

My Recommendation for Konsole

My Recommendation for Konsole

Directory and SSH bookmarking

Uses a lot of memory

Supports split-view

KDE Library dependencies

Support in Dolphin file manager

Can mess terminal keybinds

Export of output in plain text or HTML format

Lack of DECSCUSR support

Embeddable into the desktop

No support for double-width characters

Notification alerts about activity in a terminal

No good support for powerline character even with patched fonts

Customize and save profiles

Exceptionally fast

True color and Smooth font

Supports advanced color schemes

Helps to identify tabs using custom icons

Supports font ligature

My Recommendation for Terminator

My Recommendation for Terminator

Multiple terminal panes to suit user's needs

Heavyweight

Highly customizable

Starting up can be slow

Can type on multiple grouped terminals simultaneously

Poor text search

Extendable functionality through plugins

Buggy and crashy

Configurable scrollback buffer

Cannot disable zooming

Save and launch layouts of terminals

Unable to specify startup window dimensions

Configurable shortcuts

Can act as a drop-down terminal

Both true and fake transparency

User-friendly

Desktop notifications on silence and/or activity

Familiar to GNOME-Terminal users

Comes with an extensive manual

Tries to reduce resource usage through DBus

Can save logs

Content reflow when a terminal is resized

Zoom and Maximize a single terminal for aiding focus

Can be driven by a script through DBus

Tilix Config is easy and flexible

My Recommendation for Xfce4 terminal

My Recommendation for Xfce4 terminal

Good for systems with low specs

Cannot set text color for character under cursor to background color

True transparency

No profiles

Tabs support

Execution in xfce4-terminal - e mode is not always functional

Can be switched to a drop-down terminal

Resizing text resizes window

Almost everything is customizable

Only one terminal per tab

Fast rendering

Composition effects

Customizable key bindings

My Recommendation for Guake

My Recommendation for Guake

Drop-down terminal

Not cross-platform

Extremely customizable

Not very responsive

Available in many popular distro repositories

Shortcut key F12 can be used to toggle

Supports transparency

Tabs support

Hotkey support

My Recommendation for Tilix

My Recommendation for Tilix

Integrates nicely into GNOME 3

Heavyweight

Tiling makes for ease of use

Multiple sessions inside a single window