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| 29 Recommended Products | Recommendations | Price | Last Updated |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 Terminator· · · | 76 | 14 | – | Jun 11, 2017 |
| #2 rxvt-unicode· · · | 73 | 14 | – | Jun 4, 2017 |
| #3 Gnome Terminal· · · | 51 | 9 | – | Jun 7, 2017 |
| #4 konsole· · · | 49 | 7 | – | Jun 5, 2017 |
| #5 Termite· · · | 32 | 4 | – | Jun 21, 2017 |
| #6 Guake· · · | 29 | 1 | – | Apr 30, 2017 |
Pro Multiple terminal panes to suit user's needs
It is possible to split the terminal window into several areas and you can re-size them as needed. Multiple windows and tabs are also supported.
Pro Highly customizable
You can change the size, color, and give different shapes to the terminal. You can also save multiple layouts and profiles via the GUI preferences editor.
Pro Extendable functionality through plugins
Terminator functionality can be extended via plugins. Examples of this include: Custom commands URL handlers (on top of common ones) for apt, launchpad, maven Logging output to file
Con Heavyweight
Due to its many features, Terminator can be a bit heavyweight and with lots of dependencies. This makes it unsuitable for old machines or computers with low resources.
Con Buggy and crashy
Crashes and closes many times a day when using split (and unsplit) shortcuts. The developers don't accept a bug report if isn't critical or not easy to reproduce.
Con Starting up can be slow
Terminator can be pretty slow (as far as terminals go) when first starting up.
Pro Low memory usage
Rxvt-unicode uses very little memory and takes a lightweight approach without losing many important functionalities. A single instance of urxvt takes about 6.5MB-8MB of RAM.
Pro Unicode support
International language support is provided through Unicode.
Con Requires work to look acceptable
Out of the box, rxvt-unicode is not too pleasant to look at. Some understanding of Xresources is required for updating its appearance. That being said, the experience of customizing it can be very rewarding.
Con Unicode characters that are too wide are blanked instead of clipped
If a character in a backup font is wider than the base font, urxvt substitutes the non-displayable character. A large letter space will show the wide characters, but the result is not reasonably spaced. There is a patch from 2014 that the urxvt maintainer will not merge.
Pro Exceptionally fast
The Gnome Terminal 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.
Pro Content re-flow when window is resized
When using the GNOME Terminal, if you have long lines of text inside it and then you change the window, the text will also automatically update according to the new window size.
Con Heavyweight
To achieve a large amount of speed, Gnome Terminal has to use a relatively large amount of memory to run. It may eat up to 15-30 MB per instance, depending on the task it's doing.
Con Gnome library dependencies
While not an issue if using Gnome, 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.
Pro Directory and SSH bookmarking
Konsole can bookmark ssh and telnet sessions, directories, and it can open tabs in a folder for easy access.
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.
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.
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.
Pro Minimal terminal emulator
Termite is a minimalistic terminal emulator. It does not need too many resources to run and it's designed primarily to work with window managers.
Pro Works great with a tiling window manager
Termite is most suited to a tiling window manager with a simple config file.
Con Cannot set specific parameters through CLI arguments
Setting specific parameters through CLI arguments is not supported in Termite.
Pro Drop-down terminal
You can hit F12 (by default, though it's customizable) to open a terminal overlay, Quake-style, as a drop-down from the top of the screen.
Pro Extremely customizable
Guake's appearance is very customizable: from the transparency to the width and height of the window. You can also choose which key to use for toggling the terminal window.
Con Not very responsive
Occasionally, Guake slows down and is not very responsive.
Con Does not boot with the system by default
After (re)booting the system, Guake does not boot automatically. You need to open the application and then press the key to make it drop down which is a bit annoying when you want to get started quickly and don't want to press two different keys just to open the terminal.
Pro Integrates nicely into GNOME 3
Tilix follows the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines and uses the UI patterns of this desktop environment.
Pro Tiling makes for ease of use
The user can split terminals horizontally or vertically, according to their needs or preferences.
Know any negative aspects of this option?
Pro Tabs support
Xfce4 fully supports tabs and tab-based navigation.
Pro Good for systems with low specs
Like other applications included in the Xfce package, this terminal emulator is very lightweight and doesn't require many resources to run. This makes it perfect for systems that have low specs.
Con Cannot set text color for character under cursor to background color
Suppose you have a dark background with a light cursor and light foreground color: the light cursor will cover up whatever character it is on, so that you cannot read it. There is no option to set the foreground color for the character under the cursor to what is normally the background color. Such
Con No profiles
There's no profiles or profile-based customization in Xfce-terminal.
Pro Very customizable
Almost everything in Yakuake is customizable: from split view, fullscreen mode, configurable dimensions, to animation speed and keybindings.
Pro Drop-down terminal makes for ease of use
Yakuake is a drop-down terminal. This means that you can press, for example, Alt+F10, and it slides downward from the top edge of the screen. After you are done with it, you can then hit Alt+F10 again and it slides back on top.
Con Slow
Yakuake has started to get really slow with the latest updates: it takes up to 3 seconds to start up after you have clicked the assigned hotkey.
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. This makes for a large install size. For those trying to keep their desktop lean, this may be an issue.
Pro Scalable fonts
Font size in Terminology automatically scales according to window size. When you resize the window, so does the text.
Pro In-terminal video, picture and thumbnail support
Thumbnails, pictures, and videos can all be rendered in-terminal, based on the directory listing or mouse interactions. For instance, using "ls" on a picture folder will produce a list of thumbnails instead of only the filenames.
Con No scrollbar
The lack of scrollbar in Terminology makes navigation difficult.
Pro End process notifications
When a process has ended, Pantheon Terminal sends a notification bubble to the desktop notification server and indicates which tab generated the notification.
Pro Can easily restore a previous session
Pantheon Terminal remembers the window size, position, windowed/maximized/fullscreen state, and open tabs in between sessions.
Con RAM usage increases considerably over time
There is a RAM leak when using the Pantheon Terminal that adds up over time and use.
Pro Highly customizable
There are tons of customizations you can make: from adding colors to text, turning backgrounds transparent, setting the size to be "maximized", toggling scrollbar on and off, adjusting orientation/borders/animation, etc.
Pro Easily accessible drop-down
The drop-down function in Tilda does not get in the way and can be accessed at any time with a keyboard shortcut.
Con Contains some annoying bugs
Tilda can be buggy at times. For example, if you don't close it before shutdown, it may prompt you to reconfigure it all over again on the next boot.
Pro Low memory usage
St is built to serve as a lightweight terminal emulator. It's very light and doesn't require many resources to run, making it able to run well on older and low-end machines.
Pro Extremely simple architecture
St consists of a single C file that takes seconds to recompile. This also makes it very easy to understand and customize.
Con Configuration requires recompiling
Though recompilation takes seconds, knowledge of C header files is required for customization.
Con No scrollback
The best way to perform scrollback is to use a multiplexer (such as tmux, screen, or dvtm) if you want scrollback and reverse-search support.
Pro Lightweight
Xterm is a very lightweight terminal. It requires few resources, allowing it to run well even on lower-end machines.
Pro Used in every Linux distribution
If you master xterm, you won't have to learn another tty, since it is in every Linux distribution.
Con Historical source code
The stories behind terminal emulation beyond their classical representatives (of which xterm is simply the most long-lived) are somewhere inbetween subtly irritating to downright surreal.
Con No native transparency
Xterm does not natively support transparency (though it can be emulated if needs be).
Con Still maturing as of December 2016
Folks noticed some issues in the 1.0 release cited here.
Con Made with Electron
It uses a considerable amount of resources, compared to other offerings.
Pro Lightweight
Sakura has very few dependencies, it's very lightweight, and great if your computer does not have many resources.
Pro Starts quickly even on lower-end machines
Sakura's quick start-up time becomes noticeable with lower-end machine's such as Eeepc 1015PX (Intel Atom 1.6 Ghz and 2 GB of RAM).
Con Doesn't provide many configuration options
Sakura does not have any advanced configuration capabilities.
Pro Advanced D-Bus usage
In ROXTerm, users can use D-Bus to configure terminals from other applications, allowing for communication between multiple computer programs.
Pro Includes a configuration manager
ROXTerm includes a configuration manager which can easily be run by selecting Configure... in the terminal's menu, or by simply running roxterm-config. You can then easily swap configuration files with other users, manage profiles, and customize things like color schemes or keyboard shortcuts.
Con Not for regular users
ROXTerm is made for power users who spend most of their time on the terminal. For a regular user using ROXTerm it would be an overkill.
Pro Support for tabbing
You can also color and reorder tabs, as well as manipulate tabs through keybindings.
Pro Transparency support improves usability
LilyTerm has true transparency support, making for better GUI usability.
Con Annoying behaviors
The default configuration may have some annoying behaviors (that can be removed by changing the default config). Such include asking for confirmation when reusing an existing window or when starting the terminal to launch a specific command.
Pro Lightweight
LXTerm is the official terminal for the LXDE desktop environment, which is a very light DE in itself. So LXTerminal is a very good choice for lower-end systems.
Pro Multiple tabs support
LXTerminal supports working with multiple tabs and tab-based navigation.
Con Not very customizable
LXTerminal, like XTerminal and UXTerminal, is not very customizable and extendable (at least not as much as other terminal emulators).
Pro Windows and tabs support
Moba X Term is great for Dev & Ops running their terminal on corporate Windows Laptops. It also allows for multiple tab and window screens.
Pro Many protocols supported
From SSH to RDP, Moba X Term provides loads of different options and functions.
Con Proprietary EULA
EULA may prohibit the user of Moba X Term from sharing the software with anyone else.
Con Limited connections in free version
The free version of Moba X Term is limited to only 12 saved connections.
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