When comparing Alfred vs iTerm2, the Slant community recommends iTerm2 for most people. In the question“What are the best power user tools for macOS?” iTerm2 is ranked 1st while Alfred is ranked 5th. The most important reason people chose iTerm2 is:
Other than being able to customize the various shortcuts, iTerm2 also lets you customize the colorscheme, font, transparency, etc.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Can create custom automated workflows
Allows the creation of automated workflows by connecting keywords, hotkeys and actions together without writing code.
Pro Full keyboard controls
You can do everything using just the keyboard.
Pro Built-in calculator
Alfred is able to handle simple mathematical commands and more extensive expressions alike. Pressing Enter copies the result to the clipboard.
Pro Integrates with 1Password
Alfred allows getting secure and fast access to your 1Password 1Click bookmarks.
Pro Lightweight and smooth
Alfred is a lightweight application for OS X and runs smoothly, even on older devices.
Pro Versatile search
Quickly search for files, applications and web services from the same input.
Pro Productivity booster
Helps speed up your working day one shortcut at a time.
Pro Clipboard history
Alfred offers a clipboard with an extensive history for quick access to your copied text, images and links.
Pro Entry of everything
Pro Allows theming
Alfred allows adjusting colors, fonts, sizes and more to create new themes.
Pro Offers both a free version and a paid version available
The paid version is more customizable, but the free version is still very powerful.
Pro Extremely customizable
Other than being able to customize the various shortcuts, iTerm2 also lets you customize the colorscheme, font, transparency, etc.
Pro Autocomplete is built-in
iTerm has autocomplete features built in. It remembers your past commands and when you are writing something on the terminal, simply pressing Control-;
it will show you a drop down menu of suggestions from which to choose.
Pro Complete out of the box
Unlike most terminal emulators, iTerm2 comes with a pretty complete set of features. It has built-in search, autocompletion, tabbed navigation, Growl support and even a built-in clipboard manager for various API keys and such.
Pro Fine tuning for fonts
It's possible to choose a font and adjust vertical and horizontal spacing.
Pro Can immediately open files inside a text editor
You can Ctrl+Click on a file path to open said file in a text editor.
Pro Supports mouse actions
Has support for mouse actions like clicking, dragging, selecting, etc.
Pro Active maintainers
Issues resolved fast by quality contributors.
Pro Works well with powerline fonts
Pro Completely free and open source
iTerm2 is completely free and open source. It's released under the GPLv2 license.
Pro Split panes
Easy to split panes to either horizontal or vertical sections. Makes it easy to observe multiple console windows.
Pro Supported by many applications as a terminal app selection
If an application has terminal integration, there is high probability it allows iTerm2 to be selected.
Pro Intuitive
Pro Cmd+Shift+I to Input all
Wanna SSH your server from multiple tabs, here you go.
Pro You only need to type in commands once
iTerm2 can store up to 4M of history of commands you already used. This, coupled with the built-in search features makes it possible to type a command only once and then search for it through the history for subsequent uses.
Pro Works perfect with Oh My Zsh
It's a perfect base to add Oh My Zsh on top of it and enjoy a lot of themes and a really pleasant look and feel.
Pro Works well with tmux
The great mouse and clipboard support that are built-in go really well with tmux.
Pro Any key can be mapped to any function
Using the Preferences Menu you can set up hotkeys to map virtually any action you can think of to a single key or a combination of them. This is extremely helpful as it allows you to use shortcuts to edit commands you are typing in the terminal and while most terminal emulators have shortcuts for this sort of thing, few of them let you define your own.
Pro GPU-rendered, blazing fast and super smooth
Many people say they use Kitty or Alacritty because they are GPU-rendered. That was true a long time ago. But iTerm2 has been GPU rendered for years now. It's so fast and smooth that you soon forget you are in a terminal.
Pro Beautiful, minimalistic and elegant UI
It's super-clean and during use it gets completely out of the way, it's a beautiful canvas for your terminal work, a pure joy that never gets old.
Pro Can be configured as a drop-down terminal
Can be configured to work as a drop down terminal like Quake.
Pro Cmd+D to split plane vertically
Very handy to use multi-tab.
Cons
Con Many features require the $25 powerpack add-on
Features like custom workflows, clipboard history, 1Password integrations and others require the powerpack add-on.
Con Keycodes are not passed through following Linux standards
If you come from a Linux terminal emulator (Gnome Terminal, Konsole...) and you rely on key-combos that are widely supported in those, porting the same functionality to iTerm is possible but will require a lot of research and configuration on your part, so account for a long painful adoption period.
Con Not quite as fast as Alacritty or Kitty
Comparing these 3 terminals on the same machine/config, iTerm stands out as the slowest of the bunch. The difference may not be noticeable to all users.
Con Way too many menu items and settings
Finding the right one is like searching for a needle in a haystack.
Con Doesn't support Snow Leopard 10.6.8
Some people still use Snow Leopard or other 32-bit systems.