When comparing Powerlevel10k vs Pure, the Slant community recommends Powerlevel10k for most people. In the question“What's the best theme for Oh My Zsh?” Powerlevel10k is ranked 1st while Pure is ranked 2nd. The most important reason people chose Powerlevel10k is:
Feels as fast as Bash.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Probably the fastest ZSH theme
Feels as fast as Bash.
Pro Works great out of the box
Functional and fast prompt without having to twiddle with configuration options.
Pro The built-in interactive configuration wizard makes it easy to get started.
Type p10k configure
to run the configuration wizard.
Pro Uses the same configuration as Powerlevel9k and produces identical prompt but much faster
Trivial to switch over.
Pro Flexible
You can make it look like any other theme by changing configuration option.
Pro Works well with all fonts
Powerlevel10k doesn't require custom fonts but can take advantage of them if they are available. It works well with Nerd Fonts, Source Code Pro, Font Awesome, Powerline, and even the default system fonts.
Pro Loads quickly
Prompt appears almost immediately after opening zsh.
Pro Minimalistic
Uses a combination of colors to differentiate between different elements in the prompt. No brackets or unnecessary special characters.
Pro Very simple and clean + clear
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).
Pro Included in oh-my-zsh
This plugin is included in the base installation.
Cons
Con Not installed by default
Have to go to the project page and git clone the theme.
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.
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.
Con Git prompt stops working after some time
Con No number of background processes
You won't see if there are background processes running (or how many).