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Add to SafariWhen comparing KiTTY vs Gnome Terminal, the Slant community recommends KiTTY for most people. In the question“What are the best terminal emulators for UNIX-like systems?” KiTTY is ranked 2nd while Gnome Terminal is ranked 14th. The most important reason people chose KiTTY is:
- Sessions filter - Shortcuts for pre-defined command - The session launcher - Automatic logon script - URL hyperlinks - Running a locally saved script on a remote session - Send to tray - Transparency - Quick start of a duplicate session - SSH Handler: Internet Explorer integration - pscp.exe and WinSCP integration - New command-line options
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Includes additional features over PuTTy
- Sessions filter
- Shortcuts for pre-defined command
- The session launcher
- Automatic logon script
- URL hyperlinks
- Running a locally saved script on a remote session
- Send to tray
- Transparency
- Quick start of a duplicate session
- SSH Handler: Internet Explorer integration
- pscp.exe and WinSCP integration
- New command-line options
Pro Startup sessions
Support start-up sessions which allow you to specify the window/tab layout, working directories, and programs to run on startup.
Pro Source Code Available
Source code is available so you could modify or review changes.
Pro Can store login credentials
Ability to store passwords/passphrases locally.
Pro Clickable URLs
URLs are parsed and can be clicked.
Pro Auto login script
Automatic processing of commands after conncetion was made.
Pro True Color support
Supports True Color, so software like Vim can display a really nice pallet.
Pro Portable version available
Pro Background image
Ability to overlay the terminal background with an image.
Pro Unicode
Uses Unicode for the best character compatibility.
Pro Good integration with other GNOME-Shell apps
Gnome Terminal integrates well into Gnome Desktop, as well as the rest of the core Gnome Shell apps.
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 Support for tabs
Gnome Terminal allows for the use of tabs by right clicking in the terminal window and selecting open new tab or by pressing Ctrl+Shift+t by default.
Pro Supports scrolling
You can scroll up and down in Gnome terminal. And if you wish to do so, you can also hide the scrollbar.
Pro Solarized colors
Gnome Terminal comes with a solarized colorscheme installed and ready to use.
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.
Pro Notifications upon command completion
This isn't in the current release but in development versions you get notifications when commands are complete. This is great for long-running commands, relieving you from continuously checking to see if your command is done.
Pro Configurable keybindings
Configurable key bindings can be used for copy-paste, sending SIGINT, switching tabs, and so on.
Pro Transparency
We can change the alpha canal and see through the terminal.
Pro Open Source
Pro Drop-down support
Drop-down functionality can be added to Gnome Terminal via an extension.
Pro Clever memory management
Multiple terminals are managed from one gnome-terminal instance that takes up about 45 MB. Adding on other instances (with 10k lines of used buffer), each terminal requires about 16 MB of memory.
Pro Getting better and better over time
Tilix used to surpass gnome-terminal but right now they are both the best options unless you have special needs.
Cons
Con No centralized configuration
Each session holds its own configuration of all features. This means that if one wants to change a configuration common to all sessions (say, the terminal font), it has to be changed in each stored session separately.
A better solution would be to have a default configuration and store only the changed elements for each session (both configurations would be merged, with e priority on the specific one).
Con No tabbed sessions
No built-in support for tabbed sessions. Requires an add-on.
Con No mouse support in alternative screens
Like vim, less, etc.
Con No background transparency
While this used to be a good option, background transparency has been removed.
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.
Con Font rendering doesn't look good
it seems that everything is fatter per default.
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 No tab names
Since Gnome 3, the feature for manual renaming of tabs was reaped off.
Con Doesn't support font ligature still in 2019
gnome-terminal uses vte for its terminal emulator, and vte simply doesn't support font ligature (yes, it's 2019). This is what its maintainer thinks about it.
He really thinks supporting font ligature breaks terminal's grid, like he doesn't understand a font that's monospace is a monospace no matter if it has ligature or not.
Con Incomplete vt handling due to using libvte
Con Restrictive license
