zsh vs iTerm2

When you start typing a command, you can press the tab key and it will complete the command you started typing. If there are multiple potential commands, you can choose which one to run by simply pressing tab again. Case-insensitive by default, too.

Oh-my-zsh is a community-driven framework, which helps users with their zsh configuration and plugins. 400 plugins, 200+ themes and auto-updates to always be up to date.

Zsh intelligently determines if you are trying to complete a file path or an option, and pressing tab after typing - will reliably bring up a list of options.

Things you've learned using bash will largely apply to zsh. Scripts written in bash will run with little to no modification.

Unlike Bash, zsh does not split unquoted variables by default, making it less error-prone.

ls **/*.log for example is supported by ZSH.

Zsh will take you through a procedure which is roughly 30 minutes in length before during install. Through this procedure it asks you to set different options and customize the shell the way you want it to. Most of these settings are also found in other shells, but to customize them you have to go dig configuration files while zsh allows you to do it in the beginning.

If you spend a lot of time in the terminal, most likely you will have several terminal windows open. Zsh has great support for command line histories. The history is unique and shared through all the different instances.

Zsh can determine the context of the command you're typing in and determine if it should escape characters if you're typing in a URI.

Some programs don't support loading from stdin, but ZSH can store outputs to a temporary file, example: unzip =(curl http://example.com/someZipFile.zip)

Zsh' s correct (or correctall) is vastly superior to Bash's attempt at spelling correction.

Other than being able to customize the various shortcuts, iTerm2 also lets you customize the colorscheme, font, transparency, etc.

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.

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.

It's possible to choose a font and adjust vertical and horizontal spacing.

You can Ctrl+Click on a file path to open said file in a text editor.

Has support for mouse actions like clicking, dragging, selecting, etc.

Issues resolved fast by quality contributors.

iTerm2 is completely free and open source. It's released under the GPLv2 license.

Easy to split panes to either horizontal or vertical sections. Makes it easy to observe multiple console windows.

If an application has terminal integration, there is high probability it allows iTerm2 to be selected.

Wanna SSH your server from multiple tabs, here you go.

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.

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.

The great mouse and clipboard support that are built-in go really well with tmux.

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.

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.

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.

Can be configured to work as a drop down terminal like Quake.

Very handy to use multi-tab.