After a couple of years of development, Ghostty is finally out in the public and available as open source. Mitchell Hashimoto started the project in 2022 as a way to play with Zig and it turned into a passion project for him. Its blazing fast and GPU accelerated, all within a native UI.

On the accidental hype generated along the way from private beta to the 1.0 release, Mitchell says:

I didn't anticipate the hype. Some people think I am lying when I say this. I'm not. I'm not so naive to think that private betas and exclusive access don't generate hype in principle. But I didn't think many people at all would be interested in a terminal emulator. I thought I was building boring software for a niche audience. No hype!

It is pretty incredible that a bunch of people — myself included — are excited about a terminal emulator. On the other hand, maybe it's not so surprising. Terminals are a fundamental tool in a developer's workflow, often serving as our primary interface with our systems. When you spend several hours a day in a tool, even small improvements can have a significant impact on your productivity and enjoyment.