# eat (Emacs Terminal Emulator)

12 Hacker News commenters recommended eat (Emacs Terminal Emulator) and 0 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Recommended as a reasonably fast terminal emulator inside Emacs and Eshell with full terminal emulation, though full-screen TUIs like vim run slowly.

## Why people recommend it

- Works inside Eshell buffers (3 comments): "It's a reasonably fast terminal emulator that integrates with Eshell so that all commands run in Eshell have full terminal emulation" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47191322)) "My favorite part about EAT is the fact that it works in-buffer in Eshell" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47621729)) "If you want to try eshell, try combining it with EAT (eat-eshell-mode)." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45838472))
- Excellent, reliable terminal emulator (3 comments): "there's eat as excellent terminal emulator for emacs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46189787)) "I have eat installed and it's working great." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45896233)) "So far it’s been the best one." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47615621))
- Fast enough for quick TUIs (2 comments): "It runs full-fledged TUIs like vim and ncmpcpp in Eshell slowly, but is good enough for quick fzf uses." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47191560)) "a dedicated eat buffer is fast enough for most common TUIs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47193566))

## What people warn about

- Full-screen TUIs run slowly (1 comments): "It runs full-fledged TUIs like vim and ncmpcpp in Eshell slowly, but is good enough for quick fzf uses." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47191560))
- Frustrating without reading documentation (1 comments): "i think everyone should read its fantastic documentation 1st to avoid frustration" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47195229))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Ghostty](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ghostty.md): 401 recommend
- [Termux](https://hackerapproved.com/p/termux.md): 188 recommend
- [iTerm2](https://hackerapproved.com/p/iterm2.md): 95 recommend
- [Warp terminal](https://hackerapproved.com/p/warp-terminal.md): 84 recommend
- [Kitty terminal emulator](https://hackerapproved.com/p/kitty.md): 79 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "eat (Emacs Terminal Emulator)", https://hackerapproved.com/p/eat/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).