# Notcurses

6 Hacker News commenters recommended Notcurses and 0 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Lets terminal apps get the most from any terminal, including graphics. Main caveat: documentation is incomplete and the project may be close to abandoned.

## Why people recommend it

- Gets most from any terminal (2 comments): "notcurses is probably the best option for getting the best you can out of a random terminal" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46285352)) "Running the included notcurses-demo on any half-modern terminal is really impressive" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46300887))
- Impressive terminal graphics and demos (2 comments): "Running the included notcurses-demo on any half-modern terminal is really impressive" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46300887)) "We got graphics and everything now" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45838537))

## What people warn about

- Incomplete docs, bugs, near-abandoned (1 comments): "The documentation is incomplete riddled with errors, the code has some pretty glaring bugs, and it's close to abandoned." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47366745))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Ratatui](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ratatui.md): 57 recommend
- [Bubble Tea](https://hackerapproved.com/p/bubble-tea.md): 37 recommend
- [Textual](https://hackerapproved.com/p/textual.md): 34 recommend
- [Turbo Vision](https://hackerapproved.com/p/turbo-vision.md): 26 recommend
- [Ink](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ink.md): 13 recommend

## Cite as

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