Notcurses
Shares rank 9 of 14 terminal UI libraries by recommenders
Lets terminal apps get the most from any terminal, including graphics. Main caveat: documentation is incomplete and the project may be close to abandoned.
Lets terminal apps get the most from any terminal, including graphics. Main caveat: documentation is incomplete and the project may be close to abandoned.
6 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Gets most from any terminal
“notcurses is probably the best option for getting the best you can out of a random terminal”
Comment from 16 Dec 2025 in “Chafa: Terminal Graphics for the 21st Century” “Running the included notcurses-demo on any half-modern terminal is really impressive”
Comment from 17 Dec 2025 in “Chafa: Terminal Graphics for the 21st Century” Impressive terminal graphics and demos
“Running the included notcurses-demo on any half-modern terminal is really impressive”
Comment from 17 Dec 2025 in “Chafa: Terminal Graphics for the 21st Century” “We got graphics and everything now”
Comment from 6 Nov 2025 in “Ratatui – App Showcase”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Incomplete docs, bugs, near-abandoned
“The documentation is incomplete riddled with errors, the code has some pretty glaring bugs, and it's close to abandoned.”
Comment from 13 Mar 2026 in “TUI Studio – visual terminal UI design tool”
Other terminal UI libraries people recommend
The four most recommended other terminal UI libraries, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ratatui | 57 | 6 | 90% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Bubble Tea | 37 | 16 | 70% | 9 | — | Approved |
| Textual | 34 | 2 | 94% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Turbo Vision | 26 | 5 | 84% | 9 | — | Approved |
| NotcursesThis page | 6 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
5 of the 6 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Notcurses (C++) and Ratatui (Rust) did help ncurses (C) a lot.”
“The documentation is incomplete riddled with errors, the code has some pretty glaring bugs, and it's close to abandoned.”
“Running the included notcurses-demo on any half-modern terminal is really impressive”
“notcurses is probably the best option for getting the best you can out of a random terminal”
“We got graphics and everything now”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.