# Ratatui

57 Hacker News commenters recommended Ratatui and 6 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Rust library for building terminal user interfaces, praised for easy layout and nice results. Main caveat: only a dozen built-in widgets, so basics need third-party dependencies.

## Why people recommend it

- Easy, quick TUI development (3 comments): "Ratatui and such allow you to write a TUI really quickly without needing to deal with VT100 arcana." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48001254)) "frameworks, available for a range of languages, that make it easy to create nice-looking TUIs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48004007)) "it's pretty trivial to set up a TUI with bubbletea or ratatui" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48000827))
- Works well with AI and LLMs (3 comments): "It's great for humans and LLMs, because the friction of using it just disappears." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46829805)) "Claude can make beautiful ones with a little ratatui action super fast" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47009546)) "good success with Claude building snappy TUIs in Rust with Ratatui" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46910549))
- Rich widgets and layout (2 comments): "Ratatui really is the best of the bunch. It has layout, accessibility, nice and easy user interface." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45843565)) "Textual and Ratatui already blur that line with mouse support and rich widgets" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47365084))
- Used in production apps (2 comments): "At Copper Robotics we use it for our monitoring console, it is so easy to just ssh on a robot" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45818251)) "The library is good enough that Sidekiq is using it to build their TUI." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46702093))

## What people warn about

- Needs third-party dependency per widget (2 comments): "the way it's architected, you need to take on third party dependencies for each individual widget" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45831509)) "taking on a new dep for each widget seemed excessive" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45835246))
- Few built-in widgets, basics missing (2 comments): "there are only a dozen included widgets, so very basic things are left to third parties" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45835465)) "creating JUST a simple damn button is a nightmare" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48548714))
- Considered bloated (2 comments): "doesn't use bloated frameworks like Ratatui/Bubbletea etc" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48102470)) "I do wonder how much bloat there is" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45834142))

## Alternatives hackers 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
- [Charm Ruby](https://hackerapproved.com/p/charm-ruby.md): 12 recommend

## Cite as

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