st (suckless terminal)
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 22 of 40 terminal emulators by recommenders
Fast, lightweight, hackable terminal that starts instantly and uses little RAM. It is minimal: no scrolling or tabs, so features come from patches.
Fast, lightweight, hackable terminal that starts instantly and uses little RAM. It is minimal: no scrolling or tabs, so features come from patches.
11 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 10
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 91%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 10 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 10 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 7 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
Fast with low memory use
“It is fast enough for my purposes and does just about exactly what I want and not more.”
Comment from 28 Oct 2026 in “Ghostty 1.4” “no gpu, no cpu spikes, uses barely any ram and still feels snappier”
Comment from 2 Mar 2026 in “Ghostty – Terminal Emulator” “It starts instantly, uses ~10mb of Ram and has almost zero latency.”
Comment from 12 May 2026 in “Linux Terminal Memory Usage” - Comment from 3 Aug 2026 in “Show HN: Shitty – fast terminal. Memory-unsafe and faster than yours”
Extended with community patches
“made so many modifications to st, dwm and such it feels like home”
Comment from 4 May 2026 in “A Desktop Made for One” “`st` with patches to add sixel support”
Comment from 3 Nov 2025 in “State of Terminal Emulators in 2025: The Errant Champions” “I ran patched st and it was great”
Comment from 2 Mar 2026 in “Ghostty – Terminal Emulator” Simple, hackable codebase
“made so many modifications to st, dwm and such it feels like home”
Comment from 4 May 2026 in “A Desktop Made for One” “Because it really is a simple, hackable codebase.”
Comment from 3 Nov 2025 in “State of Terminal Emulators in 2025: The Errant Champions” Set up once, rarely changed
“It is fast enough for my purposes and does just about exactly what I want and not more.”
Comment from 28 Oct 2026 in “Ghostty 1.4” “I've configured my st once and haven't touched that build for years.”
Comment from 2 May 2026 in “Why are there both TMP and TEMP environment variables, and which one is right?”
Other terminal emulators people recommend
The four most recommended other terminal emulators, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ghostty | 401 | 158 | 72% | 12 | 3 mo22 owners | Approved |
| Termux | 188 | 31 | 86% | 12 | 1 yr6 owners | Approved |
| iTerm2 | 95 | 69 | 58% | 12 | 10 yrs4 owners | — |
| Warp terminal | 84 | 86 | 49% | 11 | 1 yr5 owners | — |
| st (suckless terminal)This page | 10 | 1 | 91% | 7 | — | Approved |
What people said
15 of the 16 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“It is fast enough for my purposes and does just about exactly what I want and not more.”
“foot and st felt as fast when I was using them.”
“That conflicts with the already existing suckless st.”
“This has enough font support to be useful, but doesn't provide scrolling, tabs etc... similar in scope to ST.”
“It starts instantly, uses ~10mb of Ram and has almost zero latency.”
“made so many modifications to st, dwm and such it feels like home”
“I've configured my st once and haven't touched that build for years.”
“A plugin-like system, similar to st's but less cumbersome, would be nice to have.”
“no gpu, no cpu spikes, uses barely any ram and still feels snappier”
“I ran patched st and it was great”
“I even tried to make a package for dwm and st”
“`st` with patches to add sixel support”
“Because it really is a simple, hackable codebase.”
“st is a pretty great terminal”
“I use an old version all the time to do gnuplots in terminals with nice scrollback”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.