# macOS Terminal 44 Hacker News commenters recommended macOS Terminal and 19 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 11 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 15 years (3 owners). It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** Recommended as a fast, capable default that comes with macOS and covers most needs, though critics say it lacks features like truecolor support. ## Why people recommend it - Good enough for most needs (6 comments): "I don't believe I've ever needed anything more than what the macOS Terminal app is capable of" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45806604)) "Terminal in OS X is a close enough approximation out of the box" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48369823)) "It's what I've used for years and it's entirely fine for me." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45814993)) - Fast and low latency (4 comments): "I've been living in Terminal.app / zsh / tmux / vim for 15 years and have never once thought "this is slower than I want."" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49149982)) "terminal.app is your best bet for most cases if you care about latency" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45892676)) "It is fast and that is basically all i need from a terminal emulator" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45809542)) - Already installed on macOS (5 comments): "There's a perfectly good terminal emulator called Terminal.app, it's usually the first thing I put on my dock after a fresh install of MacOS." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46877322)) "I'll take the default mac stuff over that any day of the week" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47368915)) "On Mac the default terminal works for me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47211184)) - Solid standards and rendering support (3 comments): "These are quite capable applications able to render good, complex text-based interfaces." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48001026)) "Since tahoe it supports 24bit colour and has key combos for the most common features." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47813262)) "one of the very few that respect double-wide and double-height DEC modes" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50162838)) ## What people warn about - Apple has neglected development (2 comments): "Apple hasn't done much with Terminal.app since they inherited it from NeXT" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45802207)) "The worst by far is Apple Terminal, truly the IE6 of terminal emulators." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50262841)) - Problems with TUI apps (3 comments): "would simply dump APC to the screen, ignore the framing, and treat the APC data as normal pty data" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50015511)) "the default terminal app which has some problems with TUI apps" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50264232)) "pretty painful if you're trying to make nice interactive TUIs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50266586)) - Lacks features like truecolor (2 comments): "Terminal app has no truecolor support, no highres mouse support, no kitty graphics protocol" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45900551)) "drastically featureless in comparison to a lot of third party terminals" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47070234)) ## 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, "macOS Terminal", https://hackerapproved.com/p/terminal-app/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).