# urxvt

6 Hacker News commenters recommended urxvt and 5 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend urxvt as a light, fast terminal that handles Unicode well and runs many instances with little memory. Critics say some features need extra hacks.

## Why people recommend it

- Lightweight, near-zero resource use (2 comments): "rxvt-unicode is lightweight and can run hundreds of terminals with near zero resource use" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49835041)) "very light terminal (urxvt" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49192982))
- Fast, even against newer terminals (2 comments): "battle tested urxvt under X11 is STILL faster then shitty" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49159723)) "rxvt-unicode is plenty fast and handles unicode well" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45783085))

## What people warn about

- Needs hacks for some features (3 comments): "whenever I tried something like that eg a client/server model in urxvt or foot, I ended up reverting" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48447173)) "I have occasionally needed similar hacks for Kitty and urxvt" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47207477)) "needs some extra hacks in rxvt-unicode" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48292005))

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