# VHS by Charmbracelet

16 Hacker News commenters recommended VHS by Charmbracelet and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 9 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free open-source command-line tool that records terminal sessions from a script into GIFs or videos, popular for README demos.

## Why people recommend it

- Scripts terminal demos into GIFs (3 comments): "I highly recommend showcasing the interactivity with a few GIFs in your README. You can script them with" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46366971)) "is a really good utility for automatically making these gifs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46397143)) "VHS is fantastic for scripting cli video generation." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48533527))
- Useful for README and docs screenshots (2 comments): "I highly recommend showcasing the interactivity with a few GIFs in your README. You can script them with" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46366971)) "we use them for all the ratatui screenshots generally" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48051295))
- Simple, neat CLI recording tool (2 comments): "VHS is a cool CLI recording tool" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48838010)) "I just think it’s a neat tool" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46239375))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [fzf](https://hackerapproved.com/p/fzf.md): 78 recommend
- [jq](https://hackerapproved.com/p/jq.md): 75 recommend
- [grep](https://hackerapproved.com/p/grep.md): 65 recommend
- [Atuin](https://hackerapproved.com/p/atuin.md): 63 recommend
- [GitHub CLI](https://hackerapproved.com/p/github-cli.md): 49 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://github.com/charmbracelet/vhs)

## Cite as

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