# xfce4-terminal

10 Hacker News commenters recommended xfce4-terminal and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Small, fast Linux terminal that starts instantly and fits the Xfce desktop; caveat: some hotkeys such as Hyper-modifier combinations are unsupported.

## Why people recommend it

- Starts instantly and feels fast (4 comments): "it opens near instantly and has the least input latency of any of the other terminal emulators I've tried" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48102562)) "xfce4-terminal starts utterly instantly without single instance feature." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49151418)) "it's faster to load and has all the features I need" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50267790))
- Tiny memory and resource footprint (2 comments): "Ridiculously small footprint and never drew attention to itself." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49151725)) "Good bang for the memory buck." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48101767))
- Native look that fits the desktop (2 comments): "my go-to when working within a GUI environment is xfce4-terminal, which is about as native as I can imagine" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46150287)) "makes it visually fit in my desktop, and I like that" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49150123))

## What people warn about

- Hotkey support differs from other terminals (2 comments): "all have slight variations between simple things like rendering and more important things like hotkeys" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47942658)) "which does not support the Hyper modifier (which I use extensively)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47329209))
- Fails to start or work (2 comments): "For a while the xfce4-terminal was broken and would not start." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48955880)) "xfce terminal doesn't work" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48454390))

## 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, "xfce4-terminal", https://hackerapproved.com/p/xfce4-terminal/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).