What is Alacritty used for?

Alacritty is a cross-platform terminal emulator written in Rust that renders with OpenGL and favors performance and sensible defaults. It is a good fit for fast daily terminal for developers and pairing with a separate multiplexer.

Is Alacritty open source?

Yes. Alacritty is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at alacritty/alacritty and is written mainly in Rust.

Yes. Alacritty is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

What is Alacritty an alternative to?

Alacritty is an open-source alternative to Warp. Other open-source alternatives to Warp include kitty, WezTerm and Ghostty.

Is Alacritty actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Alacritty was on 31 August 2026, and the latest release is v0.17.0, published on 6 April 2026. The project has 66k stars on GitHub.

Alacritty: open-source alternative to Warp

About Alacritty

Alacritty is a terminal emulator that renders with OpenGL and is written in Rust. It ships with sensible defaults but can be configured extensively. Instead of reimplementing the features of other programs, it integrates with them, which the project credits for its flexible feature set and high performance. It runs on BSD, Linux, macOS and Windows and is released under the Apache-2.0 license.

The README calls the software beta quality, with some missing features and bugs, yet used by many people as a daily driver. It needs at least OpenGL ES 2.0, and on Windows it needs ConPTY support, which means Windows 10 version 1809 or later. Alacritty can be installed through package managers on several systems, or from precompiled binaries on the GitHub releases page. Configuration is documented in a man page and on the website, and the program does not generate a config file for you.

Key features

OpenGL-rendered terminal emulator
Runs on BSD, Linux, macOS and Windows
Sensible defaults with extensive configuration
Integrates with other tools rather than duplicating them
Precompiled binaries and package manager installs
Documented through man page and website

Good fit for

→Fast daily terminal for developers
→Pairing with a separate multiplexer

Built with: Rust
Tags: terminal; terminal-emulator; opengl; gpu; rust; cross-platform; command-line; developer-tools

Alacritty: questions and answers

What is Alacritty used for?: Alacritty is a cross-platform terminal emulator written in Rust that renders with OpenGL and favors performance and sensible defaults. It is a good fit for fast daily terminal for developers and pairing with a separate multiplexer.
Is Alacritty open source?: Yes. Alacritty is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at alacritty/alacritty and is written mainly in Rust.
Is Alacritty free?: Yes. Alacritty is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
What is Alacritty an alternative to?: Alacritty is an open-source alternative to Warp. Other open-source alternatives to Warp include kitty, WezTerm and Ghostty.
Is Alacritty actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Alacritty was on 31 August 2026, and the latest release is v0.17.0, published on 6 April 2026. The project has 66k stars on GitHub.