Cathode

Cathode

Cathode is an open-source, modern terminal emulator for macOS with a focus on aesthetics, performance, and integration. It features GPU-accelerated rendering, support for ligatures and special glyphs, extensive theme support, tabs, splits and more.
Cathode image
terminal emulator macos opensource

Cathode: Open-Source Terminal Emulator for macOS

Cathode is an open-source, modern terminal emulator for macOS with a focus on aesthetics, performance, and integration. It features GPU-accelerated rendering, support for ligatures and special glyphs, extensive theme support, tabs, splits and more.

What is Cathode?

Cathode is an open-source, modern terminal emulator for macOS that focuses on aesthetics, performance, and seamless integration with the macOS ecosystem. Developed by the creators of ITerm2, Cathode builds on years of terminal emulation experience to provide Mac users with a beautifully designed yet powerful terminal application.

Some key features of Cathode include:

  • GPU-accelerated text rendering for smooth scrolling and animations
  • Support for programming ligatures, emojis, and special glyphs
  • Extensive theme support to customize colors, fonts, transparency effects, and more
  • Advanced tabbed interface with flexible split pane designs
  • Sophisticated mouse mode with selection and clicking support
  • Integration with macOS services for access to the clipboard and other system functions
  • Scriptable using JavaScript for automation

While retaining all the flexibility and power expected from a modern terminal, Cathode places a strong emphasis on aesthetics and design to create a more enjoyable and visually pleasing terminal environment for Mac users. Its attention to detail and macOS integration makes it a native-feeling replacement for the default macOS Terminal app.

Cathode Features

Features

  1. GPU-accelerated rendering
  2. Support for ligatures and special glyphs
  3. Extensive theme support
  4. Tabs
  5. Splits

Pricing

  • Open Source
  • Free

Pros

Modern and aesthetically pleasing interface

Fast and smooth performance

Highly customizable appearance

Tabbed interface improves workflow

Split view enables multiple terminals

Cons

Lacks some advanced terminal features

Limited community support due to small userbase

No official Linux version available


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