# GNOME Terminal

> GNOME's long-standing terminal emulator, built on VTE, with profiles and tabs.

Language: C · License: GPL-3.0 · Platforms: Linux · Config: dconf/GUI

Features: configurable

- Repository: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-terminal
- Page: https://www.trmn.sh/terminals/gnome-terminal

## Overview

GNOME Terminal is the terminal emulator from the GNOME project, built on the VTE terminal widget and developed on GNOME's GitLab. It is for GNOME users who want a conventional, well-integrated terminal with sensible defaults rather than a heavily customized one.

The feature set is deliberately conventional. Windows hold tabs that can be added, removed and reordered, and a preference decides whether New Terminal opens a tab or a window, with Ctrl inverting the choice. The `--tab` and `--window` command-line options choose explicitly. Text features include search with case, whole-word and regular-expression options (Ctrl+Shift+F), clickable web and email hyperlinks, word and line selection, saving terminal output to a file, and zooming the text size. Preset window sizes of 80×24, 80×43, 132×24 and 132×43 suit programs with minimum size requirements. A "disable user input" option makes a terminal read-only for the program running in it.

Configuration happens in the Preferences dialog, and settings are stored in dconf. Profiles are the main unit. Each profile sets its own font and colors, color scheme, cursor shape, scrollback and scrollbar behavior, Backspace and Delete handling, character encoding, treatment of ambiguous-width characters, and what to run: a login shell, another shell, or a custom command such as an SSH connection or a GNU Screen session. You can also choose what happens when that command exits. Keyboard shortcuts are listed and can be edited under Preferences, Shortcuts.

GNOME Terminal runs on Linux. It has no split panes; for splits, pair it with a multiplexer such as tmux. Its strength is that it fits into the GNOME desktop and needs little setup.

## Alternatives

- [Windows Terminal](https://www.trmn.sh/terminals/windows-terminal.md): Microsoft's terminal for Windows that hosts PowerShell, cmd and WSL shells in tabs and panes, with GPU text rendering and JSON settings. (Windows, 105.3k stars)
- [Tabby](https://www.trmn.sh/terminals/tabby.md): Cross-platform Electron terminal with a built-in SSH, Telnet and serial client, saved connection profiles and a plugin system. (Linux/macOS/Windows, 75.3k stars)
- [Alacritty](https://www.trmn.sh/terminals/alacritty.md): Cross-platform OpenGL terminal emulator written in Rust, configured with a TOML file and leaving tabs and splits to a multiplexer like tmux. (Linux/macOS/Windows/BSD, 66.1k stars)
- [Warp](https://www.trmn.sh/terminals/warp.md): Terminal written in Rust with an IDE-style command editor, command output grouped into blocks, and built-in AI agents. (macOS/Linux/Windows, 65.8k stars)
- [Termux](https://www.trmn.sh/terminals/termux.md): Android terminal emulator and Linux environment that installs packages through its own apt repository, no root required. (Android, 64.0k stars)
- [Ghostty](https://www.trmn.sh/terminals/ghostty.md): Terminal emulator written in Zig with GPU rendering and a native UI on each platform: Swift/AppKit on macOS, GTK on Linux. (Linux/macOS, 63.3k stars)
- [Hyper](https://www.trmn.sh/terminals/hyper.md): Electron terminal built on HTML, CSS and JavaScript, themed and extended through npm plugins. (Linux/macOS/Windows, 44.8k stars)
- [Kitty](https://www.trmn.sh/terminals/kitty.md): GPU-rendered terminal written in C and Python, with its own graphics protocol, built-in tabs and splits, and scriptable 'kittens'. (Linux/macOS/BSD, 35.5k stars)

## Guides

- [Best Terminal Emulators for Linux](https://www.trmn.sh/best/terminal-emulators-for-linux): Best terminal emulators for Linux compared: Ghostty, kitty, foot, Alacritty, WezTerm, Konsole and Ptyxis, by rendering, splits and config.

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Canonical: https://www.trmn.sh/terminals/gnome-terminal