20 Best Terminal Emulators for Linux Desktop in 2023

Best Terminal Emulator for Linux

Terminal emulator for linux is a piece of software that enables you to use a text-based command-line interface (CLI) to communicate with a Linux or Unix-like operating system. For anyone working with Linux, a terminal emulator is a necessary tool since it allows you to utilize text commands rather than a graphical user interface (GUI) to execute commands, launch programs, manage files, and do different system activities.

Below are the 20 famous terminal emulators for Linux Desktop.

Terminator

One of the best terminal emulators available, Terminator is a feature-rich substitute on the list. It provides useful features like grouping numerous open windows, modifying the behavior of the program, including its size, location, suggestions, and more, as well as altering its color and style to improve the aesthetics of the terminal.

Several of Terminator’s key characteristics include:

Set the size to meet your requirements and personalize your profiles and color schemes.
For even more functionality, use plugins.
To expedite frequent tasks, there are several useful shortcuts accessible.
Resize and divide the terminal window into as many virtual terminals as necessary.

Tilda

Tilda’s straightforward layout aids concentration. It offers a variety of practical customization options, including window and terminal display, font setting, command behavior, and others. Like Yakuake, the app offers a drop-down menu.

With Tilda’s key binding capability, you may link shortcut keys to various tasks. Additionally, you may alter the terminal’s look by changing the font, locations, and tabs. Additionally, you may customize the app’s transparency level.

Tilda has the following salient qualities and traits:

Tilda’s look may be changed in a variety of ways. The terminal window’s colors, typefaces, and transparency may be adjusted to your taste.
The drop-down terminal’s capability for multiple tabs makes it simple to use several terminal sessions or commands at once.
You may build and maintain many profiles with unique settings using Tilda, giving you the ability to have multiple setups for diverse use cases.

Guake

Linux and other Unix-like operating systems may both use the well-liked open-source terminal emulator Guake. The usage of a hotkey or keyboard shortcut to give rapid access to a terminal window is common among developers and system administrators. Guake’s lightweight and inconspicuous design makes it simple to use and accessible for swiftly executing commands, managing files, or carrying out numerous operations in a terminal environment.

Yakuaka and Tilda are quite similar to Guake, however, it’s an effort to combine the best parts of each into a single GTK-based program. Guake was created entirely in Python with the help of a little C component (global hotkeys things).

Features

Guake is a particularly effective tool for power users since users may create keyboard shortcuts to show or conceal the Guake terminal, move between tabs, and execute other activities.
Since Guake is open-source software distributed under the GNU General Public Licence (GPL), anybody may use, alter, and distribute it without restriction.
Guake offers options for altering the terminal’s look, such as themes, typefaces, and background colors. Users may customize it to suit their tastes and make it aesthetically appealing.

Yakuake

Another well-liked drop-down terminal emulator for Unix-like operating systems, especially Linux, is Yakuake. Yakuake, like Guake, offers hotkey or keyboard shortcut access to a terminal window. Users who commonly operate in a terminal environment will find it to be portable, flexible, and handy.

Features

From the top of your screen, smoothly turn it down.
UI with tabs.
Dimensions and animation speed are configurable.

ROXTerm

Another lightweight terminal emulator with capabilities that are comparable to those of gnome-terminal is called ROXterm. By avoiding the Gnome libraries and utilizing a separate applet to provide the configuration interface (GUI), it was initially designed to have smaller footprints and quicker startup times. However, over time, its purpose has changed to include a wider variety of capabilities for power users.

However, “power” users who use terminals excessively like it since it is more customizable than gnome-terminal. It offers capabilities like drag and drop off objects into a terminal and is readily integrated with the GNOME desktop environment.

Features

ROXTerm can recognize and highlight URLs and email addresses in the terminal, making it easy to click on links to open them in a web browser or email client.
ROXTerm fully supports Unicode and UTF-8 character encoding, making it suitable for working with international character sets and languages.
Advanced users can take advantage of ROXTerm’s scripting capabilities to automate tasks or create custom workflows within the terminal.

Eterm

The word “Eterm,” which stands for “Enlightenment Terminal Emulator,” refers to a terminal emulator that is typically used with the Enlightenment window manager but that may also be used independently on a variety of Unix-like operating systems, including Linux. Eterm is renowned for its aesthetically pleasant features, providing customers who desire a distinctive and beautiful terminal experience with customization choices.

The smallest color terminal emulator, eterm, was created to take the place of xterm. It was created with the idea of freedom of choice, giving the user as much control, adaptability, and freedom as is practical.

Features

Since Eterm’s behavior, style, and keyboard shortcuts are fully adjustable, users may modify them to suit their preferences.
Working on many projects or activities at once is made easier by Eterm’s support for tabbed terminal sessions and the opening of multiple terminal windows.

Rxvt

A color terminal emulator for Linux called Rxvt, which stands for an extended virtual terminal, is designed as an xterm substitute for power users who don’t require features like Tektronix 4014 emulation and toolkit-style configurability.

Features

Due to its minimalistic design Rxvt consumes very few system resources, which is beneficial for older or less powerful hardware.
Rxvt has rudimentary mouse support for copying and pasting text, but it might not support more sophisticated capabilities like scrolling the mouse wheel.
Rxvt is appropriate for use with worldwide character sets and languages because of the addition of support for Unicode and UTF-8 character encoding in more recent versions of the software.

Tilix

A well-liked open-source terminal emulator for Unix-like operating systems, including Linux, is Tilix, formerly known as Terminix. It is intended to give a highly customizable terminal experience while being cutting-edge and feature-rich. Users who need sophisticated functionality and aesthetic customizing choices frequently choose Tilix.

Tilix offers customizable keyboard shortcuts, making it efficient for users who prefer to navigate and manage terminal sessions using keyboard commands.
Tilix supports a tabbed terminal interface, allowing users to have multiple terminal sessions within a single Tilix window. This is especially useful for managing different tasks or servers.
Users can create and save custom profiles with specific configurations, making it easy to switch between different settings and preferences.

LXTerminal

LXDE (Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment) and its successor, LXQt, are lightweight desktop environments designed to be quick and effective, especially on systems with constrained resources. LXTerminal is its default terminal emulator. To give LXDE and LXQt users a straightforward and portable terminal emulator, LXTerminal was created.

Features

Many tabs are supported
Provides support for widely used commands including cp, cd, dir, mkdir, and mvdir.
The ability to conceal the menu bar is a feature.
Make a different color choice.

Konsole

The default terminal emulator for KDE-based Linux distributions is Konsole, which is a terminal emulator for the KDE Plasma desktop environment. It offers users who prefer or need a KDE-based environment a strong and feature-rich command-line interface.

Features

Multiple terminals with tabs
Assistance with split-view mode
SSH and directory bookmarking
Individualised colour schemes
Key bindings that can be modified.
Notifications provide updates on terminal activities.
Support for the file manager Dolphin
Output is exported in HTML or plain text format.

Kitty

For Unix-based operating systems like Linux, macOS, and BSD, Kitty is a cutting-edge, quick, and highly configurable terminal emulator. It is built to be effective, feature-rich, and to provide a variety of cutting-edge features. Power users and developers use Kitty because of its quickness and broad configurability.

Features

It supports GPU rendering, which makes it super fast and efficient.

It also has support for true color and ligatures, and even allows you to display images and videos directly in the terminal.

Plus, it’s highly customizable with a configuration file where you can tweak various settings.

It’s a powerful choice for terminal enthusiasts.

For Unix-like operating systems, “st” is a minimalist terminal emulator praised for its ease of use and portability. It is a component of the suckless.org project, whose objective is to develop straightforward, effective, and adaptable software. Although “st” lacks some of the sophisticated capabilities present in other terminal emulators, those who value speed and minimalism like it.

Features

The software offers features including scaling the terminal, wide character support, mouse shortcuts, and simple clipboard management for copying and pasting material across windows.

If you’re an experienced user, st is quick and effective and may come in helpful. Additionally, you may greatly customize it by producing a “config.h” file.

Gnome Terminal

For Linux and other Unix-like operating systems, Gnome, commonly known as GNOME (GNU Network Object Model Environment), is a well-liked and frequently used desktop environment. It is renowned for its intuitive layout, contemporary appearance, and integrated apps. The goal of the free and open-source GNOME project is to offer both novice and expert users a simple and effective computing environment.

Features

The Gnome terminal allows users to establish different profiles for their accounts, and it supports multiple profiles.

Configuration choices like typefaces, colors, background pictures, behavior, etc. may all be changed.

Per account give each profile a name. Additionally, it supports mouse events, multiple tabs, URL detection, etc.

xfce4-terminal

The default terminal emulator for the Xfce desktop environment is xfce4-terminal, sometimes referred to as Xfce Terminal. A quick and effective desktop environment with a recognizable and user-friendly interface, Xfce is lightweight and highly customizable. This principle is adhered to by the lightweight and feature-rich terminal emulator provided by Xfce4 Terminal.

Features

Xfce4 Terminal fully supports UTF-8 character encoding, making it suitable for working with international character sets and languages.
Users can define custom commands that can be executed with a click of a button, which can be handy for frequently used tasks or scripts.
Xfce4 Terminal has session management features, allowing users to save and restore their terminal sessions, including opened tabs and directory locations.

Terminology

For Unix-like operating systems, Terminology is a terminal emulator that offers a visually beautiful and feature-rich terminal experience. It is renowned for its cutting-edge features, emphasis on aesthetics, and futuristic design. Users who value a terminal emulator with a distinctive visual design and a variety of capabilities frequently utilize terminology.

Features

Users can search for text within the terminal and have search results highlighted, making it easy to locate specific information in the terminal output.
Users can customize the appearance of Terminology by selecting from a variety of themes and colour schemes. It also provides options for configuring fonts, transparency, and other visual elements.
Terminology is designed with an emphasis on aesthetics. It offers beautiful and visually appealing themes, animations, and effects, making it stand out among other terminal emulators.

Deepin Terminal

A workspace, several windows, the ability to upload and download files with remote management, quake mode, and other strong features are just waiting for you to discover in Deepin Terminal, a sophisticated terminal emulator.

Features

Deepin has a customizable interface with various themes to choose from.
You can also split the terminal window into multiple panes for multitasking. It supports tabs for managing multiple sessions, and you can easily navigate through command history using keyboard shortcuts.
Deepin has a built-in search function to quickly find past commands.

xterm Terminal

A simple replacement for your default Linux terminal emulator is xterm. It enables you to manage several tasks across numerous terminal windows at once.

The emulator’s user interface is simple. Given that it was created in the 1990s, it has a vintage appearance. For all fundamental terminal operations, xterm is helpful. On older smartphones, it performs effectively.

Features

xterm is known for its simplicity and minimalistic design. It provides only essential features for running terminal applications and managing the command line.
Modern versions of xterm have added support for UTF-8 character encoding, making it suitable for working with international character sets and languages.
Due to its minimalistic nature, xterm consumes very few system resources, making it suitable for older or less powerful hardware.

Alacritty

Alacritty is a performance-driven lightweight terminal. It has a modern material design appearance. It provides quicker performance because rendering is dependent on GPU. This helps prevent unwelcome delays when deleting an application or making a folder.

Features

Alacritty is freely accessible on all popular Linux distributions and is open-source.
This program will help you have a better command-line experience if your PC is older.

Sakura

The Sakura is a different, lesser-known Unix-style terminal emulator designed for both text-based terminal programs and command-line usage.

Features

Sakura is built on GTK and livte and offers customization options like multiple tab support, changeable text color, font, and background pictures, and quick command processing, among others, rather than more complex functionality.

Extraterm

Your terminal experience is elevated with Extraterm. It makes working with command-line programs simple, and the GPU-accelerated rendering makes it quick.

Features

Additionally, Extraterm offers capabilities like command-level searching, text zooming, integration with the shell, and many more.

Wrapping Up

In conclusion, For many users, the Linux command line interface is a necessary tool, and selecting the best terminal emulator is critical for a successful and effective workflow. From beginner-friendly solutions like GNOME Terminal and Tilix to sophisticated options like Tmux, Screen, and Byobu, this list of 20 practical terminal emulators for Linux offers a range of choices for users of all skill levels. There is a terminal emulator on this list that will meet your demands, regardless of how much you value speed, simplicity, customization choices, or complex capabilities.

While researching and writing this article, I discovered even more interesting and practical terminal emulators. Please let me know in the comments section below if you use a terminal that was not included in the list I provided for this article. I’ll make the list current.

Learn about the linux commands by clicking the links below

https://linuxiron.com/echo-command-in-linux/

https://linuxiron.com/how-to-use-nice-renice-commands-in-linux/

https://linuxiron.com/how-to-use-kill-commands-in-linux/

https://linuxiron.com/a-beginners-guide-to-htop-for-process-management/

https://linuxiron.com/15-useful-yum-commands-in-linux/

https://linuxiron.com/how-to-use-the-top-command-in-linux/

https://linuxiron.com/17-ps-command-to-monitor-linux-process-with-examples-linuxiron/

https://linuxiron.com/12-cat-commands-in-linux-with-examples/

https://linuxiron.com/archiving-and-compressing-files-and-directories-in-linux/

https://linuxiron.com/how-to-run-the-du-command-in-linux/

https://linuxiron.com/how-to-backup-and-restore-the-linux-system/