Otty and Ghostty are both modern native terminal emulators with GPU rendering ambitions. They overlap on the basics: fast text rendering, tabs, splits, themes, keyboard-driven workflows, and support for modern terminal protocols.
The difference is focus. Ghostty is a strong general-purpose terminal for macOS and Linux. Otty is a native macOS terminal built around code-agent workflows, session recovery, and terminal protocols that make agents visible to the terminal.
Quick comparison
| Category | Otty | Ghostty |
|---|---|---|
| Primary fit | Developers running Codex, Claude Code, OpenCode, tmux, and recoverable agent sessions. | Developers who want a fast native general-purpose terminal on macOS or Linux. |
| Public platform focus | macOS Apple Silicon today, with Windows and other platforms in progress. | macOS and Linux. |
| Rendering | Native macOS Metal renderer, with DirectX planned for Windows. | Native UI and GPU-accelerated rendering, documented by the Ghostty project. |
| Code-agent UI | Agent hooks, tab state, notifications, history, resume, fork, prompt queue, and composer. | General terminal behavior; agent-specific UI is not Ghostty's main product focus. |
| Session recovery | Restores windows, tabs, panes, working directories, scrollback, tmux sessions, and supported agent sessions. | Focuses on terminal sessions and general terminal features; use tmux or shell tooling for durable agent workflows. |
| Protocol direction | VT support plus proposed OSC 26 Terminal Agent Protocol and OSC 88 Terminal Resume Protocol. | Strong modern terminal protocol support for a general terminal audience. |
When Otty is the better fit
Choose Otty when the terminal is where you coordinate code agents. Otty can show whether an agent is processing, done, or awaiting input; notify you when background work needs attention; queue the next prompt or command; and keep transcripts available through Agent History.
Otty is also a good fit if restart behavior matters. It can restore the terminal layout around a long-running workflow and reattach tmux sessions when Restore Multiplayer is enabled.
When Ghostty is the better fit
Choose Ghostty when you want a polished, fast, general-purpose terminal across macOS and Linux and do not need agent-specific workflow UI. Ghostty's official documentation presents it as a fast native terminal with cross-platform goals, rich terminal features, and configuration that works well out of the box.
Ghostty is also a natural choice if Linux support is a hard requirement today.
Performance framing
Both terminals care about performance. Otty publishes vtebench numbers in its documentation, but those numbers are a sanity check, not a universal leaderboard. Benchmark results vary by machine, build, font, workload, and feature coverage.
For agent work, raw rendering speed is only one dimension. The more important question is whether the terminal helps you manage long-running sessions without losing attention, context, or state.