- iTerm started pushing a ton of updates to add features that absolutely no one wanted. AI chat in the terminal emulator (not within the terminal), integrated web browser, etc.
- Some of those features turned out to introduce major vulnerabilities, so they had to push even more frequent updates to patch them. It’s extremely annoying to have your work interrupted by multiple update prompts in a day from your terminal.
- iTerm has visual glitches (line artifacts appearing when windows are opened/closed) on non-Retina monitors.
That said, I miss the GUI for changing settings. Ghostty’s settings file format requires looking up keys every time you want to change something, and it isn’t nearly as powerful as iTerm profiles.
I wouldn't even need panes and tabs if I used tmux, but I can't be arsed: I used to but now much prefer using a GUI and not have to do tabs/scroll/selection differently than every other application.
- Font rendering (and cell size control) is still better on iTerm2, although Ghostty has been rapidly gaining
- Compact theme with thin titlebar tabs
- Profiles
- Window arrangements
- In-terminal API (which Mitchell has acknowledged as a useful feature)
No shade to ghostty btw, it's an amazing product that I use every day. I just have to accept the lack of some of this usability polish.