There are several highly curated “Awesome” lists on GitHub dedicated to terminal emulators, command-line interfaces (CLI), and text-based user interfaces (TUI). [1, 2, 3]
The most prominent lists include:
1. Terminal Emulators
-
awesome-terminals: A comprehensive list of terminal emulators organized by operating system (macOS, Linux, Windows, Android).
- Notable entries: iTerm2 (macOS), Alacritty (Cross-platform/GPU-accelerated), Kitty (Cross-platform/GPU-accelerated), and Ghostty (Cross-platform/Native UI).
-
terminals-are-sexy: A broader list that includes terminal emulators, shell frameworks (Zsh, Bash), plugins, and themes. [4, 5, 6, 7, 8]
2. CLI Applications & Tools
-
awesome-cli-apps: Focuses on functional command-line applications for development, productivity, and entertainment.
-
awesome-shell: A curated list of shell frameworks, toolkits, and guides.
- Includes tools like: fzf (fuzzy finder), zoxide (smarter cd), and bat (cat replacement with syntax highlighting).
-
awesome-macos-command-line: Specifically for macOS users to discover shell utilities and hidden system settings. [9, 10, 11, 12, 13]
3. Terminal User Interfaces (TUI)
-
awesome-tuis: Projects that provide a full interactive UI within the terminal.
- Notable entries: lazygit (Git TUI), btop (System monitor), and yazi (File manager). [14, 15, 16, 17]
4. Customization & Themes
- awesome-bash: Resources for Bash, including prompt customization and scripts.
- awesome-zsh-plugins: A massive collection of plugins and themes specifically for the Z shell. [4, 18]
Summary Table: Quick Reference
| List Category [5, 19, 20, 21, 22] | Top GitHub Repository | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Emulators | cdleon/awesome-terminals | Apps like iTerm2, Alacritty, Kitty |
| CLI Apps | agarrharr/awesome-cli-apps | Tools like curl, wget, specialized CLI apps |
| Shell Tools | alebcay/awesome-shell | Frameworks (Oh My Zsh), fzf, zoxide |
| TUI | rothgar/awesome-tuis | Interactive dashboards like lazygit, htop |
Are you looking for a specific type of terminal tool, like a file manager or a system monitor, to add to your workflow?
[2] https://forum.endeavouros.com
[10] https://github.com
[11] https://github.com
[12] https://github.com
[13] https://github.com
[14] https://github.com
[16] https://terminal-apps.dev
[17] https://github.com
[18] https://github.com
[19] https://shanelonergan.github.io
[20] https://www.codingholygrail.com
[21] https://github.com