--- title: ghostel.el - Terminal emulator powered by libghostty description: Ghostel is a new Emacs terminal emulator package that uses libghostty-vt (the VT engine from the Ghostty terminal) as its core. A native dynamic module written... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/ghostel-el---terminal-emulator-powered-by-libghostty-uqiwmfmiz twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: ghostel.el - Terminal emulator powered by libghostty | daily.dev og:description: Ghostel is a new Emacs terminal emulator package that uses libghostty-vt (the VT engine from the Ghostty terminal) as its core. A native dynamic module written... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/ghostel-el---terminal-emulator-powered-by-libghostty-uqiwmfmiz og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/uqIwMFmiZ.png og:image:alt: ghostel.el - Terminal emulator powered by libghostty og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # ghostel.el - Terminal emulator powered by libghostty **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 65 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Ghostel is a new Emacs terminal emulator package that uses libghostty-vt (the VT engine from the Ghostty terminal) as its core. A native dynamic module written in Zig handles terminal state, rendering, and PTY I/O, while Elisp manages keymaps, buffers, and commands. It supports modern terminal protocols including the Kitty keyboard and graphics protocols, OSC 8 hyperlinks, OSC 4/10/11 color queries, synchronized output (DEC 2026), and inline images. Key features include five input modes (semi-char, char, emacs, copy, line), automatic shell integration for bash/zsh/fish/nushell, TRAMP remote terminal support, password prompt detection, calling Elisp from shell scripts, and cross-platform support including Windows. Pre-built binaries are auto-downloaded on first use; no Zig toolchain required for typical installation. It is compared favorably to vterm and eat.el, offering modern protocol support that libvterm lacks. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How does ghostel's terminal throughput compare to vterm and eat in Emacs? Ghostel reaches about 75 MB/s on plain ASCII throughput, roughly 4x vterm's ~18 MB/s and 12x eat's ~6.2 MB/s, measured on Apple M4 Max with Emacs 32.0.50 using a 1 MB streamed benchmark with ~1,000 lines of scrollback. On URL-heavy output ghostel drops to about 36 MB/s (78 MB/s with link detection disabled) due to its clickable-link scanning, a feature vterm and eat lack entirely. _Compare emacs terminal emulator performance trade-offs on daily.dev before picking one for heavy log streaming._ ### What terminal protocols does ghostel support that vterm and eat lack in Emacs? Ghostel supports the Kitty keyboard and graphics protocols, five underline styles, OSC 8 hyperlinks, OSC 4/10/11 color queries, and DEC 2026 synchronized output, none of which vterm supports; eat lacks the Kitty protocols, OSC 8, and desktop notifications but does support Sixel graphics and colored underlines, unlike vterm. This comes from wrapping libghostty-vt, the VT engine from the Ghostty terminal, rather than libvterm. _Track which emacs terminal packages support modern protocols like Kitty graphics on daily.dev._ ### Does ghostel support remote terminal sessions over TRAMP on Windows? Remote TRAMP terminals in ghostel are limited to POSIX remotes reached through SSH-style TRAMP methods; Windows remotes are not supported because ghostel's remote wrapper relies on POSIX shell and tty facilities. Windows-to-TRAMP sessions can run but dynamic window resizing is currently unsupported, unlike POSIX-to-POSIX TRAMP connections which rely on the SSH client to propagate window-size changes. _Check platform-specific TRAMP limitations before configuring remote emacs terminal workflows via daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Ghostty Terminal: Never Understood the Hype Until I tried it](https://daily.dev/posts/ghostty-terminal-never-understood-the-hype-until-i-tried-it-fhwfcvjbc) · It's Foss · 54 upvotes · 5 comments - [Ghostty terminal is now available in the Ubuntu repos](https://daily.dev/posts/ghostty-terminal-is-now-available-in-the-ubuntu-repos-dkzeydunw) · omg\! ubuntu\! · 69 upvotes · 2 comments - [Ghostty OpenGL-Accelerated Terminal Available On Ubuntu 26.04 LTS](https://daily.dev/posts/ghostty-opengl-accelerated-terminal-available-on-ubuntu-26-04-lts-w8seh01ht) · Phoronix · 15 upvotes · 2 comments - [The Modern Terminals Showdown: Alacritty, Kitty, and Ghostty Comparing Alacritty, Kitty, and Ghostty for Speed, Features, and Customization](https://daily.dev/posts/the-modern-terminals-showdown-alacritty-kitty-and-ghostty-comparing-alacritty-kitty-and-ghostty-05tu6iisw) · The Miners · 17 upvotes · 4 comments --- Tags: [#cli](https://daily.dev/tags/cli), [#zig](https://daily.dev/tags/zig) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/ghostel-el---terminal-emulator-powered-by-libghostty-uqiwmfmiz) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"ghostel.el - Terminal emulator powered by libghostty","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/ghostel-el---terminal-emulator-powered-by-libghostty-uqiwmfmiz","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/ghostel-el---terminal-emulator-powered-by-libghostty-uqiwmfmiz"},"datePublished":"2026-07-12T13:55:13.031Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T07:00:13.726Z","description":"Ghostel is a new Emacs terminal emulator package that uses libghostty-vt (the VT engine from the Ghostty terminal) as its core. 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