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The 8 Best Terminals for Windows in 2026, Ranked

Quick answer: Windows Terminal is the best terminal for most Windows users in 2026. It ships with Windows 11, handles PowerShell, cmd and every WSL distro in one tabbed window, and renders on the GPU. Pick WezTerm for a scriptable cross-platform setup, Alacritty for pure speed, and Tabby if you mostly manage SSH connections.

Windows used to be the platform where developers installed a third-party terminal on day one. That changed when Microsoft rebuilt the console and made Windows Terminal the default on Windows 11. The question now is whether anything beats the one you already have, and the honest answer is: only for specific jobs.

One thing to know before you read other lists: the two best terminals in our Mac terminal ranking, Ghostty and kitty, do not ship a Windows app. Recommendations copied across platforms are common, so check the download page before you get attached.

What makes a Windows terminal good?

Four things separate these apps on Windows specifically:

  1. WSL integration. Does it detect your WSL distros automatically and open them as profiles, with the right starting directory?
  2. Shell mixing. Most Windows developers run PowerShell, cmd and a Linux shell in the same day. Profiles per shell, in one window, matter more here than on macOS.
  3. GPU rendering. The old Windows console redrew slowly under heavy output. Every modern option here uses the GPU.
  4. Maintenance. Several long-recommended Windows terminals have quietly stopped shipping releases. Stars measure past popularity, not current support.

Which Windows terminals are still maintained?

We read every project's repository and latest stable release from GitHub on 25 September 2026:

| Terminal | Stars | Last push | Latest stable release | |---|---|---|---| | Windows Terminal | 104,988 | 2026-09-24 | v1.24, 2026-07-16 | | Tabby | 74,674 | 2026-09-25 | v1.0.237, 2026-09-25 | | Alacritty | 65,813 | 2026-08-31 | v0.17.0, 2026-04-06 | | Hyper | 44,746 | 2026-08-21 | v3.4.1, 2023-01-08 | | WezTerm | 29,026 | 2026-09-21 | 2024-02-03 (nightly builds since) | | Cmder | 27,006 | 2026-09-21 | v1.3.25, 2024-05-31 | | FluentTerminal | 9,604 | 2025-12-22 | 0.7.7.0, 2022-03-13 | | ConEmu | 9,265 | 2025-04-07 | v23.07.24, 2023-07-24 | | Rio | 7,544 | 2026-09-20 | v0.5.28, 2026-09-17 |

The pattern is clear. Hyper still has 44,746 stars and has not published a release in over two and a half years. ConEmu, which Cmder is built on, last released in July 2023. WezTerm is a special case: development continues daily, but the last tagged stable build is from February 2024, so in practice you install the nightly.

The 8 best terminals for Windows, ranked

1. Windows Terminal

Already installed on Windows 11 and actively developed by Microsoft. Tabs, split panes, a GPU text renderer, and automatic profiles for PowerShell, cmd, Azure Cloud Shell and every WSL distro you install. Settings live in a JSON file with a usable GUI on top, and the Quake-style dropdown mode is one keybinding away.

Verdict: the right default for almost everyone.

2. WezTerm

GPU-accelerated, identical on Windows, macOS and Linux, and configured in Lua, so your config is a program you can put in a dotfiles repo. It has built-in multiplexing, WSL domains, and SSH sessions that survive a disconnect. The catch is the release situation above: you will be running nightlies.

Verdict: best if you work across operating systems and want one config everywhere.

3. Alacritty

Minimal and fast. No tabs, no splits, one TOML file, on the theory that a multiplexer should handle the rest. On Windows that works best when you live inside WSL with tmux, where Alacritty becomes a very quick window onto Linux.

Verdict: ideal for WSL-first developers who already use tmux.

4. Tabby

An Electron app, so it uses more memory than anything else here, and the most active project on this list by release cadence. Its strength is connection management: saved SSH, serial and Telnet profiles, an SFTP panel, and encrypted settings sync.

Verdict: best when your terminal is really a remote-server dashboard.

5. Warp

Warp arrived on Windows in 2025, and its repository is now open source under the AGPL. It treats each command and its output as a selectable block, gives you a real text editor for input, and is increasingly built around AI coding agents. Some features need an account.

Verdict: worth trying if you want the agent workflow built into the terminal.

6. Rio

A young Rust terminal rendering through WebGPU, with tabs and splits and a light footprint. It ships releases often and runs on Windows natively, though its ecosystem is thinner than the others.

Verdict: the one to watch, not yet the safe default.

7. Cmder

A portable bundle of ConEmu, Clink and Git for Windows that you can carry on a USB stick, with Unix-style commands in cmd. It still has a loyal following, but its base terminal has not released since 2023 and Windows Terminal now covers most of what it offered.

Verdict: useful on locked-down machines where you cannot install anything.

8. mintty (Git Bash)

If you installed Git for Windows, you already have mintty, the terminal behind Git Bash. It is small, fast, and fine for Git work. It is not a general home for PowerShell or WSL sessions.

Verdict: good enough for Git, outgrown the moment you add WSL.

How do you set up WSL in Windows Terminal?

Install a distro with wsl --install, then open Windows Terminal: the distro appears as a profile automatically. Set it as the default profile, and set its starting directory to your Linux home (~) rather than a Windows path, because file access across the WSL boundary is much slower. If you are choosing a distro, our Linux distro guide for developers compares the versions each one ships.

What should you set up after picking one?

  • One colour scheme everywhere. Dracula theme has ports for Windows Terminal, WezTerm, Alacritty and your editor.
  • A Nerd Font. Most prompt themes need one for their glyphs, and it is the most common reason a new terminal looks broken.
  • Understand what you paste. explainshell breaks a Linux command into its parts, which helps when WSL is your first daily Linux shell.

More command-line tools live in our terminal category, and the editor category covers what runs next to it, including Visual Studio Code with its WSL remote extension.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best terminal for Windows 11?

Windows Terminal, for most people. It is preinstalled, free, open source, actively released, and handles PowerShell, cmd and WSL in one window.

Is Windows Terminal better than PowerShell?

They are different things. PowerShell is a shell, and Windows Terminal is the app that displays shells. You run PowerShell inside Windows Terminal, alongside cmd and WSL.

Does kitty or Ghostty work on Windows?

Not as a Windows app. kitty targets macOS and Linux, and Ghostty's app ships for macOS and Linux. You can run either inside WSL with a Linux GUI, but a native option like WezTerm or Alacritty is the better choice.

Is Hyper still maintained?

Its repository still receives commits, but its last release was v3.4.1 in January 2023. For an Electron terminal that ships regularly, Tabby is the better pick today.