Helium Terminal – A tiny macOS terminal for coding agents, built on libghostty

Helium Terminal, a macOS terminal for coding agents built on libghostty by developer yowmamasita, launches at 15 MB and about 250 ms versus iTerm2 3.7's 176 MB and about 570 ms, per a benchmark script published in the project's GitHub repository. The terminal uses 62 MB idle memory and roughly 0.2% idle CPU against iTerm2's 203 MB and about 2%, and its sidebar shows each tab's branch, folder and ports while restoring Claude Code and Codex sessions after a quit. It installs via Homebrew on Apple Silicon running macOS 13 or later.

A tiny macOS terminal for coding agents, built on libghostty. The sidebar shows every tab's branch, folder and ports. A pane waiting on you turns orange until you answer. Tabs split, group and take labels, and your Claude Code and Codex sessions come back after a quit. | | Helium | iTerm2 3.7 | |---|---|---| | Size | 15 MB | 176 MB | | Launch | ~250 ms | ~570 ms | | Idle memory | 62 MB | 203 MB | | Idle CPU | ~0.2% | ~2% | Apple Silicon, median of five launches. Script https://github.com/yowmamasita/helium-terminal/tree/main/bench . brew install --cask yowmamasita/tap/helium-terminal zb install yowmamasita/tap/helium-terminal Apple Silicon, macOS 13 or later.