Windows Terminal
Microsoft’s tabbed terminal for Windows, hosting Command Prompt, PowerShell and WSL in one GPU-rendered window.
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4 more ways to get Windows Terminal
Other download sites
Run by third parties, not by Microsoft. Prefer the official page above when it works.
Package managers
- winget
winget install Microsoft.WindowsTerminal - Chocolatey
choco install microsoft-windows-terminal - Scoop
scoop bucket add extras; scoop install windows-terminal
About Windows Terminal
Windows Terminal is a host application for the shells Windows already has. Each profile is a tab: Command Prompt, PowerShell, a WSL distribution, Azure Cloud Shell, or anything else with a command line interface. Tabs can be split into panes, torn out into new windows, and dragged between windows.
It has proper Unicode and UTF-8 handling, a GPU-accelerated text renderer, and configurable colour schemes, fonts, backgrounds and shortcuts. It is open source under the MIT licence and ships through the Microsoft Store, winget or GitHub.
Strengths
- One window for Command Prompt, PowerShell, WSL distributions and Azure Cloud Shell
- Tabs, split panes and tab tear-out into separate windows
- GPU-accelerated rendering with full Unicode and UTF-8 support
- Colour schemes, fonts, backgrounds and key bindings are all configurable
Limitations
- Windows only, and it needs a reasonably current Windows 10 or 11
- It is a terminal, not a shell: the shell you run inside it is still cmd, PowerShell or bash
- The settings file is large, and deep customisation means editing JSON
Details
- Pricing
- FreeFree and open source, published by Microsoft.
- License
- MIT
- Developer
- Microsoft
- Platforms
- Windows
- How it runs
- Downloadable app
- Account
- Not required
- Works offline
- Yes
- Best suited for
- Anyone who spends time at a Windows command line
- Categories
- Terminals
- Last verified
- Added
- Provenance
- Selected from the TechWalrus downloads catalog (SSH / Terminal); facts checked against the developer's own pages, 4 sources on file.
Alternatives to Windows Terminal
Compare allSoftware that can replace Windows Terminal for an important use case, and what changes if you switch.
WezTerm
A GPU-accelerated terminal that is also a multiplexer, configured in Lua and the same on every platform.
WezTerm is a GPU-accelerated terminal with built-in multiplexing and Lua configuration that also runs on macOS and Linux, maintained largely by one person.
ConEmu
Keep several Windows console sessions in a tabbed window.
ConEmu is a BSD-3-Clause tabbed Windows console host with configurable layouts for shells and console applications, predating Microsoft's own terminal.
Cmder
Carry a configured Windows console environment between machines.
Cmder bundles a Windows terminal interface with command-line enhancements in a portable setup you can carry between machines, under the MIT license.
Alacritty
A deliberately minimal OpenGL terminal that leaves multiplexing and tabs to other programs and just draws text fast.
Alacritty is a fast OpenGL terminal that also runs on macOS and Linux, but has no tabs or split panes, relying on tmux instead.
Tabby
A terminal, SSH client and serial console in one window, with a connection manager and an encrypted secret store.
Tabby is an Electron terminal that adds SSH, Telnet and serial connections plus an encrypted secret store, using more memory than a native terminal.
Hyper
A terminal built on web technologies, extended with JavaScript plugins and themed with CSS.
Hyper is an Electron terminal themed with CSS and extended with npm plugins, cross-platform but slower on heavy output and without releases since January 2023.
Warp
Rust terminal with block-based output, AI assistance and shared workflows.
Warp is a Rust terminal with command blocks and AI assistance on Windows, macOS and Linux, with hosted features needing a separate account and plan.
Contour Terminal
Run shell sessions in a GPU-rendered terminal emulator.
Contour Terminal is an Apache-2.0 GPU-rendered emulator with ligatures, Unicode and tabs that also runs on macOS and Linux.
Windows Terminal as an alternative
Listings that name Windows Terminal as an alternative.
Rio
Use a configurable terminal emulator across desktop platforms.
Windows Terminal is Microsoft's MIT-licensed GPU terminal with tabs and split panes for cmd, PowerShell and WSL, limited to current Windows 10 and 11.
Similar software
Related functionality, not necessarily a direct replacement.
PuTTY
The small, stubbornly reliable SSH and Telnet client that has been on every Windows admin’s desktop for twenty-five years.
Clink
Add modern command editing to the Windows command prompt.
Nushell
Shell that pipes structured tables instead of untyped text.
Oh My Posh
Customize shell prompts across operating systems with configurable themes.
Starship
A shell prompt that shows the git branch, language version and other context, configured once and working in every shell.
Nerd Fonts
A collection of programming fonts patched with thousands of icons, plus a patcher for adding them to other fonts.
