# gnachman/iTerm2

iTerm2 is a terminal emulator for Mac OS X that does amazing things.

Repository: https://github.com/gnachman/iTerm2
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/iterm2
Homepage: https://iterm2.com/
Language: Objective-C
License: GPL-2.0
License Family: copyleft
Last push: 2026-08-27T00:18:47+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 77/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5628, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 17970, forks 1466 (observed 2026-08-28T04:11:20.633821+00:00)

## What it is
iTerm2 is a free, open-source terminal emulator for macOS that replaces the built-in Terminal app with a feature-rich alternative. It offers split panes, tmux integration, shell integration, hotkey windows, inline images, triggers, and a built-in AI chat.

## Use cases
- replace the default macOS Terminal with a more powerful terminal emulator
- split a terminal window into multiple panes for parallel work
- keep SSH and tmux sessions alive across disconnects and app restarts
- summon a drop-down terminal with a global hotkey
- display images and charts inline in the terminal
- automatically switch terminal profiles based on hostname or directory
- get AI-assisted explanations of terminal output
- search and autocomplete within terminal scrollback

## When to avoid
- you are on Linux or Windows - iTerm2 is macOS only
- you need a lightweight, minimal terminal with low resource usage
- you prefer GPU-accelerated cross-platform terminals like Alacritty or Kitty
- you need GPL-incompatible licensing in your project

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: stable
- function: terminal-ui, developer-tools, gui, cli
- domain: developer-tools, cross-platform
- platform: -
- tags: terminal-emulator, tmux-integration, shell-integration, split-panes, hotkey-window, ai-chat, gpu-rendering, command-line, macos, desktop

## Member repositories
- gnachman/iTerm2 (main) score 77

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:20.633821+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:02:12.108976+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/gnachman/iTerm2 (fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:20.633821+00:00, sha b14e1490aa26)
  - homepage: https://iterm2.com/ (fetched 2026-08-29T08:00:21.468688+00:00, sha 4734bd34238c)
  - site_page: https://iterm2.com/features.html (fetched 2026-08-29T08:00:21.471399+00:00, sha 36f4fe4268df)
  - site_page: https://iterm2.com/documentation.html (fetched 2026-08-29T08:00:21.476158+00:00, sha 957c69069ab5)
  - site_page: https://iterm2.com/faq.html (fetched 2026-08-29T08:00:21.473874+00:00, sha 0b30a7958c65)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.