Ghostty 1.4 terminal released with full Kitty graphics and scrollback compression
The gist
Ghostty 1.4.0 shipped after 7 months of work, adding full Kitty graphics and scrollback compression.
The release fixes 10 security advisories, so existing users are urged to update.
How it unfolded
- Oct 27, 2026Ghostty 1.4.0 is released, described as a major release with large performance and memory improvements and a 100% complete Kitty graphics implementation including animation and relative placements.
- Oct 27, 2026Scrollback compression cuts physical memory used by inactive history by 70% to 90% for typical text-heavy workloads, and the default scrollback limit rises from 10 MB to 50 MB per terminal.
- Oct 27, 2026Internal benchmarks show plain ASCII parsing 5.7 times faster (128 MB/s to 725 MB/s), real-world recordings about 25% faster, and resizing with large scrollback up to six times faster.