Ghostty 1.4: 70% Less Scrollback RAM and 5 Breaking Changes

Ghostty 1.4 is the first stable release in seven months, and it is a big one. The last signed build was 1.3.1 on March 13, 2026. This release adds 2,889 commits from 172 contributors. Most of the headline numbers are about memory and throughput. The part that can bite you is the list of breaking changes. This guide covers what changed, which numbers are real, and how to upgrade without losing your muscle memory.

What does Ghostty 1.4 change for developers?

Ghostty 1.4 changes five things you will notice: memory use, parsing speed, graphics support, SSH handling and platform requirements. Everything else is polish.

The official 1.4.0 release notes list nine security advisories, 356 new bundled themes and an upgrade to Unicode 18. The default scrollback limit also rises from 10 MB to 50 MB. A larger buffer sounds risky for RAM, but compression offsets it.

The Kitty graphics work is the most visible feature. Ghostty 1.4 now claims 100% coverage of the published spec, including animation and relative placements. The maintainers say this makes it the first terminal outside Kitty itself to do so. That matters if you use terminal image viewers or notebook-style tools.

My recommendation: upgrade on a personal machine first. Then roll it out to a team once you have checked the config changes below.

How does Ghostty 1.4 scrollback compression work?

Ghostty 1.4 compresses scrollback that is idle and not visible, then decompresses it when you scroll back or search. The maintainers report 70% to 90% less physical memory for typical text.

It works on macOS and 64-bit Linux only. You can disable it with the new scrollback-compression option. The savings depend on your workload, and the figures come from the project itself.

Two related changes help long sessions. Hidden tabs now release their GPU resources. With 20 hidden tabs on macOS, GPU memory drops from about 385 MiB to 18 MiB. Memory freed by clearing scrollback is also returned to the operating system.

How should you configure scrollback in Ghostty 1.4?

Use scrollback-limit-bytes for a byte cap and scrollback-limit-lines for a line cap. The older scrollback-limit still works through a compatibility layer. When you set both new options, the first limit reached applies.

# ~/.config/ghostty/config.ghostty
scrollback-compression = true
scrollback-limit-bytes = 104857600
scrollback-limit-lines = unlimited

This example raises the cap to 100 MiB and lets the byte limit decide. That is a sensible setup for people who keep long build logs open.

How fast is Ghostty 1.4 compared with 1.3?

Ghostty 1.4 parses plain ASCII at 725 MB/s, up from 128 MB/s in the previous release. That is a 5.7x improvement on the maintainers’ own benchmark.

Other numbers from the release notes are worth knowing. On an M4 Max, macOS I/O throughput rises 25% to 55%. A cat of a 150 MB file drops from 1.5 seconds to 566 ms. CJK parsing is 3.4x faster. Large OSC sequences parse about 30x faster.

Startup improves too. Launch to window is about 15% faster, and the first frame arrives about 27% sooner. Resizing a 120×80 terminal with 10,000 lines of scrollback is about 6x faster.

One caveat applies to all of these figures. They are self-reported and were measured on specific hardware. Treat them as direction, not a guarantee. I would not expect a 5.7x gain in everyday use, because most terminal time is spent waiting on programs, not parsing bytes. The same caution applies to runtime benchmarks, as in our look at the Ant JS runtime cold-start numbers.

What breaks when you upgrade to Ghostty 1.4?

Five changes can break existing setups: the copy-on-select values, the macOS default for copy-on-select, the macOS cmd+arrow keybinds, the GTK tab keybinds and the +ssh-cache command syntax. Check each one before you upgrade.

1. Change copy-on-select = clipboard to both if you want the old behavior. The value clipboard now copies only to the system clipboard.
2. On macOS, copy-on-select now defaults to none. Set it to primary to restore the 1.3 behavior.
3. On macOS, cmd+arrow_up and cmd+arrow_down run jump_to_prompt again. Use cmd+home and cmd+end to reach the top and bottom.
4. On GTK, ctrl+shift+page_up/down now move tabs. Prompt jumping moved to ctrl+shift+arrow_up/down.
5. Update any script that calls +ssh-cache. It now takes positional destinations and supports --prune.

The deprecated names scrollback-limit and boolean copy-on-select still work. No removal date is set. Even so, rename them now so a future release does not surprise you.

How do you install and configure Ghostty 1.4?

On macOS, download the app from the project site or run brew install --cask ghostty. On Linux, use your distro package or Flatpak. The config file is optional, and Ghostty runs on defaults without one.

Per the Ghostty configuration docs, the file lives at $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/ghostty/config.ghostty. On macOS it can also live under ~/Library/Application Support/com.mitchellh.ghostty/, and that file loads last. Syntax is plain key = value. Reload with cmd+shift+, on macOS or ctrl+shift+, on Linux.

1. Install the app and launch it once to create the default state.
2. Create config.ghostty in the path above.
3. Add your font, for example font-family = "JetBrains Mono".
4. Set copy-on-select = both if you relied on the old behavior.
5. Press the reload shortcut and confirm the change took effect.

What does the new ghostty +ssh wrapper do?

The +ssh wrapper installs Ghostty’s terminfo on the remote host and forwards environment variables. If the install fails, it falls back to xterm-256color. That fixes the classic “unknown terminal type” error on fresh servers.

Clean up cached hosts with ghostty +ssh-cache --prune=30d. If you manage servers from a terminal all day, this is the most practical addition in the release. Remote tooling has its own risks, which we covered in the MCP server debugging guide.

Is Ghostty 1.4 safe to run?

Ghostty 1.4 fixes nine published security advisories, and that is a reason to upgrade from 1.3.x. The affected areas include paste protection, Kitty graphics commands, tmux control mode and shell integration.

One advisory covers paste protection that did not treat carriage returns as line endings. Two cover tmux control mode crashes that affect 1.3.0 and 1.3.1. Another covers scrollback memory corruption with small scrollback-limit values. CVE numbers were not yet assigned at publication.

The Sparkle updater on macOS also moved to 2.9.6 to address advisories. Terminals parse untrusted bytes all day, so treat them as an attack surface. The same mindset applies to runtimes, as we showed in the Node.js permission model security gotchas.

The release gap also raised eyebrows on Hacker News. Hashimoto described a six-month cadence and said no further release is planned until March. Active development continues on the rolling tip build, but stable users wait.

Should you switch to Ghostty 1.4 from iTerm2 or Kitty?

Switch if you want a fast, native, low-config terminal and do not need iTerm2’s deep feature set. Stay put if you rely on iTerm2 triggers, profiles or scripting. Ghostty is also not available as a native Windows app yet.

Ghostty is a non-profit project fiscally sponsored by Hack Club. It paid $41,820 to contractors this cycle and spent about $1,260 on infrastructure. The GitHub repository shows about 60,000 stars and an MIT license. That funding model is small, so factor in bus-factor risk for team-wide standardization.

Upgrade options for Ghostty users in October 2026

Option	Performance	Complexity	When to Use
Ghostty 1.4.0 (stable)	ASCII parsing 725 MB/s, 70-90% less idle scrollback RAM	Medium: 5 breaking changes to check	Most users on macOS or Linux with GTK 4.18
Stay on Ghostty 1.3.1	ASCII parsing 128 MB/s	Low: nothing changes	Only if a keybind or script cannot be migrated yet. Known tmux control mode crashes remain.
Ghostty tip build	Same engine, rolling fixes since the October 7 build	High: unstable by design	Contributors and testers
Ubuntu 24.04 (native)	Cannot build 1.4: needs GTK 4.18 and libadwaita 1.7	High: use Flatpak or an older version	Servers and LTS desktops you cannot upgrade

• Ghostty 1.4.0 was released on October 27, 2026, seven months after 1.3.1, with 2,889 commits from 172 contributors.
• Scrollback compression cuts physical memory use by 70% to 90% for typical text, and the default scrollback limit rises from 10 MB to 50 MB.
• Plain ASCII parsing in Ghostty 1.4 reaches 725 MB/s, up from 128 MB/s, which is a 5.7x gain on the maintainers’ benchmark.
• On macOS, copy-on-select now defaults to none, so users who relied on select-to-copy must set it to primary or both.
• Linux builds of Ghostty 1.4 require GTK 4.18 and libadwaita 1.7, which Ubuntu 24.04 LTS does not provide natively.
• Ghostty 1.4 fixes nine security advisories, including two tmux control mode crashes that affect versions 1.3.0 and 1.3.1.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Ghostty better than iTerm2?

Ghostty is faster to start, lighter on memory after 1.4 and simpler to configure. iTerm2 still wins on features such as triggers, profiles and deep scripting. If you want a fast native terminal with a plain text config, choose Ghostty. If you depend on iTerm2 automation, stay.

Is Ghostty free to use?

Yes. Ghostty is free and open source under the MIT license. It is a non-profit project fiscally sponsored by Hack Club, and it paid $41,820 to contractors during the 1.4 cycle. There are no paid tiers, accounts or telemetry-based crash uploads.

Does Ghostty work on Windows?

Not as a native app. The Ghostty application supports macOS and Linux. However, the libghostty-vt library builds on Windows with MSVC and GNU toolchains, so third-party Windows terminals could embed it.

What is scrollback compression in Ghostty?

Scrollback compression, new in Ghostty 1.4, compresses idle off-screen terminal history and decompresses it when you scroll or search. It reduces physical memory by 70% to 90% for typical text. It works on macOS and 64-bit Linux, and the scrollback-compression option disables it.

Can I run Ghostty 1.4 on Ubuntu 24.04?

Not by building natively. Ghostty 1.4 needs GTK 4.18 and libadwaita 1.7, while Ubuntu 24.04 LTS ships older versions. The maintainers suggest using Flatpak or staying on an older Ghostty release. Upgrading Ubuntu is the other route.

Ghostty 1.4 is a rare release where the memory story is as good as the speed story. Compressing idle scrollback fixes the quiet RAM creep that long-lived terminals suffer from. The +ssh wrapper removes a daily annoyance for anyone who works on servers. The price is a short config audit and, on older Linux, a packaging detour. Do that audit this week while the release notes are fresh. If you want more tool breakdowns like this, browse the rest of NexGismo.