{"slug": "notcurses", "name": "notcurses", "category": "terminal", "category_name": "Terminal and shell", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 5, "warners": 0, "score": 2.389, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2025-11-06", "latest": "2026-05-11", "why": "notcurses is probably the best option for getting the best you can out of a random terminal", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 2, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [1, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "notcurses is probably the best option for getting the best you can out of a random terminal", "kind": "", "icon": false, "domain": "notcurses.com", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://notcurses.com/", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["notcurses", "Notcurses"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 740565632, "item_id": 46285352, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46285352", "by": "aragilar", "date": "2025-12-15", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "notcurses is probably the best option for getting the best you can out of a random terminal", "excerpt": "notcurses is probably the best option for getting the best you can out of a random terminal (see https://github.com/dankamongmen/notcurses/blob/master/TERMINALS.md which details the status of most terminals people use), but the main thing is to choose a decent terminal that meets your needs. I personally use xterm (after using various other terminals, both \"modern\" and VTE-based), as I'm on Linux, and I need to conne", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Chafa: Terminal Graphics for the 21st Century"}, {"id": 740515136, "item_id": 46282196, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46282196", "by": "d-lisp", "date": "2025-12-15", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Did you try notcurses ?", "excerpt": "Did you try notcurses ? [0] [0] https://notcurses.com/", "context": "", "use_case": "Terminal graphics library", "switched_from": "", "story": "Chafa: Terminal Graphics for the 21st Century"}, {"id": 733416593, "item_id": 45838537, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45838537", "by": "godelski", "date": "2025-11-06", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "We got graphics and everything now[0]", "excerpt": "> but why would you render to a low-resolution 2D buffer with random character-hacks Have you used a terminal in the last 5 years? We got graphics and everything now[0] > huge amount of overhead A... terminal... with... large overhead? Surely you're joking. Have you met any gui app? Microsoft word takes a few gigs. Have you seen electron apps like Spotify or slack? My fucking mail client takes over half a gig and neo", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal graphics", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ratatui \u2013 App Showcase"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["terminal graphics via ffi wrapper", "terminal graphics library", "terminal graphics"], "compared": [], "makers": [{"id": 776181328, "item_id": 48511333, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48511333", "by": "reinitctxoffset", "date": "2026-06-12", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "my TUI library had a flickering problem because it was doing more than 10k FPS", "excerpt": "I read this a lot and it is just very foreign to me. I use AI systems in software work all day seven days a week and my job has become simultaneously more interesting and more difficult because I scale the ambition up until it's hard again. Isn't anything else a surrender to irrelevance? I agree that many coding tasks that were previously effort intensive are now not effort intensive, but there's no ceiling I'm aware", "context": "", "use_case": "TUI rendering library", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Think They [Anthropic] Are Lying to You [video]"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46278208", "title": "Chafa: Terminal Graphics for the 21st Century", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45830829", "title": "Ratatui \u2013 App Showcase", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48526633", "title": "Formal Methods and the Future of Programming", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48510471", "title": "I Think They [Anthropic] Are Lying to You [video]", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48085993", "title": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (May 2026)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46430558", "title": "Charm Ruby \u2013 Glamorous Terminal Libraries for Ruby", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 2, "neutral": 1}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "quotes": [{"id": 776512884, "item_id": 48532055, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48532055", "by": "reinitctxoffset", "date": "2026-06-14", "version": null, "stance": "compare", "quote": "supports everything in `notcurses`", "excerpt": "This is all pre-release but a few highlights: - `continuity` is a `lean4` metaprogramming system that we use all kinds of ways but the real meat is it allows formal specification of codecs and state machines in ways that make security and performance properties proof amenable, the key trick here is to limit parser power to just what you need and no more. a very cool thing is that we can add targets to it, so when we ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Formal Methods and the Future of Programming"}, {"id": 769470740, "item_id": 48091921, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48091921", "by": "navanchauhan", "date": "2026-05-11", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I currently have TUI w/ notcurses and Adwaita/GTK working", "excerpt": "I am finally getting close to my vision of `write once run everywhere with SwiftUI`. The idea is to create a drop-in replacement called OmniUI which will have different renderer backends (I currently have TUI w/ notcurses and Adwaita/GTK working) s/import SwiftUI/import OmniUI/ As long as you aren't using Apple platform specific libraries like Vision, you should be good for the most part. I am going to make my Gopher", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (May 2026)"}, {"id": 742938705, "item_id": 46433669, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46433669", "by": "riddley", "date": "2025-12-30", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I just spent the weekend AI slopping an FFI wrapper around notcurses because I couldn't find anything else.", "excerpt": "How funny. I just spent the weekend AI slopping an FFI wrapper around notcurses because I couldn't find anything else. This looks amazing! Since you asked for ideas in a different comment, here's something I put into my notcurses wrapper: grid and flex \"css\" layouts. Meaning the ability to say whatever.fixed(cols,...) and whatever.flex(:fr1) or whatever.grid(:fr1) and the ability to do a \"grid-template-areas\" style a", "context": "", "use_case": "Terminal graphics via FFI wrapper", "switched_from": "", "story": "Charm Ruby \u2013 Glamorous Terminal Libraries for Ruby"}, {"id": 740565632, "item_id": 46285352, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46285352", "by": "aragilar", "date": "2025-12-15", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "notcurses is probably the best option for getting the best you can out of a random terminal", "excerpt": "notcurses is probably the best option for getting the best you can out of a random terminal (see https://github.com/dankamongmen/notcurses/blob/master/TERMINALS.md which details the status of most terminals people use), but the main thing is to choose a decent terminal that meets your needs. I personally use xterm (after using various other terminals, both \"modern\" and VTE-based), as I'm on Linux, and I need to conne", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Chafa: Terminal Graphics for the 21st Century"}, {"id": 740515136, "item_id": 46282196, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46282196", "by": "d-lisp", "date": "2025-12-15", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Did you try notcurses ?", "excerpt": "Did you try notcurses ? [0] [0] https://notcurses.com/", "context": "", "use_case": "Terminal graphics library", "switched_from": "", "story": "Chafa: Terminal Graphics for the 21st Century"}, {"id": 733417761, "item_id": 45838610, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45838610", "by": "godelski", "date": "2025-11-06", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "https://notcurses.com/", "excerpt": "Probably not as limited as you think https://notcurses.com/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ratatui \u2013 App Showcase"}, {"id": 733416593, "item_id": 45838537, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45838537", "by": "godelski", "date": "2025-11-06", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "We got graphics and everything now[0]", "excerpt": "> but why would you render to a low-resolution 2D buffer with random character-hacks Have you used a terminal in the last 5 years? We got graphics and everything now[0] > huge amount of overhead A... terminal... with... large overhead? Surely you're joking. Have you met any gui app? Microsoft word takes a few gigs. Have you seen electron apps like Spotify or slack? My fucking mail client takes over half a gig and neo", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal graphics", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ratatui \u2013 App Showcase"}]}