{"slug": "st", "name": "st", "category": "terminal", "category_name": "Terminal and shell", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 5, "warners": 0, "score": 3.765, "rising": 0.02, "first": "2025-11-03", "latest": "2026-10-28", "why": "I always end up back at \"st\" though. It is fast enough for my purposes and does just about exactly what I want and not more.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 1, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I always end up back at \"st\" though. It is fast enough for my purposes and does just about exactly what I want and not more.", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": "github.com/bakkeby/st-flexipatch", "official_url": "https://st.suckless.org", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["st"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 804347888, "item_id": 50271743, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50271743", "by": "Shugyousha", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I always end up back at \"st\" though. It is fast enough for my purposes and does just about exactly what I want and not more.", "excerpt": "I do most of my work in a terminal emulator and I mostly want the terminal I use to be fast to run and start. I have tried other terminal emulators as well (kitty, for example) since they promise to be GPU-accelerated which sounded relevant to my needs. I always end up back at \"st\" though. It is fast enough for my purposes and does just about exactly what I want and not more. Reading about Ghostty 1.4's D-bus activat", "context": "X11 user", "use_case": "terminal emulator", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ghostty 1.4"}, {"id": 768095856, "item_id": 48005991, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48005991", "by": "po1nt", "date": "2026-05-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use suckless tools and made so many modifications to st, dwm and such it feels like home.", "excerpt": "I just realized I'm following the same philosophy. I use suckless tools and made so many modifications to st, dwm and such it feels like home. I'm currently in the process of implementing my own git manager so that it would nicely integrate with my workflow.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal", "switched_from": "", "story": "A Desktop Made for One"}, {"id": 732877552, "item_id": 45804847, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45804847", "by": "cb321", "date": "2025-11-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I 100% agree `st` is pretty great and comparing bare bones is unfair.", "excerpt": "I 100% agree `st` is pretty great and comparing bare bones is unfair. Thanks for that link! I suppose I should have provided a link to the variant I use which is https://github.com/bakkeby/st-flexipatch though I do have like 14 of my own private patches. :-) Because it really is a simple, hackable codebase. I will say, though, that I doubt there are many unicode conformance patches floating about. I don't know though", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal emulator", "switched_from": "", "story": "State of Terminal Emulators in 2025: The Errant Champions"}, {"id": 732874800, "item_id": 45804675, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45804675", "by": "imiric", "date": "2025-11-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "`st` is a pretty great terminal.", "excerpt": "This[1] is an up-to-date fork with sixel support, and a few other patches. IMO it's unfair to compare barebones `st` with fully-featured terminals. The entire point of `st` is for users to apply their own patches to it, which does make it difficult to compare, since there's no standard version of it. `st` is a pretty great terminal. I switched to `foot` when I migrated to Wayland a few months ago, but not for any pra", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal emulator", "switched_from": "", "story": "State of Terminal Emulators in 2025: The Errant Champions"}, {"id": 732870896, "item_id": 45804431, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45804431", "by": "cb321", "date": "2025-11-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use an old version all the time to do gnuplots in terminals with nice scrollback.", "excerpt": "`st` used to have a patch set for sixel graphics on its web site. I use an old version all the time to do gnuplots in terminals with nice scrollback. It seems to have been retired in favor of the kitty graphics protocol.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal with sixel graphics for gnuplot", "switched_from": "", "story": "State of Terminal Emulators in 2025: The Errant Champions"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [{"by": "Shugyousha", "context": "X11 user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50271743", "date": "2026-10-28"}, {"by": "skydhash", "context": "OpenBSD user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49150353", "date": "2026-08-02"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["terminal emulator", "terminal", "terminal with sixel graphics for gnuplot"], "compared": [{"slug": "foot", "name": "foot", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "ghostty", "name": "Ghostty", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "kitty", "name": "Kitty", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45799478", "title": "State of Terminal Emulators in 2025: The Errant Champions", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50261998", "title": "Ghostty 1.4", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49149326", "title": "Show HN: Shitty \u2013 fast terminal. Memory-unsafe and faster than yours", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47997947", "title": "A Desktop Made for One", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 2}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 804347888, "item_id": 50271743, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50271743", "by": "Shugyousha", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I always end up back at \"st\" though. It is fast enough for my purposes and does just about exactly what I want and not more.", "excerpt": "I do most of my work in a terminal emulator and I mostly want the terminal I use to be fast to run and start. I have tried other terminal emulators as well (kitty, for example) since they promise to be GPU-accelerated which sounded relevant to my needs. I always end up back at \"st\" though. It is fast enough for my purposes and does just about exactly what I want and not more. Reading about Ghostty 1.4's D-bus activat", "context": "X11 user", "use_case": "terminal emulator", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ghostty 1.4"}, {"id": 786405650, "item_id": 49150353, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49150353", "by": "skydhash", "date": "2026-08-02", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "foot and st felt as fast when I was using them.", "excerpt": "I'm using OpenBSD with xterm, and when I use something like `time xterm -e 'sh -c \"echo 1; exit\"'`, it says 360ms or something. Starting it with the wm keybinds is as snappy as opening a new Firefox tab. foot and st felt as fast when I was using them.", "context": "OpenBSD user", "use_case": "terminal", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Shitty \u2013 fast terminal. Memory-unsafe and faster than yours"}, {"id": 768095856, "item_id": 48005991, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48005991", "by": "po1nt", "date": "2026-05-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use suckless tools and made so many modifications to st, dwm and such it feels like home.", "excerpt": "I just realized I'm following the same philosophy. I use suckless tools and made so many modifications to st, dwm and such it feels like home. I'm currently in the process of implementing my own git manager so that it would nicely integrate with my workflow.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal", "switched_from": "", "story": "A Desktop Made for One"}, {"id": 732877552, "item_id": 45804847, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45804847", "by": "cb321", "date": "2025-11-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I 100% agree `st` is pretty great and comparing bare bones is unfair.", "excerpt": "I 100% agree `st` is pretty great and comparing bare bones is unfair. Thanks for that link! I suppose I should have provided a link to the variant I use which is https://github.com/bakkeby/st-flexipatch though I do have like 14 of my own private patches. :-) Because it really is a simple, hackable codebase. I will say, though, that I doubt there are many unicode conformance patches floating about. I don't know though", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal emulator", "switched_from": "", "story": "State of Terminal Emulators in 2025: The Errant Champions"}, {"id": 732874800, "item_id": 45804675, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45804675", "by": "imiric", "date": "2025-11-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "`st` is a pretty great terminal.", "excerpt": "This[1] is an up-to-date fork with sixel support, and a few other patches. IMO it's unfair to compare barebones `st` with fully-featured terminals. The entire point of `st` is for users to apply their own patches to it, which does make it difficult to compare, since there's no standard version of it. `st` is a pretty great terminal. I switched to `foot` when I migrated to Wayland a few months ago, but not for any pra", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal emulator", "switched_from": "", "story": "State of Terminal Emulators in 2025: The Errant Champions"}, {"id": 732870896, "item_id": 45804431, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45804431", "by": "cb321", "date": "2025-11-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use an old version all the time to do gnuplots in terminals with nice scrollback.", "excerpt": "`st` used to have a patch set for sixel graphics on its web site. I use an old version all the time to do gnuplots in terminals with nice scrollback. It seems to have been retired in favor of the kitty graphics protocol.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal with sixel graphics for gnuplot", "switched_from": "", "story": "State of Terminal Emulators in 2025: The Errant Champions"}]}