Terminal Memory Usage Comparison: St, Kitty, Alacritty, etc.
Test your terminal memory usage and switch to lower‑memory terminals like st or foot if needed.
Test your terminal memory usage and switch to lower‑memory terminals like st or foot if needed.
Summary
The author compares memory usage of several terminal emulators on both X11 and Wayland, measuring USS, PSS, RSS before and after running a set of commands. The test includes st, xterm, lxterminal, gnome-terminal, kitty, alacritty, konsole, foot, rxvt, and ptyxis. On X11, st shows the lowest USS (2,592 before, 3,396 after) and has no scrollback buffer, while kitty consumes the most USS (56,376 before, 70,716 after). Alacritty’s USS rises from 34,224 to 40,188, and lxterminal’s USS jumps from 6,528 to 7,800, indicating higher baseline usage. Foot, a Wayland‑native terminal, supports pixel‑perfect image rendering via timg and has moderate memory usage, while gnome-terminal shows comparable memory usage to konsole but with better scrollback handling. The author concludes that for low‑memory environments, st or foot may be preferable, and that the choice depends on features like scrollback and image support.
Key changes
- st has the lowest USS on X11 (2,592 before, 3,396 after) and no scrollback.
- kitty consumes the highest USS on X11 (56,376 before, 70,716 after).
- alacritty’s USS increases from 34,224 to 40,188, showing moderate memory growth.
- lxterminal’s USS rises from 6,528 to 7,800, indicating higher baseline usage.
- foot, a Wayland‑native terminal, supports timg pixel‑perfect rendering and has moderate memory usage.
- gnome-terminal shows comparable memory usage to konsole but with better scrollback handling.
- The test reveals that Wayland‑native terminals run fine under X11 via compatibility layer, but not vice versa.