v0.2.22 • Stable Release

The fastest, most aesthetic GPU terminal for Windows

Built from scratch in Rust on Zed's GPUI framework. Combines raw DirectX hardware acceleration with a restrained, dark-first Apple design language and native inline graphics.

Download for Windows (x64) Explore Documentation →

Fluid Native Refresh

< 5ms Input Latency

0% Idle CPU Usage

100% Rust Zero Electron / Webviews

PowerShell 7.5

Ubuntu 24.04 (WSL)

OpenCode AI

❯ fastfetch

Userdeveloper@atlas

OSWindows 11 Pro 64-bit

EngineDirectX 12 (GPUI Framework)

TerminalAtlas Terminal v0.2.22

GraphicsiTerm2 Inline Images (OSC 1337)

Satellitesatlas tools (port, jwt, qr, diff, hud)

RefreshNative Display Rate

Memory~60 MB (DirectX Native)

❯

Interactive sandbox: type in the terminal or test these quick commands:

tools fastfetch theme version clear

Built from scratch in Rust on Zed's GPUI framework. No Electron bloat. No sluggish wrappers. Every glyph and quad calculated directly on your GPU with ultra-smooth native frame pacing.

Engineered for extreme performance and aesthetic rigor

Zero compromises between raw hardware responsiveness and meticulous typography.

Atlas Satellites: Subterminal Suite

Zero-overhead developer companions (atlas <cmd>): inspect ports & 1-shot kill (atlas port 3000 -k), decode JWTs offline, generate QR codes, query JSON/jq, view diffs, and inspect images.

Dynamic Island Topbar HUD

Minimalist capsule overlay with smooth spring motion. Displays background job completion alerts, cloud update pulses, and custom shell notifications via OSC 1338 (atlas hud notify).

Instant Frame Scheduling & Fluidity

Optimizes timer resolution at startup for instant keystroke feedback. Renders with silky-smooth frame pacing during kinetic motion and steps down to quiescent 0% CPU idle intervals.

Fluent Acrylic Blur & Pure Glass

Restrained Apple/macOS design language. Frameless client area with native Windows 11 DWM Acrylic glass blur, pure transparent glass mode (0% opacity), and instant GPU swapchains.

Native Inline Graphics (OSC 1337)

Direct iTerm2 image protocol integration inside the GPUI renderer. Fastfetch logos, CLI charts, and diagrams remain 1:1 anchored to their lines during scrollback and reflow.

Raycast-Style Command Palette

Press Ctrl+Shift+P or Ctrl+K to launch shell profiles, split panes, and filter on-screen hyperlinks with multi-word fuzzy search.

Dynamic WSL Distro & Brand Detection

Automatic registry detection for Arch Linux, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, and Alpine with authentic vector logos, plus standard Tux penguin fallback when WSL is absent.

Critically Damped Kinetic Scroll

Exponential decay kinematics with momentum carryover and subpixel row interpolation. Glides through massive compiler logs without jank or scroll jumps.

Procedural Vector Box & Prompt Precision

Inspired by Windows Terminal's AtlasEngine. Eliminates jagged pixel stair-stepping and baseline drift on zoom-out. Starship, Oh-My-Posh, and WSL prompts render with hardware MSAA cubic Béziers.

Floating Damped Spring Cursor

Mathematical exponential glide physics with organic breathing alpha and proximity snap thresholds. Smooth character navigation without visual lag.

Cryptographic Delta Auto-Updater

Silent background checks against GitHub Releases with conditional ETag validation and SHA-256 binary verification. Updates staged in-place in under a second.

Empirical benchmarks & architecture comparison

Real, measured performance on Windows 11 Pro 64-bit. Zero marketing fluff.

Measured Performance Metrics

Performance Metric	Atlas Terminal	Windows Terminal	Alacritty	WezTerm	Hyper (Electron)
Cold Startup Time	< 250 ms	~470 ms	~210 ms	~390 ms	~1,950 ms
Memory Usage (Idle)	~60 MB	~90 MB	~55 MB	~135 MB	~420 MB
Input Latency	< 5 ms	18 – 32 ms	7 – 12 ms	16 – 28 ms	45 – 85 ms
Streaming Speed	~20 MB/s	~10 MB/s	~22 MB/s	~9 MB/s	~2 MB/s
Refresh & Motion	Native Display Rate	60 Hz	60 / 144 Hz	Fixed FPS	Throttled
Idle CPU Usage	0.0%	< 0.2%	0.0%	0.1% – 0.5%	1.2% – 3.5%

Verify on your PC: Run the open-source benchmark script directly in PowerShell:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/akrram0/atlas-terminal/main/scripts/benchmark.ps1 | iex

Architecture & Capability Matrix

Capability	Atlas Terminal	Windows Terminal	WezTerm	Alacritty
Rendering Engine	GPUI DirectX 12	DirectWrite / DirectX	OpenGL / WebGPU	OpenGL
Frame Scheduling	Adaptive Display Rate	60Hz / VSync	Fixed FPS	Uncapped / VSync
Native DWM Acrylic	✓ Full Bleed Client	✓ Supported	✗ Custom blur	✗ None
Inline Image Graphics	✓ iTerm2 OSC 1337	✗ Sixel preview only	✓ Supported	✗ None
Prompt & Box Geometry	✓ Builtin Vector Arcs (MSAA & Dynamic Scale)	✓ AtlasEngine BuiltinGlyphs	✗ Font baseline dependent	✗ Font baseline dependent
Design Language	Restrained Apple / macOS Native Dark	Fluent UI	Custom GUI	Minimalist

High-velocity keyboard ergonomics

Manage tabs, panes, and actions without taking your fingers off home row.

Command Palette Ctrl+Shift+P

Split Pane Vertical Alt+Enter

Split Pane Horizontal Alt+D

Maximize Active Pane Alt+Z

Open Hyperlink Ctrl+Click

Quick Settings Ctrl+,

Frequently asked questions

Yes. Atlas Terminal natively runs on both 64-bit Windows 11 and Windows 10. Hardware DirectX acceleration works across modern Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA graphics. On Windows 11, it seamlessly unlocks native DWM acrylic materials.

Electron and WebView wrappers incur massive memory overhead (often 300MB+) and jittery DOM-based layout reflows. GPUI compiles directly to native machine code in Rust, uploading vertices and quads directly to DirectX shaders for tear-free, fluid rendering and ~60MB lightweight base RAM usage.

Atlas implements the iTerm2 OSC 1337 image protocol. Tools like Fastfetch, Neofetch, and custom shell scripts send base64-encoded image payloads directly via escape sequences. Atlas rasterizes the graphic into a GPUI texture and anchors it to the scrollback buffer so it stays positioned with your history.

Most terminals delegate rounded corners to font glyphs, which drift from geometric line centers during zoom-out, creating disconnected gaps. Other approaches stamp square quads that produce jagged, “painted” steps. Atlas Terminal implements Windows Terminal AtlasEngine-inspired procedural vector geometry in Rust: stroke widths scale dynamically with cell size (cw / 6.0), and corners are rendered as cubic Bézier curves with hardware MSAA. Prompts stay razor-sharp and gap-free at any zoom level.

Atlas features a silent background delta updater that polls official GitHub Releases using conditional HTTP ETags. New versions are verified with SHA-256 cryptographic signatures before prompting you to restart.

Experience ultra-smooth native terminal performance

Free, open-source under the MIT License, and built with obsessive care for Windows developers.

Download Installer (.exe) View Release Manifest & SHA-256