A KDE developer reveals Kwi, a GPU-accelerated terminal built on Ghostty's library

Published Oct 31, 2026, 10:39 PM EDT Simon is a Computer Science BSc graduate who has been writing about technology since 2014, and using Windows machines since 3.1. After working for an indie game studio and acting as the family's go-to technician for all computer issues, he found his passion for writing and decided to use his skill set to write about all things tech. Since beginning his writing career, he has written for many different publications such as WorldStart, Listverse, and MakeTechEasier. However, after finding his home at MakeUseOf in February 2019, he would eventually move on to its sister site, XDA, to bring the latest and greatest in Windows, Linux, and DIY electronics. Summary Konsole is nearly 30 years old; Kwi is a fresh, experimental terminal for KDE. Kwi uses Qt Quick GPU rendering and libghostty-vt, claiming 3-35x faster rendering than Konsole. It's an experiment, easy to embed in Qt Quick apps — not yet a Konsole replacement and still buggy. How old do you think Konsole is? I've only been in the Linux space for about a year and a half, so when I learnt that the terminal emulator that comes shipped with KDE is almost three decades old, I was pretty surprised to see it's still going in this day and age. But sometimes you need a new lick of paint, and a KDE developer has announced they're doing just that. It's called Kwi, and while it's still in the very early stages, it may end up becoming a key tool that runs beside (or perhaps even instead of) Konsole. Kwi combines Qt Quick’s GPU rendering with Ghostty’s terminal library Something old with something new Credit: Tuxedo OS Over on the KDE Blog, developer Eike Hein shows off what they're working on. Kwi is a new take on a KDE terminal emulator, and it got its name because it uses a little ghost for its icon. 'Kwi' is based on the Korean word for ghost, "kwisin" (귀신), and you pronounce the app's name like 'Kwee'. Hein explains that, right now, Konsole taps into QWidget to do its rendering. It does the job, but it's based on the CPU, which isn't ideal. Compare this with newer KDE software that uses Qt Quick to perform GPU acceleration using Vulkan or OpenGL; the tech is there, but Konsole isn't using it just yet. Kwi uses Qt Quick, which means it can render things faster than Konsole. Hein claims that it can go 3-35x faster than Konsole, depending on what you're benchmarking. It pairs up that GPU drawing with libghostty-vt, a library from the Ghostty project that handles a program's output and keeps tabs on what should be shown on-screen. Hein says that the library is ahead of other terminals for modern features, and already sees use in Neovim and Ghostel, so it sounds like a solid pick to me. Because Kwi uses Qt Quick, other Qt Quick apps can import its module to embed the terminal. Right now, Konsole is stuck on QWidget, so newer KDE apps can't do the same without some workarounds; moving to Qt Quick is a huge benefit for developers. So, is Kwi the "Konsole killer" that will bring in a new era of terminal usage? Well, Hein isn't eager to declare it as the new frontier for KDE. It's described as "an experiment and a proposal," with the hope that maybe it'll become something people will want to use. But it's still very new, very fresh, and doesn't even have a tagged v0.1.0 yet, so it's a little unfair to crown it as Konsole's definitive replacement. If you'd like to try it, head over to the KDE Invent page for Kwi and give it a spin. Just know that it's highly experimental, so be ready for bugs.