> Kitty I don't remember why I rejected.

Maybe worth another look at then? I'm far from a Kitty power user, but it does pretty much everything else I want it to, including working as a quake-style terminal[0]. And you can extend it with kittens[1] if you so desire. Also, the next release should presumably include smooth scrolling[2] which I'm quite looking forward to.

Maybe more than any one feature though, I appreciate the hard work that Kovid (the creator of Kitty) has done to tastefully add new VT standards and try to make terminals as useful as they can be in the 21st century.

[0] https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/kittens/quick-access-termina...

[1] https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/kittens_intro/

[2] https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty/pull/9330

I wouldn't say I love tmux, but I have a configuration file that I put on every computer I use regularly that is very comfortable for me. I basically live in the terminal across many different machines, and having the same interface for managing panes and tabs even when using ssh is invaluable.

I also use vim (well neovim) as my primary editor, and have set up tmux to integrate well with it, so that might contribute to my appreciation and continued usage of it.

Scrollback does exist on Ghostty! But you need to switch to “tip”. This can be done in the config file. The tip build is very stable and has many bugs fixed (like various memory leaks).

I haven't seen anyone else mention Terminology yet. It uses an unconventional GUI framework (Enlightenment / EFL), but that aside, it's fast and has more or less all of the features you'd expect of a terminal:

https://github.com/borisfaure/terminology

Its "moment" as a new novel terminal was over a decade ago, but it still chugs on working just fine. Notably(?), gregkh uses it (or used to use it):

https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/blog/greg-kroah-hartman...

there's scrollback search in the nightly build if that's an option for you (I've been using it a ton for a few months and haven't seen any bugs so far):

https://github.com/ghostty-org/ghostty/releases/tag/tip

Personally kitty is the only one I keep coming back too. Mostly because it's very customisable, fast, lean, ligatures, separate font for italics, great macro support, and supports automatic tiling panes.

> Alacritty I like but the lack of tabs is not acceptable for the moment... and before you ask: I hate tmux.

Another option is to leave the tabbing to your window manager.

Scroll back search is coming. You can try it in the nightly.