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Best ncurses Alternatives ranked by AI · updated May 2025

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The ncurses (new curses) library is a free software emulation of curses in System V Release 4.0, and more. It uses terminfo format, supports pads and color and multiple highlights and forms characters and function-key mapping, and has all the other SYSV-curses enhancements over BSD curses.

Top 6 ncurses alternatives

PDCurses is a public domain curses library for DOS, OS/2, and Windows consoles, supporting many functions from the SVr4 curses, X/Open Curses,...

Pros

  • Support for multiple platforms
  • Active community

Cons

  • Not as feature-rich as some alternatives
  • Limited modern development

BearLibTerminal is a library for creating terminal-like user interfaces. It offers a flexible and customizable rendering engine, making it suitable for various...

Pros

  • Highly customizable
  • Supports Unicode and TrueType fonts

Cons

  • Less commonly used, may have limited community support
6 FTXUI logo

FTXUI

Arthur Sonzogni and contributors

FTXUI is a modern C++17 library for building cross-platform terminal user interfaces. It uses a functional, component-based design with support for layouts,...

Pros

  • More modern component and layout model than ncurses
  • Strong C++ integration with CMake support
  • Supports interactive components, animation, mouse input, and Unicode

Cons

  • Smaller ecosystem than ncurses and language-specific TUI frameworks
  • Requires a modern C++ toolchain compared with C-based libraries
  • Less suitable than Notcurses for advanced graphics and multimedia rendering

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