I recently switched from iTerm2 to Alacritty https://github.com/jwilm/alacritty. It does not have scrollback, splits, tabs and other fancy features. But for me, performance and snappiness is the most important feature (besides, I use Tmux for all those things mentioned).

For getting something close to i3 (you wont...?) on macOS I am using chunkwm https://github.com/koekeishiya/chunkwm.

I spent some time during the summer to get to know Linux using i3 (i3-gaps actually) with urxvt on a VirtualBox. I do recommend it!

An article linked in the OP shows that default Terminal.app is more responsive than Alacritty or iTerm.

[1]: https://danluu.com/term-latency/

It also says that both of them are limited by tmux, which I use 100% of the time in the terminal. The real problem is when you run Vim in tmux and start to scroll in a large file that you notice that Terminal.app does not cut it. It lags badly. In Alacritty its silky smooth.

And yes, scrolling with j/k for longer periods may be an anti-pattern in Vim and yada yada... I scroll in Vim, and in Alacritty its smooth, in Terminal.app its sluggish.

Word of caution when reviewing this report: it doesn't take into account vblank period. If you hit a key just after a monitor refresh, you're not going to see it until the next refresh cycle which is typically up to 16ms later. This study is concerned with how long it takes to update the frame buffer rather than time-to-visible which is difficult to measure.

That said, there are plans[1] to reduce Alacritty's input latency. Though, I personally use it as a daily driver and have never felt that there was a noticeable input lag.

Once that lands, Alacritty will have similar latency to Terminal.app _and also have_ a 60 Hz refresh rate (the "smooth" feeling), low CPU usage, and much higher throughput.

[1]: https://github.com/jwilm/alacritty/issues/673

I've been using i3 for years now. I experienced the same pain. Mac hijacks a lot of the child vm keybindings. I didn't have this problem with windows as the host os. But that doesn't really make sense. Best of luck with the transition. Posting from a thinkpad, with i3, pycharm and vim right now :).

How are you posting on HN from vim?

I use i3, but i3 != vim. i3 can be configured to use vim bindings.

I didn't. Just saying I ran a similar setup as the parent poster.

What kind of thinkpad? :)

T or X. There is no substitute.

The rest, as they say, is garbage.

What about W or P?

I think those are good too.

T440s, but I was on a T430s earlier for work.

I also use i3 and customizing it is a lot of fun :D

This(http://abhirag.in/articles/org/i3_setup.html) is my i3 setup with literate dotfiles, hope you find it helpful in switching to i3 :)

Hell yeah dude, i3 is incredible. Simple, stable, no distractions, efficient, easy config. It's so perfect

Switched to i3 a few weeks back and I absolutely love it. Switching between applications and workspaces is incredibly fast, and the _only_ time I need the mouse is for web browsing. It's amazing.

Use qutebrowser, and you'll never need the mouse again!

+1 liked from a qutebrowser instance :)

Firefox? Check out something like VimFX. No need for the mouse on 80% of the webpages.

Unfortunately, it'll also be obsolete in a few weeks when Firefox 57 comes. I've switched to Saka Key, but it's not yet a viable replacement (esp. because clipboard interactions are broken in FF 56 on my Linux systems).

Unfortunately it appears all of the most popular (and feature-complete) Vim-style plugins for Firefox are dying with the upcoming Firefox update dropping support for XPCOM/XUL plugins.

On Chrom(e|ium), SurfingKeys[1] is an excellent extension.

[1]: https://github.com/brookhong/Surfingkeys

Also, for chrome there's the vimium plugin.