Rio

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Freedom report

Two barsScore 5.6

Free tierNo free tier on record
Open codeNo open-source code on record
Runs widely3 of 6 device platforms
DocumentedPlans, terms and facts published

Rio is ranked #16 of 40 in terminal emulators on Freedom251. It runs on Linux, macOS, Windows.

Compared on terminal emulators

Free plan: Yes
Supported platforms: macOS, Windows, Linux
Split panes: Yes
GPU acceleration: Yes
Scripting API: Yes

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The record

Product: Rio describes itself as an open source terminal for the 21st century.
Purpose: Rio is a hardware-accelerated GPU terminal emulator designed to run on desktops and in browsers.
Desktop availability: Rio is available for Windows, Linux distributions, FreeBSD, and macOS.
Windows requirement: Rio for Windows requires Windows 10 or later and offers x86_64 and aarch64 installers and portable executables.
GPU support: Rio's Sugarloaf renderer has native Metal and Vulkan backends, while WebGPU requires building with the wgpu Cargo feature.
Shell integration: Rio can inject shell integration for zsh, fish, and PowerShell to report the working directory, and the feature can be disabled in configuration.
Terminal images: Rio supports the Kitty graphics protocol, including PNG and RGB/RGBA images, compressed and chunked transfers, and layered placements.
Split panels: Split panels are supported and enabled by default.
Vi mode: Rio provides Vi mode for terminal navigation and selection, toggled by default with Alt+Shift+Space.
Adaptive themes: Rio can switch between light and dark themes based on system appearance on Web, macOS, Windows, and Linux.
Security reporting: The project asks users to report security issues privately through the repository's Security tab or by email, rather than in a public issue.
Version support: Rio is pre-1.0; security fixes target the latest release and are not backported to earlier versions.
Build status: Rio offers stable builds and nightly builds, with nightly builds created daily.
Linux packaging: The project lists packages for Arch, Alpine, Nix, openSUSE, Flathub, and Void, plus .deb and .rpm packages on GitHub releases.

Where it ranks on Freedom251

Best Terminal Emulators in 2026#16 of 40

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Sources

rioterm.com· checked 4 Oct 2026
github.com/raphamorim/rio· checked 4 Oct 2026
rioterm.com/docs/features· checked 4 Oct 2026
rioterm.com/docs/install/windows· checked 4 Oct 2026
rioterm.com/docs/config· checked 4 Oct 2026
rioterm.com/docs/features/kitty-graphics-protocol· checked 4 Oct 2026
rioterm.com/docs/features/split-panels· checked 4 Oct 2026
rioterm.com/docs/features/vi-mode· checked 4 Oct 2026
rioterm.com/docs/features/adaptive-theme· checked 4 Oct 2026
github.com/raphamorim/rio/security/policy· checked 4 Oct 2026
rioterm.com/docs/install· checked 4 Oct 2026
rioterm.com/docs/features/iterm2-image-protocol· checked 4 Oct 2026