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AI · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to HTML, CSS and JavaScript in the Terminal

This is a model I’ve been thinking about lately. It demonstrates a pattern that I’m wondering could exist, where terminal applications, BBS-style shared user boards, and other expressions of creativity and sharing are created with web technologies but rendered into the terminal and accessed over SSH. I like that this brings back some kind of old days of the internet feeling and uses web technologies but sidesteps the public World Wide Web, even though it’s still on the internet. You can try it out too right now, and I’m thinking about making the self-hosting specialized applications part a…

Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.

  1. 1

    https://lisagui.com/info.html This is a web OS I wrote in vanilla JS that looks like the Apple Lisa Office System (1983-85), with other contemporaneous influences and additional improvements and features. It's currently in alpha and isn't remotely bug free. I had been holding off on posting this here until it was somewhat presentable and useful. Please note; the Lisa conforms more literally to the desktop metaphor than most modern GUIs - some of the important differences are mentioned in the readme. This is a complete recreation of the UI in JS; it all renders to a single…

    2025 · alpha.lisagui.com · its alternatives →

  2. 2

    Showcase of web experiments written by creative coders

    2015 · experiments.withgoogle.com · its alternatives →

  3. 3

    Learn the terminal like a game — in a browser sandbox

    Aug 2026 · learn.webterm.app · its alternatives →

  4. 4
    Hyper▲14

    JS/HTML/CSS Terminal

    2016 · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    A place for developers to save & share code snippets.

    2015 · its alternatives →

  6. 6
    NW.js▲77

    A new way of writing desktop apps with Web technologies

    2015 · nwjs.io · its alternatives →

  7. 7

    Okay Semi-joking with the title But yeah, been working on this for a while, looks pretty cool (even on mobile) Has Games, Themes, fun misc commands, an "AI" JARVIS (PS: I'd challenge you to guess the LLM I'm using :p) Open Source(ish) too - https://github.com/Kuberwastaken/kuberwastaken.github.io Would love to know if you've seen better or what can I improve (half considering adding a GUI mode for non technical people too)

    Mar 2026 · kuber.studio · its alternatives →

  8. 8IM

    Try it at: ssh krnl.duetbrowser.com No sign up, totally free - no download. Let me know what you think. Prior art exists (brow.sh) but I wasn't satisfied with their graphical take. I wanted the raw, old skool terminal days of the early internet - BBS, and old green phosphor library comptuers - but running the modern web, with all the bells and jingle jangle whistles (JavaScript, etc). No funding, no VC, just 100% raw terminal fun. Not sure how long the demo will last, but try it out.

    Jul 2026 · its alternatives →

  9. 9CL

    Hey HN, this is a side-project I've been working on for my senior year independent work in CS. Would appreciate any comments or feedback. www.aperator.com Thanks!

    2012 · its alternatives →

  10. 10IM

    just a wack systems dude tbh

    2018 · h313.info · its alternatives →

  11. 11

    Super fast multi user pseudo bash Terminal in Node.js & SockJS - pocha/terminal-codelearn

    2013 · github.com · its alternatives →

  12. 12

    A modern and minimal CSS framework for terminal lovers.

    2019 · terminalcss.xyz · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    Build a personal website that looks and feels like a terminal. Add your projects, custom commands, and whatever else you’re into. Visitors explore by typing — because clicking is boring.

    Mar 2026 · shellself.com · its alternatives →

  14. 14

    Heya, I’m working on a portfolio website simulating a 90’s UNIX style computer using React and ThreeJS. The style is mostly inspired by SerenityOS, macOS and compromised I had to make to get it to work well within a browser. :ˆ) I appreciate any feedback or suggestions.

    2024 · joeyderuiter.me · its alternatives →

  15. 15

    So, I've never written a line of Rust in my life. I wouldn't know an `&mut this` from a mutandis. But I saw a tweet about a month ago that said, in this new era of AI, you'd be able to just take a library that you love, throw a TUI around it, and call it an app. So I spent about 200 bucks last month, here's what I came up with: Imbolc is a DAW that runs entirely in your terminal. It talks to scsynth over OSC and ships 58 instruments and 39 effects. VSTs are a work in progress, also GarageBand loops if you want to recreate "Umbrella". The codebase is about 60k? lines of Rust across 5 crates,…

    Feb 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  16. 16

    I wrote a small golang project to render terminal on browser. It is a single binary that can be deployed on any server and you can access the terminal over web.

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  17. 17

    I've been having a blast making multiple mini apps that run in the browser. I've been trying to see how far I can go without having a backend and relying on other services. I wrote these for fun and wanted to know what folks think.

    Jun 2026 · joeheyming.github.io · its alternatives →

  18. 18

    Hi everyone, the other day I was here cause I thought I came up with a neat way of creating HTML via JavaScript [1] - After some iterations, I'm quite content with the code I wrote. Since I intend to use this in my personal projects, I thought others might as well. 1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41451559

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  19. 19

    I made a Terminal UI for OpenSnitch[1], an interactive application firewall for Linux inspired by Little Snitch. I’ve always wanted to create a TUI and found the perfect excuse to make this for usage on one of my headless servers. I wrote this in Rust to force myself to learn more, viz. async features. Super open to feedback and contributions! [1] https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch

    Nov 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  20. 20

    An introduction for new programmers

    2015 · xoilaczbt.tv · its alternatives →

  21. 21

    Hello HackerNews, I'm Kaamkiya, the author of this program. It's a collection of minimal games made for terminals, like 2048, Hangman, and even two player games like pong. They're all text-based, but they can actually be quite fun. If you want to test it right now, you can do this: go run github.com/Kaamkiya/gg@latest I started this project out of boredom, honestly. I was bored, and when I'm bored I like to code or play video games. So I coded video games. I kept them really minimal though, because I'm not great at gamedev and thought it would be easier to contribute to text-based…

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  22. 22

    A JavaScript library for building web user interfaces

    2016 · monkberry.js.org · its alternatives →

  23. 23

    I’ve had this idea for a new code editor chord grammar bouncing around in my head for over 2 years, and now I can finally release v0.1 of ane. You can run it one-shot from scripts or agents (`ane exec —chord…`) or use its full-on TUI editor. ane is pure Rust, and integrates tree-sitter and LSP to provide a pleasant and predictable terminal code editing experience. I’d love folks to try it out and give feedback! Thanks :)

    May 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    Hello HN! Just wanted to share a small project I've been working for the last few months. It's a tool called Runal, a text-based creative coding environment that runs in the terminal. It works similarly as processing or p5js but it does all the rendering as text. And it can either be scripted with JavaScript or used as a Go package. It's open-source and cross-platform (linux, macOS, windows). It seems to me that text/ascii-art aesthetics are really popular in creative coding communities, so I though it would make sense to create a tool that runs on a platform which can render text only.…

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

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