Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to Terminal-Rendered ASCII Shaders

CPU rendered ASCII art shader writing tool with hot reloading. - danthedaniel/js-shaders

Terminal-Rendered ASCII Shaders is a development tool that enables programmers to create and visualize shader effects using ASCII characters in the terminal. Launched in 2022, it allows developers to experiment with… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Terminal-Rendered ASCII Shaders launched in 2022; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

1
An ASCII 3D Rendering Engine▲211
Render 3D models (OBJ, glTF, GLB, STL, .vox) as ASCII art — in the browser, in React or Vue, or straight in your terminal. A three.js-style API with no WebGL and no canvas: just text in a single <pre>.
Jun 2026 · glyphcss.com · its alternatives →
2
Building terminal dashboards using ASCII/ANSI art and JavaScript▲305
Build terminal dashboards using ascii/ansi art and javascript - yaronn/blessed-contrib
2015 · github.com · its alternatives →
3
A Simple terminal-based video chat – renders in ASCII and has audio▲375
A point to point color terminal video chat. Contribute to mofarrell/p2pvc development by creating an account on GitHub.
2015 · github.com · its alternatives →
4TC
textshader.com▲260
TLDR: Click the link to see some cool visualizations, refresh a few times for random examples, and try editing some of the code yourself. This is a small weekend project of mine inspired by shadertoy.com It's a static single-page site hosted on GitHub pages so the website design is pretty barebones. I'm not a web developer so I mainly wanted to create a Cool Thing with my free time and not have to learn tons of front-end to do it. I'd love to hear what people think about it and please post or send me any shaders you make! You can use the link button in the bottom right to share. I hope that…
2022 · textshader.com · its alternatives →
5
A syntax highlighter for Git and diff output, written in Rust▲261
A syntax-highlighting pager for git, diff, grep, rg --json, and blame output - dandavison/delta
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
6TM
Typograms, Markdown-like renderer for ASCII diagrams▲140
2022 · code.sgo.to · its alternatives →
7
Hyper 2▲450
The second generation of the Hyper terminal
2018 · hyper.is · its alternatives →
8SL
Shader Lab, like Photoshop but for shaders▲160
Create, stack, and animate shader effects on images, video, text, and 3D models — free, in your browser, powered by WebGPU. Export video, publish to the community gallery, and remix any published scene.
Apr 2026 · eng.basement.studio · its alternatives →
9AA
ASCII Animals in Your Terminal▲62
2012 · ivolo.me · its alternatives →
10
A little eye-candy for the terminal (in Go)▲56
Print your name in style. Contribute to arsham/figurine development by creating an account on GitHub.
2018 · github.com · its alternatives →
11
Screensavers for your terminal (Bevy/Ratatui)▲119
Screensavers for your terminal. Contribute to cxreiff/ttysvr development by creating an account on GitHub.
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
12
Hit That, render the web in your terminal▲59
:fist: Render beautiful pixel perfect representations of websites in your terminal - bevacqua/hit-that
2015 · github.com · its alternatives →
13
Shade – a quick-and-dirty glsl prototyping tool▲25
a quick-and-dirty glsl prototyping tool. Contribute to dancrn/shade development by creating an account on GitHub.
2018 · github.com · its alternatives →
14AA
ANSI art renderer in JavaScript/Canvas▲47
2012 · atdt.github.com · its alternatives →
15
Freeze▲118
Generate images of code and terminal output
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
16
The worst ANSI renderer, except for all the others▲71
A tool that lets you render beautiful graphics in both modern and classic terminal environments; this is the version 1.0 release announcement.
2019 · hpjansson.org · its alternatives →
17
Asciimatics: a cross-platform terminal animation/drawing library▲21
A cross platform package to do curses-like operations, plus higher level APIs and widgets to create text UIs and ASCII art animations - peterbrittain/asciimatics
2016 · github.com · its alternatives →
18
Shadergarden: Create reloadable graphical pipelines with Lisp and GLSL▲47
Create evolving artistic images with hot-code-reloaded Lisp and GLSL.
2021 · blog.tonari.no · its alternatives →
19
A paint and ASCII art tool in the terminal▲6
A paint and ASCII art application for the terminal. - lennart-finke/kakikun
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
20
Sixel-tmux displays graphics even if your terminal has no Sixel support▲161
sixel-tmux is a fork of tmux, with just one goal: having the most reliable support of graphics - csdvrx/sixel-tmux
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
21
Horizon – GPU-accelerated infinite-canvas terminal in Rust▲84
Tabs, splits, and tmux work fine until you have several projects open with logs, tests, and long-running shells. I kept rebuilding context instead of resuming work. Horizon puts shells on an infinite canvas. You can arrange them into workspaces and reopen later with layout, scrollback, and history intact. Built in 3 days with Claude/Codex, dogfooding the workflow as I went. Feedback and contributions welcome.
Mar 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
22
Texttop – Interactive desktop rendered in TTY with ASCII▲114
A fully-modern text-based browser, rendering to TTY and browsers - browsh-org/browsh
2016 · github.com · its alternatives →
23
a Rust based CLI tool 'imgcatr' for displaying images▲129
cat for images, by RUST
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
24CP
Choose Photo. Make Ascii▲116
2012 · dchang.mit.edu · its alternatives →

Also compare

Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →