Here’s the summary of the GTK terminal emulator test. It provides four tables for easier comparison of the results.
Overall Ranking
I’ll begin with the overall rating here since that’s the most important thing. I’ve compared all DEs in terms of 1. memory consumption (most important for me and thus weighted *3), 2. disk space used (weighted *2) and 3. size of packages to download. So, here’s the result:
| Rank | DE | Version |
| 01 | Lwt | 20130625 |
| 02 | Mt | .1 |
| 03 | Lilyterm | 0.9.9.2 |
| 04 | Ftjerm | 0.12.3 |
| 05 | MLTerm | 3.2.0 |
| 06 | Stjerm | 0.16_19 |
| 07 | Tinyterm | svn-20100223 |
| 08*) | Lxterminal | 0.1.11 |
| 09 | QuTerm | 0.1 |
| 09 | Tilda | git-20130625 |
| 10 | vTerminal | 13 |
| 11 | Sakura | 3.0.4 |
| 12 | Evilvte | 0.5.1 |
| 12 | Termite | 6 |
| 12 | Xfce4-Terminal | 0.6.2 |
| 13 | ROXTerm | 2.7.2 |
| 14 | Gnome-Terminal | 3.8.3 |
| 15 | Dwt | 0.3 |
*) Needed disk space not measured for Lxterminal
RAM usage
Here’s the table that compares memory usage of the tested terminal emulators:
| <110 MB | 110 – 115 MB | 116 – 120 MB | >120 MB |
| Rank | DE | Version | Memory usage |
| 01 | Lwt | 20130625 | 106 MB |
| 01 | MLTerm | 3.2.0 | 106 MB |
| 02 | Lilyterm | 0.9.9.2 | 107 MB |
| 02 | Tilda | git-20130625 | 107 MB |
| 03 | Lxterminal | 0.1.11 | 108 MB |
| 03 | Mt | .1 | 108 MB |
| 03 | Stjerm | 0.16_19 | 108 MB |
| 04 | Ftjerm | 0.12.3 | 109 MB |
| 04 | QuTerm | 0.1 | 109 MB |
| 04 | Tinyterm | svn-20100223 | 109 MB |
| 05 | Termite | 6 | 113 MB |
| 05 | vTerminal | 13 | 113 MB |
| 06 | Sakura | 3.0.4 | 114 MB |
| 07 | Evilvte | 0.5.1 | 115 MB |
| 08 | ROXTerm | 2.7.2 | 117 MB |
| 08 | Xfce4-Terminal | 0.6.2 | 117 MB |
| 09 | Dwt | 0.3 | 120 MB |
| 10 | Gnome Terminal | 3.8.3 | 121 MB |
Drive space needed
Here’s the next table:
| <5 MB | 5 – 10 MB | 11 – 100 MB | >100 MB |
| Rank | DE | Version | Disk space used |
| 00 | Lxterminal | 0.1.11 | not measured |
| 01 | Lwt | 20130625 | +4.6 MB |
| 01 | Ftjerm | 0.12.3 | +4.6 MB |
| 02 | Lilyterm | 0.9.9.2 | +5.3 MB |
| 03 | Mt | .1 | +8.0 MB |
| 04 | Tinyterm | svn-20100223 | +12 MB |
| 04 | Stjerm | 0.16_19 | +12 MB |
| 05 | Tilda | git-20130625 | +13 MB |
| 05 | QuTerm | 0.1 | +13 MB |
| 05 | vTerminal | 13 | +13 MB |
| 06 | Xfce4-Terminal | 0.6.2 | +17 MB |
| 07 | Evilvte | 0.5.1 | +104 MB |
| 08 | Sakura | 3.0.4 | +109 MB |
| 09 | Gnome-terminal | 3.8.3 | +111 MB |
| 09 | Termite | 6 | +111 MB |
| 10 | ROXTerm | 2.7.2 | +113 MB |
| 11 | MLTerm | 3.2.0 | +115 MB |
| 12 | Dwt | 0.3 | +137 MB |
Download size
And here’s the last one:
| <50 KB | 51 – 500 KB | 501 KB – 5 MB | >5 MB |
| Rank | DE | Version | size |
| 01 | Lwt | 20130625 | ~4 KB |
| 01 | Mt | .1 | ~4 KB |
| 01 | Tinyterm | svn-20100223 | ~4 KB |
| 02 | QuTerm | 0.1 | ~5 KB |
| 03 | Stjerm | 0.16_19 | ~20 KB |
| 04 | Ftjerm | 0.12.3 | ~25 KB |
| 05 | vTerminal | 13 | ~53 KB |
| 06 | Lxterminal | 0.1.11 | ~70 KB |
| 07 | Lilyterm | 0.9.9.2 | ~160 KB |
| 08 | Tilda | git-20130625 | ~193 KB |
| 09 | Xfce-4-Terminal | 0.6.2 | ~699 KB |
| 10 | Evilvte | 0.5.1 | ~14,6 MB |
| 10 | Sakura | 3.0.4 | ~14,6 MB |
| 11 | ROXTerm | 2.7.2 | ~14,7 MB |
| 12 | Termite | 6 | ~14,9 MB |
| 13 | Gnome-terminal | 3.8.3 | ~15,7 MB |
| 14 | Dwt | 0.3 | ~16,6 MB |
| 14 | MLTerm | 3.2.0 | ~16,6 MB |
Conclusion
The range of needed RAM on startup is not very large. Still on machines which have little memory available it makes a huge difference if the system with LXDE and a terminal emulator on top of it needs 106 MB or 121 MB of RAM! The range of drive space needed is a lot larger. Here it’s primarily GTK2 applications vs. GTK3 ones. Same thing for the download size: GTK3 brings in a few dependencies which means there’s quite a bit more to download.
What’s next?
The post will begin with a GTK+ file manager test.
