Hyper is a terminal emulator that is written in CSS, JavaScript, and HTML. It is designed to provide a great deal of cross-compatibility between platforms for building a wide variety of apps.

Build your own cross-platform apps with Hyper

A command-line interface, Hyper is built on open-source web standards. Based on Electron which is already widely used for developing cross-platform desktop applications in both HTML and JavaScript, Hyper adds CSS to that mix.

Hyper is likely to stand out because it provides some novel features that are not available with Electron, such as the ability to load websites from the command line. Users can also benefit from split panes that are controlled by hot-keys. Furthermore, the back-end code as well as the front-end interface are fully customizable.

Use Hyper's extension-making capability

Hyper extensions offer a new layer of functionality. They are always made up of universal Node.js apps. These are loaded by Electron automatically when the render process is carried out. Extending the application is something that will mean understanding the relevant web technologies, however.

There are other software packages that will do a similar cross-platform job as Hyper, notably iTerm2, which is also based on Electron. Other software options that fall under the same remit as Hyper are Terminal and ConEmu, among others. The main difference is that Hyper doesn't merely allow a custom API method at given customization points but at every step of its functionality.

Summing up Hyper

In the final analysis, Hyper is a useful terminal tool that anyone who is familiar with basic web standards will get on with very well. That said, it contains very few features. After all, it is an extensible program which is primarily designed as a means for users to produce their own.