A few weeks ago, I conducted a terminal survey (you can read the full results here), and the final question asked: What is the most frustrating thing about using the terminal for you?
Over 1,600 respondents shared their pain points. I spent several days categorizing these qualitative responses, which proved to be a challenging but rewarding exercise. To streamline the process, I even built a custom tool for faster categorization.
While the methodology wasn't strictly scientific—I simply posted the survey on Mastodon and Twitter over a couple of days—the insights gathered are invaluable, especially given the experience level of the respondents:
- 40% have been using terminals for 21+ years
- 95% have at least 4 years of terminal experience
These are not beginners; their frustrations stem from deep, nuanced issues. Below are the primary categories of terminal frustrations, each with the number of people reporting that particular issue in brackets.
Remembering Syntax (115)
Many users struggle to recall syntax for various command-line tools and operations. Common pain points include:
- Complex CLI tools like
awk,jq, andsed - Redirection syntax (e.g.,
>vs>>, stderr vs stdout) - Keyboard shortcuts for text editors, tmux, and general navigation
One respondent summed it up: “There are so many trivial details to remember for full functionality. Even after years, I sometimes confuse 2> and 1> or which arrow means which redirection.”
Switching Between Terminals Is Hard (91)
Users face difficulties when moving between different systems—home, work, SSH sessions—or even different terminal emulators on the same machine. The challenges include:
- OS-specific keyboard shortcuts (e.g., Linux vs macOS)
- Missing preferred editors (e.g., “no vim” or “only vim”)
- Varying command versions (e.g., Mac grep vs GNU grep)
- Inconsistent tab completion availability
- Shell familiarity issues (e.g., subtle differences between zsh and bash)
- Different pager behaviors (e.g., git diff pagers vs system pagers)
A typical comment: “I got used to fish and vi mode, but when I SSH into servers or containers, those features aren’t available.”
Color Issues (85)
Terminal colors cause a surprising number of frustrations:
- Unreadable color schemes on light backgrounds
- Difficulty finding a consistent color theme across applications
- Color not propagating through multiple layers of SSH/tmux
- Dislike of default color settings
- Struggling to disable color completely
One user shared: “Getting my terminal theme to work consistently between the emulator and fish was a nightmare. I managed it years ago, but I still remember the pain.”
Back to top | Jump to switching issues
These categories represent the most common themes from the survey, but several other frustrations emerged as well—such as slow startup times, confusing error messages, and difficulty managing multiple sessions. For the purpose of this article, we focused on the top three.
If you’d like to dive deeper into the raw survey data, check out the original results link. Understanding these pain points can help terminal developers and power users create better tools and workflows.