Support Ghostty Development

Ghostty is developed as non-profit work, supported by donations. The Ghostty project is owned by a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, Hack Club, who operates as the fiscal sponsor for the project.

We believe terminal and terminal-related technologies are critical infrastructure for modern computing and software development. Whether it's directly used by developers or indirectly used through products such as editors, CI logs, PaaS consoles, agentic tools, and more, terminals continue to be a foundational technology underpinning much of our modern computing ecosystem.

Aligned with this belief, we develop Ghostty as a non-profit project. Being a non-profit provides important legal protections to the people and communities that adopt and contribute to Ghostty. Importantly, it means we are not beholden to commercial interests or investor pressure. Ghostty cannot be sold, pivoted, or shuttered on a whim — its purpose and stewardship are bound to the public benefit it was created to serve.

7% of all donations go directly to Hack Club. This covers the administrative costs of fiscal sponsorship, but also supports Hack Club's broader mission to empower the next generation of technically-minded individuals around the world.

All funds donated to Ghostty go to one of three places:

• Contributors. Some individuals who are writing code or maintaining critical systems (such as community moderation) for Ghostty are compensated for their time and effort. More details are in the contributor compensation section below.
• Services. Ghostty incurs various costs to operate, such as hosting this website, our Discord bot, continuous integration systems, code signing fees, etc.
• Upstream Projects. Ghostty depends on many other open-source projects. The funds may be used to pay it forward to these projects, too.

All of Ghostty's finances down to individual transactions are transparent, so you can see exactly how funds are being used and where donations are coming from.

Explicitly, no funds are used for the personal benefit of the project creator, Mitchell Hashimoto. Not a single cent of Ghostty contributions goes to Mitchell or any projects directly affiliated with him. In addition to creating the project, Mitchell is Ghostty's largest donor, and for both legal and altruistic reasons, he will not accept any compensation from the project.

Important

The non-profit structure of Ghostty was only recently established in December, 2025. As such, we are still refining our processes and reporting, such as what upstream projects we intend to support and how.

Contributors who have consistently demonstrated high-quality work and friendly behavior in the Ghostty community may be invited to enter into a paid contributor contract.

These contracts allow contributors to bill for a limited number of hours dedicated to Ghostty. All contributors are paid a single global rate, which is currently $60 USD per hour.

Contributors maintain full autonomy over when they work and which tasks they choose to pursue. By the time someone is offered a contract, they have already shown sound judgment about what meaningfully advances the project, and we trust them to continue using that judgement.

Contributors aren't limited to code contributors to the core of Ghostty, but also include infrastructure such as our Discord bot as well as community management and moderation.

All contributor contracts are issued at the discretion of the project lead.

The project continues to follow a BDFL model, with Mitchell Hashimoto serving as the project lead and final authority on all decisions, including the direction of funds within the non-profit (in accordance with the mission statement and legal requirements).

The fiscal host, Hack Club, provides oversight to ensure that all project activities and fund usage align with the non-profit mission and legal obligations. They maintain a board of directors to provide this oversight.

The project remains licensed under the MIT license, and the rights and permissions granted by that license remain unchanged.

The mission of Ghostty is to develop and maintain open-source terminal technologies that empower individuals and communities to learn, build, and participate in modern systems programming with a broad industry impact.

Ghostty is fiscally sponsored by Hack Club, a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit.

Fiscal sponsorship is a legal and financial arrangement in which a recognized non-profit extends its tax-exempt status to a project that aligns with its mission. This allows Ghostty to operate as a charitable initiative while Hack Club manages compliance, donations, accounting, and governance oversight.

We decided to pursue fiscal sponsorship rather than forming a new nonprofit for several reasons:

• Cost. There is significant financial cost and overhead associated with forming and maintaining a nonprofit organization. We calculated that the 7% fee paid to Hack Club would be substantially lower than the overall costs of managing a standalone nonprofit.

• Speed. Forming a new nonprofit can take months or even years, especially when applying for federal 501(c)(3) determination. Fiscal sponsorship allowed Ghostty to begin accepting tax-deductible donations and operate under a charitable structure on a much faster timeline.

• Accountability. Working under an existing nonprofit adds an additional layer of structure and stewardship. Hack Club provides financial oversight, legal guardrails, donation reporting, and compliance support—including IRS, audit, and grant-tracking requirements. This ensures Ghostty operates transparently, ethically, and in alignment with nonprofit best practices from day one.

• A good cause. There are other, for-profit non-profit management companies available that charge a similar fee structure to manage all the overhead of a nonprofit. With Hack Club, we pay a similar fee (7%), but that fee goes towards another non-profit with a mission we support. As Zach Latta, Hack Club's founder, put it: "it is a good-for-good trade."