Do you actually need a heavy framework like Oh My Zsh? According to a recent technical analysis by Ruslan Cheremin, the answer is likely no. While Oh My Zsh is undeniably popular and offers a vast ecosystem of plugins and themes, it comes with a hidden cost: performance.
The blog post highlights that Oh My Zsh can significantly increase shell initialization latency. For many users, this results in a noticeable delay before the terminal is ready to accept input, which can disrupt a developer’s workflow. Cheremin argues that Zsh is already incredibly powerful out of the box. By stripping away the unnecessary bloat and writing a simple .zshrc configuration, users can achieve a lightning-fast shell experience while retaining the features they actually use, such as sensible history handling and basic completion.
If you are experiencing slow terminal startup times, switching to a manual configuration—or a lighter alternative like zsh4humans—might be the productivity boost you didn’t know you needed.
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