Drawback
On my new M3 Mac Professional (36 GB RAM) operating macOS Sequoia 15.3.2, launching a brand new interactive shell in each the constructed‑in Terminal.app and the GPU‑accelerated Ghostty takes orders of magnitude longer than on my Linux/Home windows containers. I incessantly use tmux, and spawning new panes can take > 1 second, whereas on Linux/Home windows it’s < 0.03 s.
What I’ve Tried
Stripped-down
~/.zshrc
- Disabled ALL plugins; nonetheless see preliminary startup ~1.2 s and subsequent ~0.1–0.2 s.
Customized timing operate:
timezsh () {
shell=${1-$SHELL}
for i in $(seq 1 10); do
/usr/bin/time $shell -i -c exit
performed
}
Outcomes (no plugins):
actual 1.24; consumer 0.10; sys 0.05
actual 0.15; consumer 0.04; sys 0.03
actual 0.13; consumer 0.03; sys 0.03
actual 0.14; consumer 0.03; sys 0.03
With plugins enabled:
compinit tweaks & zprof evaluation
- Precompiled cache, eliminated previous dump information, no important enchancment.
Homebrew & some cli instruments additionally really feel sluggish, suggesting a deeper system concern.
Surroundings
- macOS: Sequoia 15.3.2
- {Hardware}: Apple M3 Professional, 36 GB RAM
- Shells examined:
/bin/zsh
(default)/bin/bash
- Measurement software:
/usr/bin/time
andzprof
Questions
Has anybody noticed 1-2 second chilly startup on an M3 Mac for Zsh, even with minimal config?
Are there recognized system-wide elements (e.g. Rosetta layers, filesystem checks, notarization delays) that would decelerate each new shell occasion?
How can I diagnose what’s taking place throughout that 1 second (e.g. tracing dynamic libraries, file-system stalls)?
Any tweaks or workarounds to get terminal/spawn occasions nearer to < 0.1 s?
Thanks upfront for any insights!