Raw capture — raw/chawan.md

url: https://chawan.net/ title: Chawan — TUI Web Browser author: bptato date_fetched: 2026-07-25 date_published: unknown

Chawan: TUI Web Browser

Chawan is a text-mode web browser and pager for Unix-like systems, developed from scratch in the memory-safe Nim programming language. Its UI draws inspiration from w3m and vi.

Features

• JavaScript Support: Uses QuickJS with DOM manipulation and network APIs. Opt-in via configuration.
• CSS Capabilities: Flow layout (block, inline, float), table layout, flex layout, colors, and formatting.
• Inline Terminal Images: Supports Sixels and the Kitty graphics protocol. Input formats include PNG, JPEG, BMP, GIF, WebP, and SVG.
• Multiple Protocols: HTTP(S), SFTP (via libssh2), FTP, Gopher, Gemini, Finger, and Spartan. Users can extend these.
• Viewer Formats: Built-in viewers for HTML, plain text, Markdown, man pages, and directory listings. Users can add HTML converters to replace built-in viewers.
• Sandboxing: Websites load in separate processes with syscall filtering on FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Linux.
• Customizable Keybindings: User-programmable via JavaScript.

Subprojects

• Chame: HTML5 parser in pure Nim
• Chagashi: Character coding library in pure Nim
• Monoucha: QuickJS binding generator and runtime glue for Nim

Current Release

Version 0.4.3 is the latest stable. Packages available via Alpine Linux, Arch Linux, Debian (testing), FreeBSD, Gentoo, Homebrew, NixOS, Slackware (SBo), and Void Linux. Unstable master-branch packages via AUR, AppImage, Gentoo's guru overlay, and Homebrew (--HEAD).

License

Public domain, with permissively licensed components.

Gallery

Site includes a gallery page showing websites rendered in Chawan.

Source: https://chawan.net/