iTerm is pretty mid for a mac terminal emulator in my opinion.
Before it I would recommend kitty or alacritty.
Before it I would recommend kitty or alacritty.
FWIW, they both seem extremely performant and would probably be a great fit if I daily-drove Linux.
It sounds like it's more about the extra features being included than the "batteries". What features does a terminal emulator need other than "lets a user enter stdin and displays stdout/err"?